Chapter 1
I lost one shoe somewhere between Malcolm Bannon's terrace and the iron gates.
I never went back for it.
Cold October gravel cut into my bare foot as I ran down the driveway, gripping my phone so hard my fingers hurt.
Behind me, someone yelled my name.
“Jillian! Stop!”
Dean.
Patrick's cousin.
Another voice came from farther behind him.
“Nobody's going to hurt you! Malcolm just wants to talk!”
That frightened me more than a threat.
Because I believed him.
They probably weren't planning to beat me or drag me into some basement.
They were going to do something worse.
They were going to keep me inside Malcolm's house until I told them where Cody was.
And I would rather run barefoot through broken glass than give them my son.
My phone battery showed three percent.
Patrick was almost two hours away.
Cody was supposed to be in Pennsylvania with his grandmother.
Supposed to be.
I had not heard from him in forty-seven minutes.
I reached the gate just as a black Lincoln Navigator slowed on the road.
I didn't check the plate.
Didn't look through the glass.
Didn't think.
I yanked open the rear passenger door and threw myself inside.
“Please. Drive.”
Then I looked across the seat.
My blood went cold.
Emmett Carbone was staring at me.
For twenty years, the Carbone name had never been spoken casually around the Bannon family.
Sometimes with anger.
Sometimes with respect.
Sometimes with the kind of silence that said more than either.
Emmett was sixty-three, silver-haired and broad-shouldered, wearing a charcoal overcoat.
No jewelry.
No dramatic bodyguards.
No performance.
Just a driver and one man in the front passenger seat.
His gaze dropped to my bleeding foot.
Then beyond me.
Dean reached the Navigator first.
He bent toward the tinted window.
“Mr. Carbone. This is a family matter.”
Emmett ignored him.
He looked directly at me.
“Do you want to go back?”
“No.”
The answer came before he finished the question.
Emmett pressed the lock.
Click.
Dean's expression changed.
Emmett faced the driver.
“Drive.”
The Navigator moved.
I twisted around and watched Malcolm Bannon's estate disappear behind the trees.
Only then did I realize I was shaking.
Emmett offered me a white handkerchief.
“You're bleeding.”
“I'm fine.”
“No, you're not.”
I pressed the cloth against my foot.
For several seconds nobody spoke.
Then Emmett asked, “What did you take?”
“Nothing.”
“Money?”
“No.”
“Documents?”
“No.”
His eyes narrowed.
“Then why were three grown men chasing you?”
I swallowed.
“They think I know where Cody is.”
Something changed in his face.
Almost nothing.
But I saw it.
“Patrick's boy?”
“My son.”
Emmett held my gaze.
“Yes,” he said quietly. “Your son.”
That surprised me.
Most Bannons still called me Cody's stepmother whenever they wanted to remind me I had no blood claim.
Emmett didn't.
“Where is he?” he asked.
“I'm not telling you.”
He nodded once.
“Good.”
I stared at him.
He looked forward.
“What does Malcolm want with a sixteen-year-old badly enough to stop his mother from leaving?”
Twelve days earlier, I wouldn't have known the answer.
Twelve days earlier, Cody was simply a quiet teenager who drew strangers on index cards, worried about college, forgot his lunch, and left pencils everywhere.
Then Shawn Bannon died.
And suddenly everyone looked at Cody differently.
“He doesn't want Cody to do something,” I whispered.
Emmett turned toward me.
“He wants Cody to become someone.”
“Who?”
I closed my eyes.
“His dead uncle.”
Twelve days earlier, my biggest worry had been getting Cody to school on time.
At 6:42 that Monday morning, I found him at our kitchen island.
His cereal was turning soft.
He wasn't eating.
He was drawing.
“Cody.”
Nothing.
“Earth to Cody.”
He looked up, one earbud still in.
“What?”
“You have eleven minutes.”
“For what?”
I stared at him.
He looked at the clock.
“Oh.”
I laughed.
That was Cody.
He could tell me the animation technique used in a twenty-year-old movie but somehow forget that school began at the same time every morning.
I picked up the index card beneath his hand.
He had drawn an elderly man beneath a bus shelter, holding groceries against his chest while using his coat to protect a frightened little dog from rain.
“You saw this yesterday?”
He nodded.
“He missed his bus because the dog was scared.”
“You talked to him?”
Cody looked horrified.
“No.”
I smiled.
He rarely talked to strangers.
He watched them.
He noticed the things most people missed.
Cody had been eight when I married Patrick.
His mother, Laura, had died two years earlier.
I never tried replacing her.
For three years I was Jillian.
Then Cody fell off his bicycle when he was eleven and split his chin open.
Patrick was stuck at a job site.
I spent seven hours beside Cody in the emergency room.
At two in the morning, frightened and exhausted, he whispered:
“Mom, can I have water?”
Neither of us mentioned it afterward.
He never called me Jillian again.
Patrick entered the kitchen, adjusting his tie.
“You ready, buddy?”
“Almost.”
“You said that ten minutes ago.”
Patrick stole toast from my plate.
I slapped his hand away.
“Make your own.”
“I married you for breakfast.”
“You chose badly.”
He laughed.
For several seconds, we were normal.
Then I saw the funeral card on the refrigerator.
Shawn Bannon.
Forty-nine.
Dead twelve days.
Patrick's older brother smiled from the photograph like he had been interrupted in the middle of a joke.
Patrick followed my gaze.
His smile vanished.
“Dinner at Dad's tonight.”
Cody's pencil stopped.
Only for a second.
But I noticed.
“What time?” I asked.
“Six-thirty.”
Cody shoved his drawings into his backpack.
“Do I have to go?”
Patrick frowned.
“It's Sunday dinner.”
“It's Monday.”
“You know what I mean.”
Cody lowered his eyes.
“Yeah.”
Patrick's phone rang.
He checked the screen.
“Dad.”
He walked into the hall.
I turned toward Cody.
“You okay?”
“Fine.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah.”
He zipped his backpack too quickly.
One card slipped out.
He didn't notice.
After he left, I picked it up.
On the front, Cody had drawn a single door standing alone in an empty field.
On the back were five words.
18 DAYS UNTIL PORTFOLIO DEADLINE.
I stared at it.
I knew about his animation obsession.
I knew about the short films he made when he couldn't sleep.
I knew he dreamed of college somewhere far from Connecticut.
But I knew nothing about a deadline.
That evening, I would learn why.
May you like
And by the end of the night, I would understand that Shawn's death hadn't created the danger surrounding Cody.
It had only removed the man standing between Cody and Malcolm Bannon.
