Chapter 1 - THE BOY WHO KNEW CAMILLE
The teenager stopped humming.
Ivy remained asleep against his chest.
Nolan stood frozen in the aisle, one hand gripping the back of the seat beside him.
“Where did you learn that?”
The boy’s expression changed.
Not confusion.
Fear.
He looked down at Ivy, then toward the window.
“My mom used to sing it.”
Nolan’s pulse quickened.
“What’s your mother’s name?”
The boy hesitated.
“Why?”
“Because my wife sang that exact melody.”
“So?”
“She said her mother taught it to her.”
The boy shifted Ivy carefully.
“I’m sure lots of people know it.”
“No.”
Nolan’s voice came out harder than he intended.
“That song isn’t on the radio. It isn’t a nursery rhyme. Camille said her mother made it up.”
The teenager looked toward the rear cabin.
As if checking whether someone had noticed them.
Nolan saw it.
“What’s your name?”
“Eli.”
“Last name?”
Another pause.
“Warren.”
“Where are you going, Eli Warren?”
“Seattle.”
“That part I figured out.”
Eli’s jaw tightened.
Nolan immediately regretted his tone.
The boy was seventeen.
Maybe younger.
Thin.
Cheap sneakers.
Faded sweatshirt.
Backpack patched twice near the zipper.
Whatever secret he carried, he did not look powerful enough to be the person Nolan should fear.
“I’m sorry,” Nolan said quietly. “My wife died three weeks ago.”
Eli’s face softened for half a second.
“I'm sorry.”
“She had our daughter one month before that.”
The boy looked at Ivy again.
Something in his eyes unsettled Nolan.
Recognition.
Not of the baby.
Of the story.
“Did you know Camille Pierce?”
Eli shook his head immediately.
Too quickly.
Nolan’s chest tightened.
“Look at me.”
“I said no.”
“Then why did you react to her name?”
“I didn’t.”
“You did.”
Eli handed Ivy back.
The moment happened too fast.
His backpack slid from the seat.
The zipper had been left half-open.
A folder spilled out.
Then a photograph.
It landed faceup in the aisle.
Nolan looked down.
His heart stopped.
Camille.
Not recent Camille.
Seventeen-year-old Camille.
Standing beside a lake.
Hair longer.
Smile younger.
Arm wrapped around a little blond boy.
The child looked four, maybe five.
Nolan stared.
Eli lunged for the photograph.
Too late.
Nolan picked it up.
On the back, written in Camille’s handwriting:
ELI - SUMMER 2013.
Nolan slowly looked at him.
The teenager had gone completely pale.
“You said you didn’t know her.”
Eli’s voice barely came out.
“I was told not to tell you.”
The aircraft suddenly felt too small.
“Who told you?”
Eli sat down.
Nolan did not.
He held the photograph tightly.
“My wife?”
Eli stared at his hands.
“Sometimes.”
“What does that mean?”
No answer.
Nolan’s grief, exhaustion, and confusion twisted into something sharper.
“Eli.”
The boy finally looked up.
“Camille visited me every year.”
Nolan stopped breathing.
“What?”
“Until two years ago.”
Nolan tried to calculate.
They had been married six years.
Together almost eight.
Camille had traveled occasionally.
Charity conferences.
Family emergencies.
Trips she said involved her mother’s estate.
Had those trips been to see Eli?
“Who are you?”
Eli’s eyes filled with tears.
“I don’t know what she told you.”
“She told me nothing about you.”
That hurt him.
Nolan saw it.
“She promised she would.”
“When?”
“When Ivy was born.”
Nolan stared.
“Why would my daughter’s birth matter?”
Eli reached for his backpack.
“I shouldn’t have said anything.”
Nolan blocked his hand.
“Don’t.”
Passengers were beginning to notice.
A flight attendant approached.
“Everything okay?”
Nolan forced himself to nod.
“Family matter.”
The words came automatically.
Then he realized what he had said.
Family.
Eli looked away.
The attendant moved on.
Nolan sat beside him.
“Who is your mother?”
Eli whispered:
“Rachel Warren.”
“Is she alive?”
“No.”
“When did she die?”
“Seven years ago.”
“How did Camille know her?”
Eli’s throat moved.
“She was her sister.”
Nolan stared.
“That’s impossible.”
Camille had one sister.
Rebecca.
Older.
Living in Vermont.
He had met her dozens of times.
“My wife never had a sister named Rachel.”
Eli looked at him.
“She did.”
“No.”
“She did.”
Nolan wanted to reject it.
Then he remembered how Camille’s mother, Lorraine, always became strange when family history came up.
How old photographs seemed to skip several years.
How Camille once told him there were “things in her family better left buried.”
Nolan had assumed she meant an ugly divorce.
Maybe he had assumed because it was easier.
Eli reached into the folder.
“Camille told me to give you this if something happened to her.”
Nolan’s blood went cold.
“What?”
Eli handed him a sealed envelope.
His name was written across it.
NOLAN.
Camille’s handwriting.
His hands began shaking.
He tore it open.
Inside was one page.
Nolan,
If Eli has found you, then I ran out of time.
Please believe him before you believe my family.
And whatever they tell you about Rachel—
do not let them take Ivy.
Nolan read the last line three times.
Then he looked at Eli.
“What does my daughter have to do with any of this?”
Eli’s face crumpled.
Before he could answer, a man sitting across the aisle stood.
Older.
Gray suit.
He had spent the entire flight reading a newspaper.
Now he looked directly at Eli.
“Enough.”
Eli went rigid.
Nolan rose.
“Who are you?”
The man reached into his jacket.
Not for a weapon.
For an identification wallet.
He opened it.
Private security credentials.
Then looked at Nolan.
“Mr. Pierce, your wife hired me two months before she died.”
Nolan felt the air leave his lungs.
“To do what?”
May you like
The man’s eyes moved toward sleeping Ivy.
“To make sure the wrong family never found your daughter.”
