The Watch with the A-Shaped Scar

“One hundred and fifty,” the pawnbroker said, correcting Chloe with a tired edge in his voice. “That’s what I paid for it. Not three hundred.”

He rested a hand on the counter. “I don’t know what’s happening in your family, but my shop follows the rules. For any sale above fifty dollars, I keep a copy of the seller’s state ID.”

“I compare the photograph and the name,” he continued. “The man who stood where you’re standing came in three weeks ago. His license said Arthur Vance.”

Chloe folded her arms tightly. “Would you let us look at the copy?”

“Absolutely not. That document is private.” His gaze moved between us. “Unless you’re here to purchase the watch or return with an officer and a warrant, you need to go.”

“Please,” I said, and the word came out thinner than I expected. I wasn’t trying to trick him. I was scared, and I needed an answer.

“Dad’s wearing a watch just like this one now. If he sold this, we only want to know who brought it here.” My hands felt cold despite the warmth of the shop.

The pawnbroker looked at me for a long moment. I must have seemed very small, like the ground had opened beneath me and I was waiting to fall.

At last, he breathed out and rubbed the bridge of his nose below his glasses. “You can’t tell anyone I let you see it.”

He went to a gray filing cabinet behind the counter and searched through several folders. From one, he took a black-and-white license copy and set it between us.

Chloe and I bent over the glass. The blurred face on the paper was unmistakably Dad’s, down to his firm jaw, level brows, and the slight bend in his nose.

Yet another man seemed to emerge as we kept looking. The license photo showed a heavy, untidy beard. Dad had always kept his face clean-shaven.

The picture also showed him in a worn flannel shirt, open at the neck. That wasn’t how Dad dressed, either.

Then I noticed the address. Instead of our home, the license listed an apartment in Blackwood, the worn-down industrial town two hours to the north.

Chloe’s eyes shifted to the signature area, and I followed her gaze. I knew how Dad wrote; his habits were as familiar as his voice.

Dad was left-handed. Every letter he made was upright and precise, more like a printed mark than handwriting. His firm strokes even dented the sheets beneath whatever he signed.

The writing on the copy leaned and curled across the line in flowing cursive. Whoever had signed it had used a right hand, not Dad’s left.

“That isn’t him,” Chloe murmured. Color had drained from her face.

The pawnbroker drew the paper away from us. “The face and name match your father,” he said, sounding less certain now. “But I can’t explain it. Whoever came in had his ID.”

Neither of us spoke on the way back to the car. The morning sun seemed to press down harder than before, turning the walk across the lot into a weight.

“Somebody must have taken his identity,” Chloe said after climbing into the driver’s seat. Her voice had the careful quality of someone testing an idea.

“Maybe they found an old license and look like him.” She started the engine, but didn’t pull away yet.

I kept looking through the windshield. “It wasn’t just somebody who looked like him. That was Dad’s face.”

“People can have doubles,” she answered. “Or someone made a very convincing fake.”

“Why fake an ID just to get a hundred and fifty dollars for a watch?” I asked. The explanation didn’t fit. “How would they have gotten the scratched one from our house? And why is Dad wearing another one?”

Chloe gripped the wheel until her knuckles paled. “I don’t know. But we’ll figure it out. Dad’s at the hardware store, and he usually washes the car afterward.”

“We’ve got at least an hour before he goes into his office,” she added. That was enough time to look for something he might have missed.

His office was at the far end of the upstairs hall, a converted guest room that always felt carefully arranged. Lemon polish and printer ink scented the air as we slipped inside.

Chloe quietly shut the door. “His military papers are in the bottom cabinet drawer. It’s locked, but I know where he hides the spare.”

She knelt beside the oak desk and felt along its underside. A strip of tape peeled away under her fingers, revealing a small silver key.

The key turned in the black filing cabinet with a soft click. Chloe opened the bottom drawer, packed with hanging folders whose labels were arranged in Dad’s tidy fashion: mortgage, insurance, tax returns, vehicle leases.

Behind a thick plastic divider, at the very back, lay one plain manila envelope. Chloe pulled it free. Its paper had grown soft, and the edges were beginning to fray.

She loosened the red string and emptied the envelope onto the carpet. A folded, heavy sheet slid out beside a bundle of old photographs held together with a rubber band.

Chloe picked up the old document. It was a birth certificate. Her eyes moved quickly across the lines. “Pennsylvania,” she murmured. “Mother: Helen Vance. Father: Thomas Vance.”

Then she paused, placing a finger near the lower portion of the page. “Mason, look.” The section for the children listed two names: Arthur Thomas Vance and Arlo James Vance.

The certificate said they had been born six minutes apart. I stared at those names, trying to fit the second one into the life I thought I knew.

Arthur had a twin brother. His name was Arlo.