Chapter 1 - The Man in My Sketchbook
Norah's pencil stopped against the paper as the stranger beside her whispered:
“Is that me?”
A man in a black blazer leaned toward her spiral sketchbook, and Norah saw the tiny torn corner beside his portrait.
Three numbers had been written beneath the page.
7:18.
Norah suddenly realized someone had touched her sketchbook before he ever noticed it.
For several seconds, neither of them moved.
The subway rocked beneath Manhattan, carrying hundreds of strangers toward jobs, appointments, arguments, breakups, beginnings, and ordinary Tuesdays. Norah Bellamy had always loved that anonymity. People entered a train as complete mysteries and disappeared six stops later without ever becoming part of her life.
That was why she drew them.
She didn't photograph people. She didn't post their faces online. She didn't ask for names.
She simply watched.
The elderly woman carefully folding a grocery receipt.
The construction worker asleep with both hands wrapped around his lunchbox.
The little boy pressing his nose against the window even though there was nothing beyond it except darkness.
And, that morning, the man sitting two feet away from her.
He looked around thirty-two. Maybe thirty-three.
Dark wavy hair.
Light stubble.
Black blazer.
No tie.
He had the posture of someone who had once been taught to sit straight but had stopped caring whether anyone approved.
What caught Norah's attention wasn't his appearance.
It was his eyes.
He kept watching the reflection in the subway window instead of looking directly at anyone.
Not nervous.
Not frightened.
Guarded.
Like somebody who had learned the hard way that the safest way to observe a room was without letting the room know you were watching.
Norah had started with his eyes.
Then the bridge of his nose.
His jaw.
The slight exhaustion beneath his cheekbones.
She had almost finished when he noticed.
“I'm sorry,” she said.
His eyes dropped to the sketchbook again.
“You drew that just now?”
Norah nodded.
“I sketch people sometimes.”
He should have been annoyed.
Instead, he stared at the portrait with an expression she couldn't read.
“You made me look sad.”
Norah glanced at him.
“I didn't mean to.”
“That's not what I said.”
The train rattled into the next station.
People pushed through the doors.
Norah closed the sketchbook halfway.
The man gently touched the edge before she could shut it completely.
“Wait.”
His voice wasn't threatening.
It was almost curious.
“You really saw all that?”
Norah didn't need to ask what he meant.
The loneliness.
She had drawn it without intending to.
There was something raw behind the controlled face on the page.
“I draw what I see.”
He gave a humorless smile.
“That sounds dangerous.”
Before Norah could respond, his phone vibrated.
The instant he looked at the screen, his expression changed.
Not dramatically.
His shoulders simply tightened.
He stood.
“This is my stop.”
It wasn't.
Norah knew because the train doors hadn't opened yet.
He moved toward them anyway.
Then he looked back.
For one second, the guardedness disappeared.
“Don't show that drawing to anyone.”
Norah frowned.
“I wasn't planning to.”
The train slowed.
The doors opened.
He stepped onto the platform.
Then disappeared into the crowd.
Norah stared after him.
Only when the doors closed did she notice the torn corner.
Her sketchbook rested across her lap.
The page containing his portrait had been folded slightly.
Near the bottom margin, beneath where her hand had rested while drawing, three faint numbers appeared in graphite.
7:18.
Norah rubbed them with her thumb.
They smeared.
Fresh pencil.
She looked at the pencil in her right hand.
Her stomach tightened.
She hadn't written them.
She flipped backward through the sketchbook.
Nothing unusual.
Then forward.
Nothing.
Maybe she'd scribbled the numbers absentmindedly.
Artists did strange things while concentrating.
She tried to dismiss it.
By the time she reached her apartment in Queens that evening, the man on the subway had become another face in her sketchbook.
Almost.
Norah lived above a bakery in a narrow third-floor apartment that smelled faintly of cinnamon before sunrise and yeast after midnight.
She worked as a freelance illustrator when she could find clients and as an assistant at the Harlan Community Arts Center when she couldn't.
At twenty-five, she had learned to measure financial security in strangely specific ways.
Rent paid.
Groceries until Friday.
Enough money left for subway fare.
Anything beyond that qualified as luxury.
Her older sister, Elise, called at 9:04 p.m.
“You're coming Sunday, right?”
“To Mom's?”
“Yes. She already bought enough chicken to feed the Yankees.”
Norah smiled and opened her sketchbook at the kitchen table.
“I'll be there.”
“You sound distracted.”
“I drew someone today.”
“You draw someone every day.”
“This one noticed.”
Elise laughed.
“Finally. Did he sue you?”
“Not yet.”
Norah looked at the portrait.
The stranger seemed different now.
Too familiar.
“What did he say?”
“He asked me not to show anyone.”
“That is either mysterious or deeply flattering.”
“Elise.”
“What? Was he cute?”
Norah didn't answer quickly enough.
“Oh, he was.”
“Goodnight.”
“Send me the drawing.”
“No.”
“That cute?”
Norah hung up laughing.
She was still smiling when somebody knocked on her apartment door.
Three slow taps.
Norah checked the clock.
9:31.
She wasn't expecting anyone.
Another three knocks.
She approached quietly.
“Who is it?”
No answer.
Norah looked through the peephole.
The hallway was empty.
She waited.
Then opened the door.
Nobody.
Something lay on the floor.
A white envelope.
Her name was printed across it.
NORAH BELLAMY.
Inside was a single piece of paper.
No message.
Just a photograph.
It showed Norah sitting on the subway that morning.
Sketchbook on her lap.
Pencil in hand.
The mysterious stranger beside her.
The photograph had been taken from inside the same train.
Norah's blood went cold.
She turned it over.
Five words had been typed on the back.
YOU SAW WHAT HE HID.
She locked the door.
Then checked every window.
The next hour passed with Norah sitting at her kitchen table, staring at the photograph.
She considered calling the police.
What would she say?
Someone took my picture on public transportation?
Someone left it at my apartment?
Creepy, yes.
Illegal, maybe.
Immediate emergency?
Probably not.
She photographed the envelope and the picture with her phone.
Then slipped both into a drawer.
She barely slept.
At 6:32 the next morning, Norah left for work.
At 7:07 she exited the subway at Forty-Second Street.
At 7:14 she bought coffee.
At 7:17 she heard someone on the sidewalk say:
“Whoa. Look at that.”
Norah took three more steps.
Then looked up.
At exactly 7:18, her coffee slipped from her hand.
The cup struck the pavement.
The lid flew off.
Hot coffee spread around her shoes.
She didn't notice.
Above Times Square, four stories of digital screen changed from an advertisement for sneakers to a black-and-white portrait.
His portrait.
Her portrait of him.
Every line was there.
The unfinished shadow beneath his jaw.
The faint crease beside his left eyebrow.
Even the tiny accidental streak made when the subway had jolted near Thirty-Fourth Street.
The stranger's face towered over Manhattan.
People stopped walking.
Phones rose.
Someone laughed.
Someone else said, “Who's that?”
Then words appeared beneath the drawing.
Five words.
THE MAN WHO STOLE TOMORROW.
Norah couldn't breathe.
She had never written them.
The billboard stayed illuminated for fifteen seconds.
Then vanished.
A perfume advertisement replaced it.
But it was too late.
Hundreds of people had recorded it.
Within minutes, the image was online.
Norah backed toward a building.
Her hands trembled.
Her phone rang.
Unknown number.
She ignored it.
It rang again.
Then another number.
Then another.
A notification appeared.
A stranger had tagged her art account.
IS THIS YOUR DRAWING?
Another.
NORAH BELLAMY MADE THE TIMES SQUARE PORTRAIT.
Another.
WHO IS THIS GUY?
Norah's private sketch had somehow become public.
And someone knew exactly where it came from.
She turned.
Twenty feet away, beside a newspaper kiosk, stood the man from the subway.
Same dark hair.
Same guarded eyes.
Same black blazer.
Only now there was anger in his face.
Not theatrical anger.
Worse.
The controlled kind.
He walked toward her.
Norah's pulse pounded.
“I didn't do this,” she said before he reached her.
He stopped.
“You need to come with me.”
“What?”
“Now.”
“I don't even know your name.”
His eyes flicked toward the screens surrounding them.
People were beginning to recognize him.
A young man pointed.
“Hey. That's the billboard guy.”
The stranger grabbed Norah gently but firmly by the elbow and guided her away from the crowd.
She pulled free.
“Don't touch me.”
His expression softened immediately.
“Sorry.”
“Who are you?”
He looked over his shoulder.
Then finally answered.
“Elias Vale.”
The name meant nothing to her.
Apparently, her face revealed that.
“You really don't know?”
“No.”
For the first time, Elias seemed genuinely surprised.
A black SUV stopped at the curb.
Norah stepped backward.
“No.”
“That's not mine.”
Elias's voice sharpened.
Two men got out.
Dark suits.
Earpieces.
One looked directly at Elias.
“Mr. Vale.”
Elias swore under his breath.
Norah's phone buzzed again.
This time the notification came from a major news network.
BREAKING: MISSING TECH HEIR ELIAS VALE SPOTTED IN MANHATTAN AFTER MYSTERIOUS TIMES SQUARE IMAGE.
Norah looked up.
“Missing?”
Elias stared at the approaching men.
“It's complicated.”
“You were missing?”
“For eleven months.”
The men were ten feet away.
Elias stepped close enough that only Norah could hear him.
“If they ask, you never saw me before yesterday.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Your drawing wasn't stolen because it was beautiful.”
One of the men called his name again.
Elias looked at Norah.
His voice dropped.
“It was stolen because it proved I was alive.”
Norah's phone vibrated one more time.
A text appeared from an unknown sender.
DON'T TRUST ELIAS.
A second message arrived immediately.
ASK HIM WHAT HAPPENED TO YOUR FATHER.
Norah stopped breathing.
Elias saw the screen.
The color drained from his face.
Then someone behind them said Norah's name.
She turned.
A woman in a gray suit stood beside the SUV holding a sealed brown folder.
On the front was a name Norah had not seen since she was thirteen.
THOMAS BELLAMY.
Her father.
The woman held the folder toward her.
“Miss Bellamy, before you leave with Mr. Vale, you need to know why your father really died.”
Elias moved between them.
“Don't open that.”
Norah stared at him.
The folder was already unsealed.
Something inside began sliding out.
May you like
It was a photograph.
And Elias was in it.
