Look Again

Chapter Seven

On the screen was a color photo of Timothy Braverman as a baby, and his features were identical to Will's, especially the eyes. Timothy had blue eyes, a shade she had never seen in anyone's eyes but Will's.

My God.

She read the webpage. The top said, Timothy Braverman, and underneath were two photos, side by side. On the right was the black-and-white thumbnail, the age-progressed picture from the white card, but on the left was the color baby photo of Timothy that had made Ellen gasp.

Timothy at one year old, read its caption. The photo had been cropped, a close-up of the baby's face in excellent focus, and it was taken outdoors in front of a lush green hedge. Timothy's blond hair caught the light, his highlights ablaze in the sun, and he grinned broadly, with his mouth turned down on the right, showing only two front teeth. Ellen had seen that very same grin on Will, after he'd finally got healthy.

She studied the screen, wondering what Will looked like when he was that little. She hadn't met him until he was a year and a half old, and the shape of his face then had been more elongated than Timothy's, due to his illness. He had been paler, his skin thin and curiously aged.

Timothy had the exact same face, only healthier, his cheeks a rosy hue under a cheery layer of baby fat.

Ellen read on, avoiding a creeping sense of unease. The page said, For further information, please see www.helpusfindtimothybraverman.com She clicked on the link. The screen changed, and the top of the page read: Help Us Find Our Beloved Son, Timothy Braverman. It was a homemade website with Thomas the Tank Engine chugging around the perimeter. Her heart fluttered, then she dismissed it. It didn't mean anything that Will loved Thomas the Tank Engine, too. All little boys did, probably.

She scanned the webpage. It showed the same baby picture as the ACMAC site, but the photo hadn't been cropped, and she could see the whole picture. Timothy was dressed in a blue Lacoste shirt and jeans, and his legs stuck out straight in front of him, his feet in new white Nikes, their bottoms clean. His pudgy fingers grasped an over-sized set of Fisher-Price plastic keys, and he was sitting very straight in his navy blue stroller. Will used to sit that way too, remarkably erect, as if he didn't want to miss anything.

Ellen reached for her coffee, then set it down without taking a sip. It was so damn eerie, like seeing Will's double. Was it possible that he had a twin somewhere? A brother she hadn't been told about? Those things happened, at least according to Oprah.

She clicked the link for the next page. There were more photos of Timothy as a baby; nine in all, a chronological progression from birth to his first birthday. She scanned the photos of Timothy as an infant, swaddled in a white receiving blanket, then flopped on his tummy, next propping himself up on soft arms, and finally ensconced in a bucket car seat. She had never seen Will as an infant, so she had no idea how he'd looked, but at about ten months old, Timothy began to look exactly like W. She read the text below the photos:

We, Carol and Bill Braverman, will be eternally grateful to anyone who can help us find our son, Timothy Alan Braverman. Timothy was kidnapped by a Caucasian male, about thirty years old, approximately five-foot-ten and 170 pounds. The man stopped the Mercedes driven by Carol, pretending to be a motorist in distress. He pulled a gun on Carol, carjacked the Mercedes, and shot and killed Timothy's nanny,

Cora Elizondo, when she began screaming. He drove away, with Timothy still in the car seat. The suspect called with a ransom demand, which we paid in full, but Timothy was never returned. For a composite drawing of the suspect, see below.

Ellen shuddered. The wrong place at the wrong time; a car driven away with a baby inside. It was every parent's nightmare. Guns, screaming, murder, and in the end, a kidnapped child. She looked at the composite drawing, sketched with simple pencil lines and only slight shading. The suspect had a thin face with narrow eyes, a long nose, and high cheekbones, like your average scary guy. She continued reading:

Carol Braverman says: "In the year God shared Timothy with us, we came to know him as a loving, happy, joyful little boy who adores Thomas the Tank Engine, his cocker spaniel Pete, and lime Jell-O. As his mother, I will never stop looking for him and won't rest until he is back home."

Ellen would have felt exactly the same way, if it had happened to her. She never would have given up on finding W. She returned to the webpage:

The kidnapper is currently wanted by federal and state authorities. The Braverman family has posted a reward of $1,000,000, payable to anyone who has information that leads to finding Timothy. Please do not call with false leads or pranks, or you will be prosecuted to the fullest extent.

Ellen's heart went out to the Bravermans, maybe because of the similarity between the boys. A million bucks was a huge amount for a reward, so the family must have been wealthy, but all the money in the world hadn't kept them safe from harm. She clicked back to the first page of the website and looked again at the baby photo of Timothy. On impulse, she scrolled over the picture and hit the Print button.

"Hey, girlfriend," said a voice at her shoulder, and Ellen reflexively clicked the mouse, so her screensaver of Will popped back onto the monitor. Standing next to the desk was Sarah Liu, who shot her a quick smile. "How you doing?"

"Fine."

"What's up?"

"Nothing, why?"

"You don't look good. Courtney was right. You sick or something?"

"Nah." Ellen felt unaccountably nervous. The photo of Timothy edged in noisy increments from the printer on her desk. "I just feel bad about Courtney."

"She'll be fine. She knew it was coming."

"No, she didn't." Ellen frowned.

"She said as much in the bathroom."

"But she didn't mean it. And still, it's a shock when it happens."

Sarah lifted an eyebrow. "She was the obvious choice. She wasn't sourced that well, and her writing wasn't as good as yours or mine."

"That's not true," Ellen shot back, hurt for Courtney, even in absentia. Meanwhile, the photo of Timothy slid from the printer tray, showing a rectangle of clear blue sky.

"What are you working on, anyway?"

"Research." Ellen was a bad liar, so she asked, "How about you?"

"An embezzlement piece, if Marcelo okays it." Sarah wiggled some papers in her hand. "The police commissioner just agreed to meet with me. An exclusive, which he never gives. So, what are you researching?"

"A follow-up on an old abduction story." Ellen wondered why she kept lying. She could have just told the truth. Funny, I just saw a picture of a kid who looks exactly like W. But something told her to keep it to herself.

"What abduction story?"

"Sulaman, a family abduction I did a while ago."

"Oh, right, I remember. It was so you." Sarah snorted, and Ellen hid her annoyance.

"What do you mean?"

"It was heartfelt. Unlike me, you can pull it off."

"You can do heartfelt," Ellen said, though she wasn't so sure. The photo of Timothy had almost finished printing, and suddenly she wanted Sarah gone. "Sorry, but I have to get back to work."

"Me, too." Sarah's gaze fell on the printer just as the photo shot out, and she plucked it from the tray. "Aha! You're not working."

Ellen's mouth went dry as Sarah scanned the photo of Timothy.

"You took more baby pictures than anybody I know."

"Guilty." Ellen didn't know what else to say. Obviously, Sarah had mistaken Timothy for W.

"See you later." Sarah handed her the photo and took off, and Ellen bent down and slid it into her purse.

Then she picked up the phone to call Susan Sulaman.