Chapter 1 - The Boy Behind Bellamy Bakery
The Saturday before Christmas, snow had just begun to dust the sidewalks of Bellamy, Connecticut, when my eight-year-old daughter disappeared around the corner of a bakery.
“Lucy?”
I stepped out of Bellamy Bakery carrying two paper cups of cocoa and immediately saw the empty place beside the window where she had been waiting.
My heart jumped.
“Lucy!”
“I’m here, Mom!”
Her voice came from the alley.
I rounded the brick corner ready to lecture her about wandering away, and then every word vanished.
Lucy stood beside a boy who looked about nine. His coat was too thin for December. One sneaker had been repaired with silver tape. He sat beside a stack of milk crates, eating the turkey sandwich I had packed for Lucy.
“Mom, don’t be mad,” she said. “He was hungry.”
The boy lowered the sandwich.
“I didn’t steal it.”
“I know.”
His eyes were gray.
My son Noah had gray eyes.
I told myself that meant nothing.
Then the boy reached for his collar, and a tiny silver charm slipped from beneath his shirt.
Half an airplane.
The cocoa fell from my hand.
Five years earlier, my husband, Eric Dalton, had given our four-year-old son a silver airplane pendant. It broke in two during a family trip. Noah kept the half with the nose. I wore the half with the tail.
I had worn it beneath my clothes every day since he disappeared.
“Noah?”
The boy froze.
Lucy looked between us.
“How do you know my name?” he asked.
My knees almost failed.
I crouched slowly.
“May I see your necklace?”
His fingers closed around it.
“No.”
“I won’t take it.”
He watched me with the careful suspicion of a child who had learned that adults made promises cheaply.
Finally, he turned the charm over.
An N was engraved on the back.
Below it was a date.
December 21.
The day Noah disappeared.
I pushed my sleeve back and showed him my half.
His face changed.
“No.”
I reached toward his wrist but stopped before touching him.
“Do you have a little birthmark here? Like a moon?”
He pulled his sleeve back.
A pale crescent sat above his wrist.
The alley tilted.
I covered my mouth.
Five Christmases.
Five birthdays.
Five years of detectives telling me the river probably carried away what the search teams never found.
Five years of setting one extra ornament on the tree because I could not make myself stop.
“Noah.”
He backed away.
“You’re lying.”
“I’m Katherine Dalton. Your mother.”
“No.”
“Your favorite cereal was the one with the little marshmallows, but you only ate the stars. You called fire trucks ‘red dragons.’ You had a blue blanket named Captain.”
His eyes filled.
“Stop.”
“You hated peas.”
“Stop!”
Lucy moved closer to me.
Noah’s voice broke.
“The man who raised me said my real mother didn’t want me.”
I felt something cold and terrible settle inside my chest.
“What man?”
Noah looked toward the mouth of the alley.
“He told me never to let you find me.”
A black pickup was parked across the street.
The driver’s seat was empty.
“Where is he now?”
Noah stood abruptly.
“I have to go.”
“No. Please.”
“He gets mad when I’m late.”
The way he said it frightened me.
“Does he hurt you?”
Noah looked down.
That was answer enough.
I called 911.
He panicked.
“No police.”
“Why?”
“He said police take kids underground.”
“That isn’t true.”
“You don’t know him.”
“Then help me know him.”
His hands trembled.
“His name is Wade.”
“Wade what?”
Before he could answer, a man shouted from the far end of the alley.
“NOAH!”
The boy went white.
A broad-shouldered man in a work jacket stood beneath the fire escape.
Noah whispered, “That’s him.”
I stepped between them.
The man stopped.
For one second, neither of us breathed.
Then he smiled.
“Katherine.”
My blood froze.
I had never seen him before.
But he knew my name.
Police sirens sounded two blocks away.
The man’s smile disappeared.
He turned and ran.
Noah grabbed my sleeve.
“Don’t let him get to the house.”
“What house?”
“The Christmas house.”
“What is that?”
His eyes filled with terror.
“The place where Dad is.”
My heart stopped again.
“Your father is alive?”
Noah stared at me.
May you like
Then he whispered the sentence that changed the search all over again.
“He was yesterday.”
