PART 1
I found the block of ice on my porch before sunrise.
It was nearly two feet long, thick as a concrete brick, cloudy through the center, and already melting across the wooden boards.
At first, I assumed it was some kind of cruel joke.
Teenagers got bored. Neighbors could be strange. And grief had taught me that my mind was capable of imagining a thousand unpleasant explanations.
Then I noticed something dark trapped inside.
My neighbor, Mr. Callahan, came through the opening in the hedge between our yards after I messaged him.
“What is that?” he asked.
“I was hoping you could tell me.”
We crouched beside the ice and scraped at the surface until the shape became clearer.
It was a watch.
Black strap.
Dark face.
Scratches along the clasp.
My stomach dropped.
“I know that watch.”
Mr. Callahan inhaled sharply.
When I looked at him, his face had gone pale.
“You need to call somebody,” he said.
I stared at the frozen watch.
“No.”
“Lena.”
“I know that watch.”
He swallowed.
“So do I.”
My husband Daniel had worn it constantly.
Every Saturday morning, he wore that watch while trimming the hedges with Callahan, arguing about football, or complaining that I planted too many roses.
He wore it almost everywhere.
After Daniel died three years earlier, I asked the hospital about the watch.
They told me it had been misplaced.
At the time, I was drowning in grief and paperwork and decisions I barely remembered making.
So I let it go.
Now Daniel’s missing watch was frozen inside a block of ice on my front porch.
That should have frightened me into calling the police immediately.
Instead, something inside me switched back on.
“Don’t step anywhere,” I told Callahan.
He blinked.
“What?”
“Not on the grass. Not near the curb. Go get your tape measure.”
I started photographing everything.
The block.
The marks on the porch.
The scratches along the walkway where something heavy appeared to have been dragged from the street.
When Callahan returned, he held the measuring tape while I photographed the distance between tire marks near the curb.
“You really think this deserves police involvement?” he asked.
I looked at him.
“Someone delivered my dead husband’s watch to my house inside a block of ice.”
He nodded.
“Fair.”
Then I started knocking on doors.
By 7:30 that morning, half the neighborhood was awake.
Mrs. Duffy’s camera had been broken for months.
The Martins had blurry footage.
The Garzas let me search through their recordings, but the angle missed my driveway.
By the fifth house, I found what I needed.
A delivery truck approached with its headlights off.
Two people climbed out.
They used a dolly to move something large onto my porch.
Less than a minute later, they were gone.
Their faces were impossible to identify.
But as the truck turned away, the rear panel caught the porch light.
A company logo became visible.
HARLAN ICE AND COLD STORAGE.
Callahan looked at me.
“Now we call the police.”
“We can call them from the car.”
He sighed.
“You’re going there.”
“Wouldn’t you?”
He hesitated.
“No. Actually, I probably would.”
