Chapter 1 - The Move Nobody Expected
The old man stopped breathing when the ten-year-old moved the white
king.
For one stunned second, the ballroom at Whitlock House forgot how to
make noise. Crystal glasses hovered in the air. A violinist lowered her
bow. At the center of the room, beneath three chandeliers bright enough
to turn night into noon, Victor Whitlock stared at the chessboard as if
the boy had placed a loaded gun between them.
“That move is illegal,” Julian Whitlock said.
“It’s legal,” the boy answered. “You just don’t like it.”
A few guests laughed nervously. The boy did not.
His name was Theo Reyes. He was ten, freckled, and dressed in a white
shirt that had been ironed twice but still wrinkled at the elbows. His
mother, Mara, stood behind him in a simple rose-colored dress, one hand
resting on his shoulder. She looked as if she wanted to pull him away
and run, but her fingers were trembling too hard to move.
Victor lifted one thin hand. “Let him finish.”
“Grandfather, this is a charity auction,” Julian said. “Not a
playground.”
“Then why did you announce that anyone could challenge me?” Victor
asked.
Theo had not been on the guest list. He had arrived with an envelope
addressed to Victor, a battered wooden chess clock, and one sentence his
father had made him memorize.
“If you ever meet Victor Whitlock, ask him why he stopped at move
thirty-seven.”
Now Victor’s eyes had gone to the clock beside the board. Its brass
button was scratched, and one corner had been repaired with a strip of
black tape. The old man recognized it.
“Where did you get that?” he whispered.
“My dad’s,” Theo said. “Elias Reyes. He told me you’d know it.”
The color drained from Victor’s face.
Twenty years earlier, Elias Reyes had been the most brilliant young
player Victor had ever trained. Then Elias was accused of stealing a
chess program, stripped of his reputation, and driven out of the world
he loved. Three years ago, he died in a rain-soaked highway crash,
leaving his wife with debts and his son with a wooden board full of
unanswered questions.
Victor looked from the clock to the boy.
“Who taught you that move?”
Theo slid a folded sheet of notation across the table.
“My dad did.”
Victor opened it. The first line was in Elias’s unmistakable
handwriting. The last line was a question.
Did you know what Julian did?
May you like
Victor’s fingers began to shake.
And Julian, watching over his shoulder, suddenly stopped smiling.
