Chapter 2 - Grandpa Henry’s Last Warning
Grandpa Henry owned three things my family cared about.
A paid-off house.
A small investment account.
And a lake cabin that smelled like pine, dust, and every summer I had ever been happy.
But what mattered most to me was his watch.
A 1958 Omega with a cracked leather band, the one he wound before telling stories.
He always said I noticed things other people ignored.
That was why he supported my private investigation work when my parents called it embarrassing.
“You’ll get paid to see what liars miss,” he told me.
When Grandpa got sick, Norah visited him twice.
Both times, she wore her white coat.
Both times, she took photos.
I visited without pictures. I brought soup, fixed the porch light, sorted his mail, and sat beside him during the nights when pain made him too tired to talk.
One evening, he looked at me and asked, “How much have you paid for Norah?”
I lied.
“Not much.”
He smiled sadly.
“Still protecting them.”
“I’m helping.”
“No,” he said. “You’re being trained.”
That sentence stayed with me.
After his funeral, my parents became strange.
Not openly cruel.
Careful.
Mom asked if Grandpa had mentioned anything about the will.
Dad joked that Norah needed stability because doctors had “real futures.”
Norah began calling the lake cabin “the perfect place for me to recover after residency,” as if it had already been promised.
I said nothing.
Private investigators survive by listening before moving.
May you like
So I listened.
And what I heard was a family preparing to take the last thing I had left.
