“You didn’t mind lying to me when nobody was watching.
I think we can manage the truth with witnesses.”
Her father looked at her.
“Lying about what?”
Jack never took his eyes from Clare.
“I asked her if she was home.”
He paused.
“She told me she was asleep in our bed.”
The silence changed.
It was no longer confusion.
Now everyone understood that there was a problem.
Clare’s mother glanced toward the hallway leading to the bedroom as if she could somehow see the scene from the previous night.
Jack continued quietly.
“I was standing beside that bed when she said it.
The sheets were untouched.
Her pillow hadn’t been moved.
The room was empty.”
Clare swallowed.
“I can explain.”
“I hoped you could.”
Jack reached into the box, took out the gold watch and set it in the center of the table.
The metal made a small, hard sound against the wood.
“Start with this.”
Clare stared at it.
Her sister asked, “Whose is it?”
Jack answered before Clare could.
“Derek Coleman’s.”
The name meant little to some of them, but Clare’s parents knew Derek was her boss.
Her sisters had heard the name often enough from work stories.
Clare immediately shook her head.
“You don’t know that.”
“I do.”
“Lots of people own watches like that.”
“I’ve seen him wearing it.
At the company dinner.
He spent half the evening showing it to people.”
Clare’s expression hardened.
For the first time, the frightened woman who had opened the box disappeared.
Something defensive took her place.
“So this is what you’ve been doing all day? Building some ridiculous story around a watch?”
Jack studied her.
It fascinated him how quickly she had moved from confusion to attack.
“I didn’t build anything,” he said.
“I came home.
You weren’t there.
You told me you were.
Then I found Derek’s watch on our coffee table.
Those things happened without my help.”
Her father leaned forward.
“Clare, where were you?”
She looked at him, then at her mother.
“I was out.”
“We know that,” Jack said.
She glared at him.
“I went to see friends.
I didn’t want Jack asking questions about why I was out late, so I said I was home.
