Chapter 1
"Fifty dollars. Not a penny more."
The old jeweler's voice was so cold that the young woman standing across the glass counter nearly broke down.
Her black polo shirt was damp from the rain. Her eyes were red from crying, and the small gold locket trembling between her fingers was clearly the last valuable thing she owned.
"Please," she whispered. "My daughter needs antibiotics. The prescription is fifty-eight dollars."
The jeweler barely looked at her.
"If the necklace means that much to you, maybe you shouldn't be selling it."
For a moment, the woman looked as if he had slapped her.
Then she slowly nodded, took the fifty-dollar bill, and pushed the locket toward him.
"It belonged to my mother," she said quietly.
The bell above the door rang as she disappeared into the rain.
The old man sighed and picked up the locket, expecting nothing more than a cheap piece of scratched gold.
But then he noticed something on the back.
Two tiny letters.
Almost completely worn away.
E.B.
His face changed.
His hands began shaking.
Thirty-one years earlier, he had carved those same initials into a gold locket with his own hands.
He pressed the clasp.
Click.
The locket opened.
Inside was a faded photograph of a woman he had buried years ago.
His wife.
Beside it was a photograph of a little girl who had vanished without a trace when she was six years old.
The jeweler stopped breathing.
Then he looked toward the glass door in horror.
"Oh my God..."
He dropped everything and ran into the rain.
May you like
Because the desperate stranger he had just refused eight extra dollars might be connected to the daughter he had spent most of his life trying to find.
And what police discovered next made him wish he had opened that locket thirty seconds sooner.
