The Boy Who Fell at His Table With a Silver Pendant

CHAPTER 1 - THE PENDANT

"Please, sir! You have to help my mom!"

The boy's voice cut through the clatter of forks and lunch chatter at the sidewalk restaurant.

Heads turned.

A chair scraped hard across the stone patio as the child stumbled forward and dropped to his knees beside the old man's table. He couldn't have been more than ten. His coat was too thin for the season, one sleeve torn at the cuff. His face was blotched red from crying.

The white-haired man in the gray suit had been halfway through his meal. A bodyguard stepped in at once, but the old man lifted one hand without looking away from the child.

"Wait."

The boy's chest heaved. Tears ran down his cheeks, but he stayed where he was, hands clasped together as if prayer was the only thing holding him upright.

"Who is your mother?" the old man asked.

The boy shoved a shaking hand inside his coat and pulled out a plain silver pendant on a worn chain. He placed it in the old man's palm.

"She said you would recognize this."

For a second, the old man did not breathe.

His fingers closed around the pendant. The little oval was scratched, ordinary to anyone else. But he knew the nick on one side. He had made it himself years ago when he tried to carve his daughter's initials into the back with a pocketknife on the night she turned sixteen.

His voice broke.

"I gave this to my daughter."

He pushed back his chair so fast it nearly tipped. Then he dropped to one knee in front of the boy, elegant suit forgotten, and gripped the child's shoulders with surprising gentleness.

"Where is she now?"

The boy clutched his sleeve.

"They took her this morning. She said only you could save her."

The old man's face hardened. "Who took her?"

The boy swallowed, terror making his eyes look too old for his face.

"Your wife."

The pendant slipped from the old man's hand and struck the stone between them.

At that exact moment, his bodyguard leaned close and said in a low voice, "Mr. Whitmore, Mrs. Whitmore just called. She says your daughter is dead."