"Broken Promise" by Linwood Barclay - Child of Mystery

No matter how settled we may get in any given city through all our years of moving around, there's nothing out there that will ever come close to replicating the sensation our childhood homes can bring. For most of us, the places we grew up as children serve as the starting point, the zeroth coordinate of our existence, the safe haven we can always retreat to when things go sour in life.