PART 11 – The Lost Watch
I held the plastic bag containing the gold watch as if it were radioactive material. The glass of the dial was slightly scratched at the edge, exactly the way I remembered from when I last wore it. How on earth had this watch ended up on the sixth floor? Hadn't I always booked my rooms on the fourth?
Meanwhile, the lawyer silently packed away his papers, apparently indifferent to the emotional devastation unfolding across from him. "The matter is settled, Mr. De Jong. You will soon receive final confirmation from the court by mail. Have a good day further."
I stood up, stuffed the plastic bag into the inner pocket of my coat, and walked out of the office. The outside air felt cold on my face. I wandered aimlessly through the city streets until I collapsed onto a bench by a canal. With trembling fingers, I pulled the watch from the bag.
I turned it over. A date was engraved on the back: 12-04-2000. Our wedding date. My wife had given it to me then for our fifth wedding anniversary. I had supposedly lost it in 2015 during those fateful four months of adultery. What's more, I had lied to her saying I had lost it during a business trip abroad, out of fear she would ask questions.
But she had already found it back then. Not on the fourth floor, but on the sixth.
The realization struck once more like a lightning bolt. That sixth floor had never been a random hotel floor. It was the floor where she was staying, not as a conference guest, but as the person who knew from the very beginning what I was planning. What's more, perhaps she had booked that hotel long before I even thought about arranging to meet there.
My phone vibrated again. Not a message from her this time, but from an unknown number. A video file.
With a pounding heart, I clicked the link. The screen opened a secure video stream. I saw security camera footage dated in the spring of 2015. The grainy images showed the hallway of the hotel's sixth floor.
I saw myself walking in the footage. Not on the fourth, but on the sixth floor. I walked with uncertain steps toward room 604, knocked on the door, and was let inside by the woman I was having that affair with back then.
But what made me dizzy the most was what happened next on the footage. At the end of the hallway, just around the corner by the fire escape, stood my wife. She wasn't standing there crying, she wasn't standing there driven by a desire for revenge. She stood with a notepad in her hand, calmly noting down the time I entered, and at that exact minute sent a message to her own phone.
She hadn't just caught us. She had completely taken over the direction of my adultery from the very first second.
