His Obsession

Chapter 3 - A Dead Man’s Face

Lucien Veyr had been declared dead without anyone publicly proving he had died.

Nessa found that out at 12:41 a.m., buried in a government record that should have taken her another hour to locate.

She sat behind the counter with her laptop balanced on a stack of old files. The shop was dark except for the desk lamp, and rainwater trickled down the front window in thin, crooked lines.

On the screen, Lucien Veyr's name appeared beneath a document heading:

STATUS: DEATH PRESUMED.

Nessa read the entry again.

The record had a date. An authority. A reference number. Location was listed as private property outside the city. Cause of death — blank.

No medical examiner. No witness. No body ID.

Just a stamp at the bottom saying declaration accepted.

Nessa leaned in.

People disappeared. She handled what they left behind for a living. She knew paperwork never told the whole truth.

But this wasn't paperwork. This was someone closing a door fast, before anyone could look inside.

She clicked the linked archive.

ACCESS RESTRICTED.

Of course.

Nessa copied the reference number into her notebook, then searched for the original declaration. The first few results led to newspaper articles repeating the same handful of details: Veyr had been a powerful criminal figure, his organization had fractured after his disappearance, and several former associates had fought over what remained of his empire.

None of this explained how he had died.

One article claimed his enemies had killed him during an internal conflict. Another suggested that he had fled the country. A third described his death as confirmed without identifying the person who had confirmed it.

Different stories. No evidence.

Nessa opened the oldest article she could find.

It had been published twelve years earlier, almost a year before Lucien's presumed death.

The headline read: VEYR NETWORK UNDER PRESSURE AFTER SENIOR FIGURE VANISHES.

She scanned the report.

A senior member of Veyr's organization had disappeared. His name had been withheld, and authorities had declined to comment on whether his disappearance was connected to a series of unexplained financial transfers.

At the bottom, one sentence caught her attention.

Sources close to the investigation believe the missing man may have possessed information concerning identities protected within the organization.

Nessa stopped scrolling.

Protected identities.

She thought of her mother's notebooks, the hundreds of names Mara had recorded with almost obsessive care. She thought of the hidden photograph and the silver ring clenched in Lucien's hand.

Then she remembered the second warning.

He has killed everyone who knows what happened that night.

Her stomach tightened.

If Lucien had been dead for eleven years, who had written the warnings? Someone who believed he was alive? who knew he had survived? Or wanted her to believe both possibilities were equally dangerous?

Her phone lay beside the laptop.

She picked it up and opened the message thread.

The unknown number had sent no new messages.

Nessa typed a question.

Who are you?

She stared at it, then deleted it without sending.

If someone was watching her, she wasn't going to reward them with proof that they had frightened her.

Instead, she continued her search. Most searches returned nothing. A few led to reports about the violent struggle that followed Veyr's disappearance.

Then she found a scanned notice published eleven years earlier.

It was short enough to fit on half a page.

Lucien Veyr had been presumed dead following an incident at a privately owned property. The declaration had been made after an investigation, but the notice named neither the investigating officer nor the evidence used to reach the conclusion.

There was no mention of a funeral.

No burial location.

No statement from relatives.

Nessa checked the publication date against the date printed beneath the warning in the watch.

They matched.

She sat back.

Someone had hidden that date inside the same object carrying instructions to investigate the night Lucien Veyr supposedly died. It wasn't an accidental detail. Whoever had prepared the watch wanted her to connect the man, the date, and whatever had happened at that property.

But why send it to her?

She had no connection to Lucien Veyr's organization. She had never investigated a criminal empire. Her work involved lost wallets, old photographs, and the painful business of returning the dead to the living.

At least, that was what she had believed.

Nessa closed the search results and opened the photograph from the parcel. She enlarged Lucien's face until the image began to blur.

The photograph from her mother's locked drawer returned to her memory.

She had been seventeen when she found it. Mara had left the drawer open while searching for something, and Nessa had reached inside before her mother came back into the room.

She remembered the silver ring first.

Then the man's face.

Mara had snatched the photograph away so quickly that its corner tore beneath her fingers.

"Don't touch things you don't understand," her mother had said.

Nessa had never seen her look so frightened.

At the time, she had assumed the photograph concerned someone Mara had known before Nessa was born. She hadn't asked again. A few months later, the drawer had been locked, and the subject had become one of the silences that settled between them.

Now Nessa wondered whether her mother had been protecting her—or protecting the man in the photograph.

She returned to the public record and examined the death entry once more.

A date. A location. A declaration.

Nothing had established how Lucien Veyr had died.

Nor explained why his name had appeared in Mara's private collection.

And nothing that proved the man in the photograph had ever been dead at all.

A sharp sound came from the front of the shop.

Nessa lifted her head.

Someone had knocked once against the glass.

She stood slowly, keeping the counter between herself and the door. The street outside was nearly empty. A figure stood beneath the awning, face hidden by the shadow of a hood.

Nessa couldn't make out the person's features.

They raised one hand and pressed something against the glass.

A small white envelope.

Then they stepped away.

"Wait!" Nessa called.

She unlocked the door and pushed it open.

The pavement was empty. Whoever had delivered the envelope had vanished into the rain.

Nessa looked both ways before retrieving it.

Her name was written across the front.

No sender and address were on it.

She carried it inside and locked the door again.

For several seconds, Nessa simply held it, listening to the rain and the faint hum of the refrigerator in the back room.

Then she opened it.

Inside was a single photocopied page.

Not a death certificate.

Neither was it a newspaper article.

A list of names, each followed by a date.

Most meant nothing to her. One had been crossed out in thick black ink.

LUCIEN VEYR — DEATH PRESUMED.

Beneath it, someone had written a sentence by hand.

THEY DIDN'T NEED A BODY. THEY NEEDED EVERYONE TO BELIEVE HE WAS DEAD.

Nessa read it twice.

Her phone vibrated.

The unknown number had returned.

STOP DIGGING INTO HIS DEATH.

A second message appeared before she could move.

HE KNOWS YOU HAVE THE WATCH.

Nessa stared at the screen.

Then, from somewhere beyond the locked front door, a man's voice spoke quietly.

"Miss Calder?"

She turned toward the entrance.

"I know you're inside."

The voice was calm, almost polite.

"Open the door. We need to talk about Lucien Veyr."

And for the first time that night, Nessa wondered whether the dead man had finally sent someone to collect his belongings.