The Watch Inside the Pink Box
Chapter 01 - The Watch Inside the Pink Box
Olivia Bennett’s engagement party filled the Grand Rose Hotel with crystal light, pink roses, and more gifts than she could count. She wore a red gown her late mother had once dreamed of seeing her in, while her fiancé, Adrian Cole, greeted guests beside a tower of champagne glasses. Standing near him was Olivia’s aunt Victoria, the elegant woman who had raised her after her mother’s fatal car crash eighteen years earlier.
Just before the toast, a hotel attendant carried in one final pink box. There was no card, only Olivia’s name written in careful black ink.
The room quieted as she lifted the lid.
Inside lay a silver wristwatch with a cracked pearl face.
Olivia stopped breathing. She knew every scratch on it. Her mother, Elaine, had worn that watch every day until the night she disappeared. Police never recovered it from the wreck.
The second hand was moving.
Olivia stared at the watch, then at Victoria. Her aunt’s champagne glass slipped slightly in her hand.
“Where did this come from?” Olivia whispered.
Adrian moved toward her, but Olivia’s knees gave way. She fell among the gift boxes, scattering ribbons across the marble floor. Adrian caught her shoulder before her head struck the ground and called for a doctor.
When Olivia opened her eyes, the party guests were gathered above her. Victoria insisted it was a cruel prank and reached for the watch, but Olivia closed her fist around it.
The back of the case felt warm. Someone had recently worn it.
Adrian helped her sit up. Beneath the ticking, Olivia heard a faint click. She pressed the small crown, and the back panel opened. Inside was a folded strip of paper no wider than a match.
Three words were written on it:
ROSEWOOD. ROOM 17.
Victoria’s face turned pale.
She ordered the hotel staff to clear the ballroom and told Olivia the name meant nothing. Yet Olivia remembered Rosewood. It was the private rehabilitation center where Victoria said Elaine had been taken briefly after the accident—before the family was told she had died.
Adrian quietly picked up the empty gift box. A security label was still attached beneath it.
The package had not come from a courier.
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It had been signed into the hotel by Victoria’s personal assistant only thirty minutes earlier.
And the signature authorizing delivery belonged to a woman named Elaine Bennett.
