Chapter 2 - The Watch Titan Remembered
Marin did not remember walking into Dorian’s private conference room.
She remembered Titan staying beside her.
She remembered the strange sensation of riding an elevator normally reserved for senior executives while still wearing rubber-soled work shoes and a gray uniform that smelled faintly of disinfectant.
And she remembered the date on Dorian’s phone.
Three days before Daniel died.
By the time she sat across from Dorian at a long walnut table, her hands were shaking.
She hid them beneath the table.
Dorian noticed anyway.
“Coffee?”
“No.”
“Water?”
“No.”
Titan settled beside her chair.
Dorian looked at the dog.
“You’re making your position clear.”
Titan closed his eyes.
Marin might have laughed on another night.
Instead she placed Daniel’s watch on the table.
“What did my husband do here?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“You own the building.”
“I own a lot of buildings. That doesn’t mean I know every person who enters one.”
“You knew enough to search him.”
“Because Titan recognized the watch.”
Marin looked down at the dog.
“Dogs recognize smells.”
“Yes.”
“Then maybe Daniel stood near him once.”
“Maybe.”
But Dorian did not sound convinced.
Marin folded her arms.
“You think it was more.”
“I think Titan met your husband repeatedly.”
“How could you know that?”
“Because he didn’t just sniff the watch. He reacted to it.”
Dorian leaned forward slightly.
“Titan remembers people.”
Marin’s throat tightened.
Daniel had loved dogs.
That memory arrived unexpectedly.
A Saturday morning.
Coffee steaming on their tiny apartment balcony.
Daniel kneeling to scratch the ears of a neighbor’s elderly shepherd.
He had once joked that if they ever stopped living paycheck to paycheck, he wanted a dog large enough to occupy half their couch.
Marin blinked.
Dorian was watching her.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“It wasn’t nothing.”
She looked away.
“My husband liked dogs.”
Dorian did not push.
His security chief, Elias Mercer, entered the room carrying a tablet.
Elias was in his early forties, broad-shouldered, with the controlled manner of someone accustomed to solving problems quietly.
He nodded at Marin.
“Ms. Caldwell.”
She had never met him.
He knew her name.
She hated how small that made her feel.
Dorian gestured to the chair beside him.
“What did you find?”
Elias placed the tablet on the table.
“Daniel Caldwell entered Vance Tower eleven times over five months.”
Marin stared at the screen.
Dates.
Times.
Elevator logs.
Security badge records.
Every line seemed impossible.
“He was an independent systems auditor,” Elias continued.
Marin shook her head.
“He worked for Brantwell Logistics.”
“He did.”
Elias tapped the screen.
“Brantwell was consulting for three Vance subsidiaries at the time.”
Dorian’s expression changed.
“Which three?”
“Vance Construction Holdings. Northbridge Development. And Carrow Consulting.”
Dorian leaned back.
Carrow Consulting.
One of the names in the altered ledgers upstairs.
Marin noticed.
“What?”
Dorian looked at Elias.
“Show her.”
Elias hesitated.
“Dorian.”
“She’s already inside this whether we like it or not.”
The altered ledger appeared on the screen.
Payments.
Vendor numbers.
Dates.
Carrow Consulting appeared repeatedly.
Marin stared at it.
“What does Daniel have to do with this?”
“That’s what we’re trying to find out,” Dorian said.
Elias swiped to another page.
“The access authorizations all came from Garrett Boyd’s credentials.”
“Garrett worked for you?” Marin asked.
“Until tonight.”
Something in Dorian’s tone stopped further questions.
Elias continued.
“There’s another issue.”
“There always is,” Dorian said.
“The locations Daniel accessed weren’t standard offices.”
A floor map appeared.
“Records archive. Legal document storage. Server administration. Twice, the restricted accounting suite.”
Marin felt cold.
“My husband hated accounting.”
Neither man smiled.
“He told me spreadsheets gave him headaches.”
Dorian said, “Maybe he wasn’t there for spreadsheets.”
Marin looked at him.
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying we need to understand why a systems auditor was entering financial records areas after midnight.”
The implication hurt.
“You think he stole something.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t need to.”
“Marin.”
Her name sounded different in his voice.
Steadier.
Less formal.
“My husband wasn’t a thief.”
“I’m not accusing him.”
“You’re thinking it.”
“I’m thinking there are eleven unexplained entries into restricted areas. Thinking is how I avoid making accusations before I have facts.”
Marin stood too quickly.
Pain shot through her leg.
Titan immediately rose.
Dorian did not touch her.
That mattered.
Instead he moved the chair backward so she had room.
She steadied herself against the table.
“I need to go home.”
“You shouldn’t drive if your leg is—”
“My leg has been like this for almost two years.”
Dorian stopped.
Almost two years.
“When did you injure it?”
Marin’s face closed.
“The night Daniel died.”
The room became silent.
Dorian looked at Elias.
“Same incident?”
Marin’s jaw tightened.
“Car accident.”
Elias glanced at his tablet.
“Police report?”
“Why are you asking?”
“Because if Daniel was investigating something here three days earlier, timing matters.”
She hated that he was right.
Marin sat again.
“The police said Daniel lost control on wet pavement.”
“You were with him?”
“Yes.”
“What do you remember?”
“Rain.”
Her hands tightened.
“A truck behind us. Headlights. Daniel looking in the mirror. Then he told me to hold on.”
Her breathing changed.
She stopped herself.
“I woke up in the hospital.”
“And Daniel?”
She touched the ring beneath her uniform.
“You know the answer.”
Dorian’s expression softened, but he did not apologize with empty words.
Instead, he asked, “Did police identify the truck?”
“No.”
Elias and Dorian exchanged a glance.
Marin saw it.
“Don’t.”
Dorian looked back at her.
“Don’t what?”
“Turn the worst night of my life into some conspiracy because your dog recognized a watch.”
“That isn’t what I’m doing.”
“It feels like it.”
Dorian nodded once.
“Fair.”
That answer disarmed her more than an argument would have.
Elias quietly closed the tablet.
“We can stop for tonight.”
Marin picked up Daniel’s watch.
Titan watched every movement.
As she slipped it into her pocket, Titan stood again.
Dorian’s phone rang.
He checked the screen.
“Legal.”
He answered.
For thirty seconds, he said almost nothing.
Then his eyes hardened.
“When?”
A pause.
“Who requested the deletion?”
Another pause.
“Don’t touch anything. Lock the archive.”
He ended the call.
“What happened?” Elias asked.
“Someone attempted to purge historical access logs.”
Marin felt her stomach drop.
“Daniel’s?”
Dorian looked at her.
“All records between eighteen and twenty-four months old.”
Elias stood.
“That would include Garrett’s transactions.”
“And Daniel’s visits.”
Dorian called building security.
“Seal the archive server. No remote access. Suspend credentials for every administrator until Elias clears them.”
Marin watched him become someone else.
Not louder.
Not angrier.
Just absolute.
When the call ended, she asked, “Who knew you were looking at Daniel?”
Dorian looked at Elias.
“Three people in this room.”
“And Garrett?”
“Garrett knows I’m investigating missing money. He doesn’t know Titan found you.”
A knock came at the door.
One of Dorian’s assistants stepped inside.
“Sir, security found this in the old physical archive.”
She handed him a thin cardboard file.
Dorian opened it.
Inside was a visitor request from twenty-two months earlier.
Daniel Caldwell.
Reason for access:
Systems integrity review.
Attached was a handwritten authorization.
Dorian recognized the signature.
Garrett Boyd.
But there was a second sheet.
A security incident note.
Dorian read it.
Then again.
Marin saw his face change.
“What?”
Dorian placed the page on the table.
Three lines were highlighted.
Visitor Daniel Caldwell reported concern regarding unauthorized financial-server replication.
Requested confidential contact with Dorian Vance.
Message forwarded to executive operations.
Marin whispered, “Did you ever meet him?”
Dorian’s answer came slowly.
“No.”
She looked at him with something dangerously close to accusation.
“Then who stopped the message?”
Dorian stared at the page.
The routing record listed one name.
Not Garrett Boyd.
Forwarded to: Malcolm Reeves, Chief Operating Officer.
Dorian went very still.
Malcolm had been beside him for thirteen years.
He had attended Dorian’s father’s funeral.
He knew the codes to Dorian’s private residences.
He had helped choose Titan as a puppy.
Marin noticed the silence.
“Who is Malcolm Reeves?”
Dorian closed the file.
“Someone I hope has a very good explanation.”
Before anyone could move, Titan rose and walked toward the door.
He stopped.
Sniffed the bottom edge.
Then scratched once.
Elias opened it.
The corridor was empty.
But on the floor lay a small white envelope.
No stamp.
No name.
Only one sentence written across the front.
ASK MARIN WHAT DANIEL HID IN THE WATCH.
Marin stopped breathing.
Dorian turned toward her.
She stared at Daniel’s cracked wristwatch in her hand.
“I don’t know what that means.”
Then Titan nudged her fingers.
The old watch slipped slightly.
For the first time, Marin noticed something she had never seen before.
The back plate was not completely flush.
There was a tiny gap along one edge.
Daniel’s broken watch was not merely a memory.
May you like
Something was inside it.
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