Hide - Lisa Gardner

CHAPTER ONE

My father explained it to me the first time when I was seven years old: The world is a

system. School is a system. Neighborhoods are a system. Towns, governments, any

large group of people. For that matter, the human body is a system, enabled by smaller,

biological subsystems.

Criminal justice, definitely a system. The Catholic Church–don't get him started. Then

there's organized sports, the United Nations, and of course, the Miss America Pageant.

"You don't have to like the system," he lectured me. "You don't have to believe in it or

agree with it. But you must understand it. If you can understand the system, you will

survive."

A family is a system.

I'd come home from school that afternoon to discover both of my parents standing in our

front room. My father, a professor of mathematics at MIT, was rarely home before seven.

Now, however, he stood next to my mother's prized floral sofa, with five suitcases

stacked neatly by his feet. My mother was crying. When I opened the front door, she

turned away as if to shield her face, but I could still see her shoulders shaking.

Both of my parents were wearing heavy wool coats, which seemed odd, given the

relatively warm October afternoon.

My father spoke first: "You need to go into your room. Pick two things. Any two things

you want. But hurry, Annabelle; we don't have much time."