Timepiece
Copyright© 2015 by Old Man with a Pen
Prologue
When Wendy had wound the watch, she was in an alley ... doing her damnedest to get away from a man who was bent on rape and murder. The watch was just lying there ... in the trash of the alley. It was a gold watch ... gold was thirty-five dollars an ounce and this watch weighed at least 4 ounces.
Discounting the guts there might be a hundred dollars worth. A well paid mid level executive ... like her dad ... might bring home one hundred dollars a month.
The second hand wasn't moving so she shook it and held it to her ear. She felt pretty safe hiding here behind a stack of cardboard and some pallets. She wound the watch and she was standing in a tremendous downpour. Soaked to the skin in an instant she still took time to to listen to the watch and shook it because she couldn't hear it tick. This pocket-watch made for Henry Graves, by Patek Philippe, was designed to be silent ... but she didn't know that so she shook it and listened again.
Some people haven't the sense to come out of the rain.
An enormous blow to the head left her lying in the rain ... unconscious. She woke up submersed in the immense bathtub in the nicely appointed bathroom of a home being looked after by a doctor ... and her head hurt. Excruciatingly. And she was freezing.
The water was hot ... not hot enough to burn ... but hot enough to take the chill off...
The pain grew to be too much ... she couldn't understand why the water was tinted red ... she needed to think and she couldn't. When she regained temporary consciousness, the Doctor was lifting a red mop off her head and she was out like a light. The pain of stitches woke her up and she had no luck remembering.
"Stop wiggling," the doctor demanded.
"It hurts," Wendy said.
"Did David do this to you?"
"No ... I remember a bus or a trolley and a good looking young man holding me up because the bus was bouncing all over," she said.