The Book of Lies (16 page)

“Hjjjkkkk . . . hjjkkkk . . .” At first, Ellis thought it was a sneeze. Then, still leaning in the back door, he saw Benoni’s head jerk down, then up, then down again. A slobbering waterfall of drool poured from the dog’s mouth. Her legs shook.

“Benoni!” he screamed, fighting to pull the dog out.

“Hjjkkk . . . hjjjkkkkk . . . !” The convulsing quickened, and the dog’s legs buckled as she collapsed in the backseat. She was having a seizure.

“Benoni!”
Frantically gripping her legs, her body . . . he lifted her out through the back door.

“Hggggguuh . . .” There was a loud splash as a clear, mucousy liquid erupted from Benoni’s mouth, spraying the concrete and pooling on the garage floor. Benoni hacked and coughed a few times, jerking her head as though she were trying to twist it off. Ellis held Benoni close, embracing her as the acidic smell hit. Vomit. Not a seizure. For her to throw up like that, she was choking on something.

There. On the floor of the garage: A small, bright orange gob peeked out of the shallow puddle like a chewed piece of gum. But as Ellis reached down for it—

He pinched the dripping, mangled gummy worm with two fingers . . . and saw the gray, flat oval disk that was stuck in its half-chewed web.

A transmitter. She put a—

Ellis’s phone beeped, and a text message appeared on-screen:

Too late.

We’re off.

Next flight is 1 hr.

—The Prophet

In his lap, the dog sneezed, then whimpered slightly as she finally caught her breath.

“Yeah, I know, girl—Cal’s gone,” Ellis said, patting Benoni’s stomach and squinting hard at the oval transmitter. “Don’t worry, we’ll use the time. The Judge should be able to find her easily.”

Benoni again coughed a wet cough.

“Exactly, girl,” he said as he tweezed two fingers toward the transmitter’s battery. “I don’t want to hurt her, either.”

But that’s what it took to be Ellis.

38

T
here was a high-pitched
bloop
as the red triangle blinked and disappeared.

“Craparoo,” Naomi whispered to herself as she looked down at the GPS screen.

“You need to grab that?” Chief Benny Ocala asked through the phone as Naomi’s car zipped toward the rental car building.

Naomi stared outside, where a dozen passengers—most of them tourists—buzzed like bees from the rental car bus and flooded the front doors of the modern white building, making it far too hard to see. Based on Ellis’s last signal, he was close, but . . . No, there’s no way he knew Naomi was following. And to track her that fast? No way. But that didn’t stop her from staring at each and every passenger.

“Agent Molina?” Ocala asked.

“Sorry . . . I was—” She tucked the GPS back in her jacket and followed the signs for
Departures.
If she was lucky, Scotty would be calling in soon with the right terminal. “So you were telling me about Cal.”

“No, you were asking me
questions
about Cal. I was simply being courteous and trying hard not to embarrass you. Agent Molina—”

“Naomi.”

“Naomi, even when you dial our phone number, it’s like you’re entering sovereign land, as in
sovereign nation
, as in the most utilitarian use for your badge right now is as a Halloween costume, though to be honest, we Native Americans don’t much like Halloween.”

“See, I hate Halloween, too—my son dressed up as a Thug Life rapper this year, whatever that is. But I got a potential homicide I need to ask your pal Cal about.”

“Homicide’s a state crime. You’re a federal employee. Wanna try again?”

“The victim is a guy I partner with—Timothy Balfanz—he’s a friend,” Naomi explained, hitting the brakes at the crosswalk and carefully watching the small group of passengers that were now passing in front of her, on their way to Terminal 2. “So no offense, Chief, but if someone went up to one of
your
people—say, that sweet girl with the lisp that I left my message with—if someone nabbed her on a dark road and chopped her into hors d’oeuvres . . . I’d like to think, if it was someone
you
cared about and you needed
my
help, I’d do more than tell you off and bad-mouth Halloween.”

Ocala was silent as Naomi noticed a sudden blur in her rearview, where a tall man in a windbreaker stepped out of the crosswalk and cut behind her car.

“I just wanna know what Cal called about,” Naomi pleaded, glancing over her shoulder and out the back window. The man was already gone. And being out here, exposed to every passing airport stranger, she knew she wasn’t being safe.

“Y’know what the Seminole word for
guilt
is?” Ocala finally asked.
“You.”
She heard a sudden
thunk
through the phone. Like a file cabinet being opened and shut. “I got the bullet here that they pulled from his dad last night.”

“His dad?”

“Cal asked me to run it through the ATF folks, who traced it back to Cleveland and some obscure gun that was used to kill a man named Mitchell Siegel—”

“Mitchell Siegel,” Naomi said, jotting down the name as she heard a beep through her earpiece. Caller ID told her it was Scotty. “I’ll run him ASAP.”

“Think what you want, Naomi,” Ocala added, “but I’m telling you right now, Cal Harper isn’t the demon in this.”

“A dirty badge is a dirty badge—you know that. Besides, if he’s such an angel, why doesn’t he at least come in and talk with us?”

“Maybe he’s worried that instead of listening to reason, you’ll just spout silly catchphrases like ‘A dirty badge is a dirty badge.’ ”

“I appreciate your help,” Naomi said to Ocala as she clicked to the other line.

“Nomi, I think I found Cal,” Scotty blurted. “I need to double-check, but on that airport list of who paid in cash, there were a few tickets bought this morning—at least three headed to Cleveland.”

Naomi was about to re-enter the loop for departures when a high-pitched
bloop
whistled from her GPS device. Ellis’s tracer—the bright crimson triangle—was back in place and once again moving.

It took a moment to read the streets and orient herself, but as the crimson triangle turned onto NE 23rd Court . . .

Naomi’s eyes went wide.
No. That can’t—

Oh, God.

“Nomi, you okay?”

“He’s there, Scotty.”

“Where? What’re you talking about?”

“Twenty-third Court. Ellis . . . he’s . . . I think Ellis is at my house.”

39

L
adies and gentlemen, the captain has turned off the
Fasten Seat Belt
sign—you may now move freely about the cabin,” the flight attendant announces as I stare through the egg-shaped window and watch Florida disappear beneath the cotton candy clouds.

All around me, seats are empty. Still, all three of us sit separately, just to keep it safe.

Checking over my shoulder, I peer ten rows back at my dad, who’s fast asleep with his head sagging forward. After everything we’ve been through, he needs some rest. So do I. Across from him, I look for Serena, but her seat’s empty. I glance back at my dad. Don’t tell me she snuck over to—

“Calvin,” a female voice interrupts, “would you mind if I joined you?”

In the aisle, Serena stands over me, her back leaning on the edge of the seat behind her, as if she’s trying to steer clear of my personal space. I’m tempted to keep her there, but I can’t risk letting anyone overhear.

She slides into the aisle seat, with the empty middle seat between us, then crosses her legs Indian style. It’s then that I see she’s barefoot. “I appreciate the kindness,” she says.

“I didn’t offer any.”

“You were about to, Calvin. Your eyes said so.”

I’m ready to vomit right there. “Listen, Serena—I don’t know you very well, and I don’t know Lloyd much better. But when I look at his expensive silk shirts . . . or his unscuffed shoes—I know my dad has a big need to impress. And as I know from my clients, desperate men are the most easily mesmerized by new-agey, yoga-filled nonsense—especially when it comes from younger, sexed-up women who lock pinkies with them in hopes of getting whatever it is they think those men can get for them. Now I realize this isn’t a complex analogy, so to stay with that theme: Go flap your lashes somewhere else.”

She looks at me in silence for what seems like a full minute. “I’m sorry I made you angry.”

“No,
angry
’s what you get when someone dings your car. This is the cold bitter rage that comes when someone kicks around in your personal crisis.”

“Calvin—”

“Cal,” I growl at her.

She’s still unfazed. “Cal, I’m not sleeping with your father.”

“Then what’s with the pinkies and the hand-holding?”

“He was shaking, Cal. In all your anger, did you not see that? I was trying to calm him—refocus his energy.”

“His
energy
? Oh, Lord. Listen, even as a stranger, I can tell he’s clearly in love with you.”

“And I love him, but as I’ve told him, it’s solely as a teacher. When we first started doing meditation—”

“Whoa ho ho—my father couldn’t meditate if—”

“He’s doing it right now,” she says, calm as ever.

I turn back to my dad, whose head is still down. His eyes are closed. I thought he was sleeping, but the way he’s swaying forward and back . . .

“The key is breathing through your nose,” Serena adds. “Each breath needs to reach down to your diaphragm.”

I stare at her across the empty middle seat. She nods and smiles.

“Serena, why’re you really here? And please don’t insult me by saying you came all the way to the airport and potentially risked your life just to wave good-bye and teach my dad how to breathe and realign his energy.”

Most people turn away when you ask them a hard question. Serena continues to look straight at me, and her yellow blue eyes . . . I hate to say it . . . there’s a real depth to her stare.

“He helped my brother. Andrew,” she finally says.

“Who? My dad?”

“You almost had it right before, Cal. Your dad—he’s
Andrew’s
sponsor,” she explains. “And my brother—been in AA for years—always relapsing. A few months ago, the judge sent him back, and your dad—it wasn’t anything heroic—but your dad was nice to him. They connected. Really connected. Whatever they had in common, Andrew was Andrew again.”

“So all this—coming to help my dad—it’s just a thank-you?”

“Oh, no. I’m not just helping your dad. I’m helping myself,” she says as easily as if she’s telling me her shoe size. Reading my confusion, she adds, “Two weeks ago, they found Andrew’s body in the sea grapes grove—near Holiday Park. But it was your dad who helped us locate him—he knew Andrew’s old hiding spots. He knew my brother. And even though I think you have a hard time with things like this—being near your dad . . . somehow I’m still connected with Andrew.”

“Can I offer you a snack?” a flight attendant interrupts, approaching just behind Serena and holding out a tiny bag of pretzels.

“No peanuts?” Serena asks.

“Sorry, just pretzels,” the attendant says.

“Then I’m meant to have pretzels,” Serena decides, smiling as she pops open the little bag and turns back to me. “Your dad tried to save my brother, Cal. And by helping Andrew—with that strength your dad shows, like in the airport—your father helped
me
. He’s
still
helping me. And I’m helping him. Do you not see that? That’s what being family is—that’s the best part—it’s not tit for tat or who owes more, it’s simply—when one hurts, so does the other; when one finds good, you share in that, too.
That’s
family.” But as Serena continues to stare my way . . . “This is making you uncomfortable, isn’t it?” she asks.

I shake my head, trying to convince her she’s wrong.

She goes silent, her stare digging even deeper. She’s not upset. She’s excited. “I was wrong before. This is why I’m here, isn’t it?” she blurts, not the least bit concerned that we brought her on this plane to save her life. “Not just for what your father and I share . . . the lessons are for you, too, for all three of us. Oh, I didn’t see it before. I mean, until you showed up, I didn’t even think he had family.”

“He
did
have family! He just—” I catch myself, clenching the fuse that’s lit in my chest and digging my feet into the airplane’s thin carpet. “He has a family,” I say quietly. “He just chose to ignore me.”

“You sure about that?” She tugs on her ankles, tightening her Indian-style position and reaching for a pretzel.

“What’re you talking about?”

“You were, what, sixteen years old when he was released? Just taking the SATs, starting to wonder about going to college. You really think having a convicted murderer enter your life was the best thing for you?”

“You don’t know that. You met him, what, four months ago?”

“Six months,” she says. “How’d you know that, anyway?”

“I was bluffing. But that’s my point: You barely know him. I heard you at the hospital, asking if he got the shipment. So answer my question, Serena: Why’d you really come to the airport?”

I wait for her yellow blue eyes to narrow, but they just get wider. She’s not insulted. She’s hurt. “I came for the same reason you did,” she tells me.

“Let me guarantee right now that’s not true.”

“Do you really think you’re the only one whose life didn’t turn out the way they dreamed, Cal? When I was eleven years old, my mother remarried a man who . . . well, shouldn’t’ve been living around eleven-year-old girls. Or their younger brothers. I still pay for those years. But when I was seventeen—when I finally
told
my mom, and she threw me out because she couldn’t handle that it might actually be true—I remember sitting in this filthy McDonald’s. It was pouring, one of those thick Florida rains, and I had this feeling to go outside. When I did, I saw this puddle—shaped like a mitten—that reminded me of this great puddle we used to jump in back when we could afford camp. And reliving that moment . . . that was blissful. Real bliss. All because I listened to that feeling to go outside.”

“Okay—so to find true meaning in life, I need to go stand out in some sentient downpour. Very
Shawshank Redemption
.”