Chapter 1 - The Man Behind the Warehouse
A newborn screamed behind the loading dock, and I ran toward the sound.
"Please don't stop crying."
A wounded man looked up and pushed a silver-edged card toward me.
One number was scratched into its back.
Then he said my name.
I stopped.
I was eleven years old, and I had never seen him before.
"Harper."
The way he said it made the rain seem to disappear.
For one second, all I could hear was the crying baby in my arms.
The little girl couldn't have weighed more than seven pounds. She was wrapped in a pink blanket soaked around the edges, and her tiny face had turned red from crying. Her fist was twisted into the sleeve of my blue hoodie.
The stranger still held the second baby.
A boy.
Blue blanket.
Three weeks old, he'd told me.
The man sat against the steel wall behind an abandoned warehouse, his black suit drenched and his white shirt stained from an injury I was trying very hard not to look at.
"How do you know my name?"
He closed his eyes.
"Ethan."
"What?"
"My name is Ethan Grant."
That meant nothing to me.
Later, I would understand why it should have.
That night, he was simply a hurt man holding a baby.
I looked toward the street.
People were still passing the alley.
A woman with an umbrella hurried by.
Two men in business coats crossed the intersection.
Cars rolled through the rain.
Nobody came.
"Help!" I shouted.
The woman with the umbrella glanced toward us.
Then she kept walking.
I couldn't believe it.
"Hey!"
Ethan caught my wrist.
"Don't."
I pulled away.
"You need an ambulance."
"I know."
"Then why shouldn't I get somebody?"
His eyes shifted toward the alley entrance.
"Because I don't know who followed me."
That frightened me enough to make me quiet.
The baby against my chest made a small sound.
I looked down.
Her eyes were squeezed shut.
Her fingers still held my sleeve.
Something changed inside me.
I'd spent most of my life learning not to expect adults to rescue me.
That didn't mean these babies had to learn the same lesson.
I crouched closer to Ethan.
"Who followed you?"
"I don't know."
"Why do you have babies out here?"
"They're mine."
"Where's their mom?"
Pain crossed his face that had nothing to do with his injury.
"Not here."
That answer was too careful.
I noticed the card again.
"Call the number," Ethan said.
My phone had nine percent battery.
The screen was cracked from when I'd dropped it outside school three months earlier. Half the time the charging cable had to be bent sideways to work.
I unlocked it.
"Who am I calling?"
"Someone who can help."
"You said you don't know who to trust."
"I trust her."
"Who?"
His breathing became shallow.
"Harper."
I hated the way he kept using my name.
"Stop doing that."
"What?"
"Saying my name like you know me."
His eyes opened.
"I'm sorry."
"Where did you hear it?"
He looked at the little girl in my arms.
"They told me you'd be kind."
My stomach tightened.
"Who told you?"
"The girl in the blue hoodie," he murmured. "Always helping people when nobody's watching."
I stared at him.
That wasn't an answer.
It was worse.
At school, I stayed invisible whenever I could.
I wasn't popular.
I wasn't bullied much either.
Being forgettable had advantages.
But sometimes I helped Mr. Keller, the janitor, put chairs away after assemblies because his knee hurt.
Sometimes I carried groceries upstairs for Mrs. Alvarez in apartment 3B.
Last spring I'd found a broken desk beside the dumpster behind school and fixed the loose leg because our classroom never had enough desks that didn't wobble.
Nobody knew all those things.
Nobody should have.
"Are you watching me?"
"No."
"Then who is?"
Ethan hesitated.
That hesitation told me there was an answer.
I stood.
"I'm leaving."
The baby moved against me.
I immediately realized what I'd said.
Ethan did too.
"I mean I'm getting help," I said.
"I know."
"I'm not taking your baby."
"You might have to."
"No."
"Harper—"
"Stop."
His face softened.
"Okay."
I stared at the silver-edged card.
Then I entered the number.
The call connected almost instantly.
A woman answered.
"Harper Miller."
My fingers went numb.
I pulled the phone away from my ear and looked at the screen.
Unknown number.
"Who is this?"
"Listen carefully."
Her voice was calm.
Too calm.
"We know where you are."
I almost dropped the phone.
Ethan reached toward me.
"Put it on speaker."
I did.
The woman spoke again.
"Is Ethan conscious?"
I looked at him.
"Yes."
"Are both children with you?"
"Yes."
"Is the pink blanket still dry around the baby's face?"
I looked down.
It was.
"Yes."
"Good. Keep her warm."
"Who are you?"
"My name is Evelyn Shaw."
"How do you know me?"
Silence.
"Evelyn?"
"Harper, help is coming."
I looked toward the street.
"I called you like ten seconds ago."
"I know."
"Then how can help already be coming?"
Ethan lowered his head.
I looked at him.
"You knew I would be here."
He didn't answer.
The realization made my skin crawl.
"You knew."
"Harper," Evelyn said through the phone, "this is difficult to explain."
"Try."
Ethan gave the faintest smile.
Not because anything was funny.
Because apparently an eleven-year-old telling a mysterious woman to "try" was exactly what he'd expected.
"Your mother once knew Ethan," Evelyn said.
Every muscle in my body tightened.
"My mom?"
"Yes."
"My mother died."
"I know."
"Then why are you talking about her?"
Ethan looked at me.
There was grief in his eyes.
Real grief.
That frightened me more than anything else.
"How did you know my mother?"
Ethan whispered, "Very well."
I stepped backward.
The baby whimpered.
I immediately held her closer.
"What's her name?"
Ethan looked confused.
"My mother."
"Laura."
I stopped breathing.
"Laura Miller."
Anybody could have found that.
Maybe.
Then he said, "She used to burn toast every Sunday because she'd start reading and forget she'd put it in."
My eyes filled.
Nobody knew that.
Not Mrs. Alvarez.
Not my teachers.
Not my caseworker.
Nobody.
I remembered smoke in our tiny kitchen.
Mom laughing.
Windows open in January.
Me waving a dish towel beneath the smoke detector.
I hadn't thought about that in years.
"How do you know that?"
Ethan's face blurred through my tears.
"Because I was there."
The baby boy began crying again.
Ethan winced while adjusting him.
I forgot my questions for a moment.
"You're holding him wrong."
His eyebrow moved.
"I'm his father."
"You're also hurt."
I knelt and helped reposition the blanket.
He watched me.
"You really are exactly like her."
"Don't say that."
"Why?"
"Because people always say that when somebody's dead."
He looked away.
"I'm sorry."
Sirens sounded somewhere in the distance.
I felt relief.
Then Ethan became terrified.
"Evelyn?"
"I'm listening."
"Are those yours?"
"No."
His entire body changed.
"Harper, get down."
"What?"
"Now."
He pulled me behind a stack of pallets.
I protected the baby's head.
The sirens grew louder.
A black SUV appeared at the far end of the alley.
It wasn't an ambulance.
Evelyn's voice came sharply through the phone.
"Harper, do exactly what Ethan says."
"Who are those people?"
"We don't know."
That wasn't reassuring.
Ethan struggled to stand.
He couldn't.
I put one arm beneath his shoulder.
"You can't walk."
"I have to."
"You're heavy."
Despite everything, he almost laughed.
"I'm sorry."
We moved behind the loading dock.
The SUV slowed.
Headlights swept across the warehouse wall.
I could hear my own breathing.
Ethan leaned close.
"There's a service door behind the pallets."
I found it.
Locked.
"Great."
"Top frame."
"What?"
"Key."
I reached above the door.
My fingers found cold metal.
I unlocked it.
Inside was darkness.
I looked at Ethan.
"How did you know?"
He didn't answer.
We stumbled inside.
The building smelled like dust and rust.
Ethan closed the door behind us.
The babies cried.
"That's going to give us away," I whispered.
"I know."
I bounced the little girl gently.
"Hey. Hey, it's okay."
She quieted.
Ethan stared at me.
"What?"
"Nothing."
"People keep looking at me like that tonight."
"You remind me of someone."
"My mother?"
"Yes."
A sound came from outside.
Footsteps.
Ethan pulled me farther into the warehouse.
"There's an office upstairs."
"How do you know this building?"
"This was one of my properties."
"Was?"
"I sold it."
"Why?"
"Because somebody wanted it."
That made no sense.
But almost nothing did anymore.
We reached a metal staircase.
Ethan stopped at the first step.
He was getting weaker.
"I can't carry you and two babies."
"You shouldn't have to."
He handed me the boy.
Now I held both twins.
They were so tiny.
Ethan gripped the railing and climbed.
One step.
Another.
I stayed beside him.
Halfway up, he nearly collapsed.
"Come on," I whispered.
He looked at me.
"You're eleven."
"So?"
"You shouldn't be doing this."
"Neither should you."
That shut him up.
We reached the office.
Ethan locked the door.
There was an old desk, two chairs and a dirty window overlooking the alley.
The SUV remained below.
Three people got out.
I couldn't see their faces.
My phone vibrated.
Evelyn.
I answered.
"Where are you?"
"Inside."
"Good."
"That's not good. People are outside."
"I know."
"You keep saying that."
"Harper, there's something inside Ethan's jacket."
Ethan looked sharply at the phone.
"No."
"Ethan."
"Not yet."
"What?"
He looked at me.
"Nothing."
I was getting tired of that word.
"What's in your jacket?"
"Harper—"
I held out my hand.
"Show me."
For several seconds he didn't move.
Then he reached inside his suit.
He removed a small envelope.
My name was written across the front.
HARPER MILLER.
The handwriting made my knees weak.
I knew it.
I had birthday cards in a box beneath my bed written in that same looping blue ink.
My mother's handwriting.
"Where did you get that?"
Ethan said nothing.
I put the twins carefully onto an old couch and reached for the envelope.
Ethan caught my wrist.
"Not here."
"You have something my dead mother wrote to me."
"Yes."
"Give it to me."
"Harper."
"Give it to me!"
He released it.
I tore open the envelope.
Inside was a photograph.
My mother looked younger.
She was standing beside Ethan.
And between them was a man whose face had been folded backward so I couldn't see it.
On the back, Mom had written:
For Harper.
When she is old enough, tell her the truth.
My hands shook.
Below that was another sentence.
Ethan saw it at the same moment I did.
If anything happens to me, find Daniel.
I looked at Ethan.
"Who's Daniel?"
His face went pale.
Before he could answer, something moved outside the office.
One of the twins stopped crying.
A floorboard creaked.
Then someone on the other side of the locked door whispered:
May you like
"Harper?"
The doorknob slowly began to turn.
