The Center's Child

JUST WHO . . . OR WHAT . . . IS CAMDEN ARCHER?

ONLY REAL BOYS HAVE SOULS, and if Camden's not real . . . Jake Turner doesn't even want to think about that.

Camden Archer lives at the Center, along with seventeen other orphans.

Jake Turner is Cam's teacher at a Denver middle school. A storm throws them together, igniting Jake's suspicions that the boy isn't what he appears to be.

Cam grows an inch in one weekend, and his physical responses are too quick for Jake to follow-when the boy thinks Jake isn't watching.

The clincher for Jake? When Cam recovers miraculously from a deadly car accident that Jake was certain killed the boy.

Even Cam's subsequent attendance at Sacred Heart doesn't entirely convince Jake the boy is heaven-bound. Who is there to hear his confession, if he's not real?

The boy's abduction, and his ensuing pursuit by the Center's highly trained team of ex-military types, pull Jake into a life-or-death quest to save the boy he's come to care about as if he were his own.

In the deadly conflict that follows, Jake has to come to terms with his doubts about Cam. He also has to answer the bigger question: What does it mean to have a soul?

It matters very much to Cam, especially if the boy doesn't survive long enough for Jake to save him.