Chapter 1 - The Boy in the Snow
The first thing I noticed about the boy was his shoes.
They were black leather, perfectly polished, and probably cost more than everything I owned put together.
The second thing I noticed was that one of those expensive shoes was twisted sideways beneath him.
The third thing I noticed was that he was freezing.
I stood beneath the bare branches of a tree in Central Park, hugging my arms against my chest while snow collected in the dark tangles of my hair.
For three weeks, I had trained myself not to notice people.
People brought questions.
Questions brought police officers, shelters, social workers, paperwork, and adults deciding where you belonged.
I had learned to keep my head down.
Walk quickly.
Never stay beneath bright lights.
Never sleep in the same place two nights in a row.
And above all, never let anyone realize you were alone.
But that night, the boy was lying beside the edge of a path, half hidden behind a bench.
And he was looking directly at me.
“Help.”
The word barely made it from his lips.
I stopped.
Every instinct I had developed during my three weeks on the streets told me to keep moving.
Then he tried to push himself upright.
He screamed.
It wasn’t loud.
That somehow made it worse.
I ran toward him.
“Don’t move.”
He looked about my age, maybe a little younger. His dark hair was soaked with melting snow, and one side of his face had a scrape running from his eyebrow to his cheek.
“My leg.”
“I know.”
Actually, I didn’t know anything.
I wasn’t a doctor.
I wasn’t even good at science.
But I knew something was wrong.
His right leg looked awkward beneath him, and he was shaking so violently that his teeth clicked together.
“What happened?”
“I fell.”
“From where?”
He pointed weakly toward a stone embankment beyond the trees.
“I was running.”
“From someone?”
His eyes flicked toward mine.
Then away.
That frightened me more than his answer would have.
I crouched beside him.
“Do you have a phone?”
He hesitated.
Then his hand moved toward his coat pocket.
I found a black phone with a cracked corner.
The screen lit up immediately.
Twenty-three missed calls.
Then another appeared.
Dad.
The phone vibrated in my hand.
I stared at it.
I remembered what Mr. Thomas had told me two weeks earlier.
He was an older homeless man who slept near the subway entrance some nights and disappeared whenever the police came.
“Adults with money,” he once told me, “think every problem belongs to them as soon as they see it.”
I didn’t know if that was true.
But I knew I didn’t want anyone asking who I was.
The boy shivered beside me.
“What’s your name?”
“Ethan.”
“I’m Lily.”
His eyelids began sinking.
I grabbed his shoulder.
“No. Stay awake.”
“I’m tired.”
Panic moved through me.
Cold made people sleepy.
I knew that much.
Mr. Thomas had warned me about winter.
“When the freezing stops hurting and starts feeling comfortable,” he had said, “that’s when you’re in real trouble.”
I looked at the phone again.
Another call.
Dad.
Another.
Dad.
I pressed the green button.
“Ethan?”
The voice exploded through the speaker so loudly that I nearly dropped the phone.
“Ethan, answer me! Where are you?”
“My name is Lily.”
Silence.
Then, instantly, suspicion.
“Who are you?”
“I found your son.”
“Where?”
“Central Park.”
“Put him on.”
“He can barely talk.”
The man inhaled sharply.
“What happened?”
“He fell. His leg is hurt, and he’s freezing.”
There was a sound on the other end. A door slamming.
Then another man saying something I couldn’t understand.
The father came back.
“Lily, listen to me very carefully. Tell me exactly where you are.”
I looked around.
There were trees, snow, benches, lamps, paths.
“I don’t know the name.”
“Describe anything you see.”
“A statue.”
“Which statue?”
“I don’t know.”
My voice rose.
“Okay,” he said quickly. “That’s okay. What else?”
“A path. There’s a storm drain. And a stone wall. The statue is a man on a horse, I think.”
Someone on his end shouted.
“I know it,” the father said. “I’m coming.”
“How long?”
“Less than ten minutes.”
Ethan laughed weakly.
“Dad says everything takes ten minutes.”
His father heard him.
“Ethan?”
The man’s voice broke.
Ethan closed his eyes.
I shook him.
“Hey.”
His eyes opened.
“I’m here.”
His father exhaled.
“Keep him talking, Lily. Please.”
Please.
It had been a long time since an adult had said please to me like they meant it.
“What do I talk about?”
“Anything.”
I lowered the phone.
“Tell me about your dad.”
Ethan gave a tiny smile.
“He owns buildings.”
“That sounds boring.”
“He owns companies too.”
“Still boring.”
“He has a helicopter.”
I stared at him.
“Okay. That’s less boring.”
He smiled again.
It vanished quickly.
“He works all the time.”
Something about the way he said it made me stop joking.
“Like how much?”
“All the time.”
He stared toward the snow.
“Sometimes I don’t see him for two days, even when we’re in the same apartment.”
I didn’t know what to say.
I had spent three weeks wishing someone cared enough to wonder where I was.
Ethan apparently lived in a home so large that his own father could disappear inside it.
“He’ll come,” I told him.
“He won’t.”
“He’s already coming.”
“He always sends somebody.”
I remembered the terror in his father’s voice.
“Not tonight.”
Ethan looked at me.
“You don’t know him.”
“No.”
I rubbed his hands harder.
“But I heard him.”
His lips had gone pale.
I looked down at my coat.
It wasn’t much of a coat.
Brown fabric.
Broken zipper.
One sleeve longer than the other because I had stitched it badly after it tore.
I had found it in a donation bin behind a church on my second night outside.
It was the only reason I had survived several freezing nights.
I knew what would happen if I took it off.
I also knew what might happen if I didn’t.
I pulled it from my shoulders.
“What are you doing?” Ethan whispered.
“Helping.”
“No.”
I wrapped it around him.
“You’ll freeze.”
“I’m always cold.”
“That’s not funny.”
“It wasn’t a joke.”
His eyes filled with something I didn’t want to see.
Pity.
I hated pity.
“Don’t look at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like I’m sad.”
“You are sad.”
“Maybe you hit your head harder than I thought.”
He almost laughed.
Then his body jerked with another shiver.
I tucked the coat around him.
“Stay awake.”
“My dad is going to ask questions.”
“Then you answer them.”
“About you.”
“That’s why I’m leaving when he gets here.”
Ethan stared at me.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“You can’t.”
“Watch me.”
“You saved me.”
“I called a phone number.”
“You gave me your coat.”
“It’s ugly anyway.”
“It’s warm.”
I looked away.
The truth was, it was warmer on him than I had felt in weeks.
Because for once, something I owned mattered to somebody besides me.
Then headlights flashed through the trees.
A black SUV stopped where the park road met the path.
Doors opened before the vehicle had fully stopped.
Men in dark coats climbed out.
And then I saw him.
Ethan’s father.
He wasn’t walking.
He was running.
His expensive shoes slipped once in the snow.
He didn’t care.
His suit jacket was open, tie loose, hair disordered.
He looked nothing like the kind of billionaire I had imagined.
He looked like a terrified father.
“Ethan!”
Ethan’s face changed.
“Dad?”
The man dropped to his knees.
He gathered his son carefully into his arms.
“I’m here.”
His voice cracked.
“I’m here, buddy.”
Ethan buried his face against him.
“You came.”
Those two words seemed to hurt the man.
“Of course I came.”
Paramedics arrived moments later.
The park filled with movement.
Questions.
Equipment.
Radios.
Security guards.
Too many adults.
Exactly what I feared.
I backed away.
No one noticed.
Good.
I took another step.
Then another.
Ethan’s father looked up.
His gaze moved over me.
My thin shirt.
My bare arms.
The snow.
Then the old brown coat wrapped around his son.
His expression changed.
“You gave him that?”
I froze.
“He needed it.”
One of the paramedics lifted Ethan onto a stretcher.
Someone asked the father to move.
Another security guard spoke into his radio.
That was my chance.
I turned.
“Lily.”
I kept walking.
“Lily, wait.”
I walked faster.
Trees were twenty feet away.
If I reached them, I could cut toward the west path.
Then the subway.
Then somewhere nobody knew me.
“Dad!”
Ethan shouted from the stretcher.
I stopped without meaning to.
“Don’t let her go!”
Everyone turned.
I felt suddenly exposed beneath the park lights.
Ethan pushed weakly against the blanket covering him.
“She saved me.”
“Ethan, lie still,” a paramedic said.
“Dad, please.”
His voice broke.
“Don’t make her sleep outside again.”
Silence.
Even the security men stopped moving.
Ethan’s father looked at me.
Not at my clothes.
Not at my dirty sneakers.
At me.
I wanted to run.
Instead, he removed his suit jacket.
He approached slowly, as though he understood that one wrong movement would send me disappearing into the darkness.
He placed the jacket around my shoulders.
Warmth hit me so suddenly my eyes burned.
“I’m Daniel Mercer,” he said.
Of course I recognized the name.
Everyone did.
Technology companies.
Hotels.
Real estate.
A man whose face appeared on business magazines sitting in grocery store racks.
But in that moment, none of that mattered.
He adjusted the jacket around me.
“You’re freezing.”
“I’m fine.”
“No, you’re not.”
My throat tightened.
Adults always said things as commands.
His next words were different.
“You don’t have to explain anything tonight.”
I looked at Ethan.
He was watching us.
Daniel followed my gaze.
Then he said something I had almost forgotten how to believe.
“You’re safe right now.”
For a second, I couldn’t breathe.
Safe.
Such a small word.
Such an impossible one.
Then one of Daniel’s security men approached.
“Mr. Mercer.”
Something about his expression made Daniel turn.
The man lowered his voice, but I heard him anyway.
“We found Ethan’s backpack.”
Daniel’s face hardened.
“Where?”
“Near the east entrance.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
The security man glanced at Ethan.
Then at me.
“The boy didn’t simply fall.”
A chill went through me that had nothing to do with the snow.
Daniel’s voice dropped.
“What are you saying?”
The man pulled something from a clear evidence bag.
A severed backpack strap.
Cleanly cut.
“Someone was with him.”
Ethan had told me he was running.
I looked toward the dark trees.
Suddenly Central Park didn’t feel empty anymore.
Daniel noticed my expression.
“Lily?”
I swallowed.
“There was something Ethan didn’t tell you.”
Daniel went still.
“What?”
I looked at the boy on the stretcher.
Then toward the path disappearing into darkness.
“He wasn’t just running.”
I tightened Daniel’s jacket around my shoulders.
“He was running from someone.”
And before Daniel could ask another question, Ethan lifted his head and whispered four words that changed everything.
May you like
“I know who it was.”
---
