The Book of Lies

PROLOGUE

Nineteen years ago

Miami, Florida

When Calvin Harper was five, his petite, four-foot-eleven-inch mom ripped the pillow from his bed at three a.m. and told him that dust mites were feeding off his skin. “We need to wash it. Now!” On that night, his mom seemed to change into someone else, as if she were possessed by some ghost or devil . . . or demon.

His dad told Calvin it was one of Mommy’s “bad days.” The doctors had a name for it, too. Bipolar.

When Calvin was seven, his mom called home with a cheery slur in her voice (the demon loved a good drink) to proudly tell him she had carved Calvin’s initials in her arm. When Calvin was eight and she was in a drunken rage, she took the family dog to the pound and “accidentally” had him put down. The demon liked laughs.

But none of those nights prepared Calvin for this one.

Fresh from his bath, with his white blond hair still soaking wet and dangling over the birthmark near his left eye, nine-year-old Calvin sat in his room, bearing down on his paper with an orange Crayola, while his parents shouted in the kitchen.

Tonight, the demon was back.

“Rosalie, put it down!” his father growled.

Crash.

“Get away from me, Lloyd!” his mother howled. Clang.

His father grunted. “That’s it—you’re done!” he screamed back.

“You’re done!”

Cling. Clang. Cling.

Calvin twisted the doorknob, ran for the kitchen, and froze as he turned the corner. All the kitchen’s lower drawers were open and empty, their contents—pans, pot lids—scattered across the floor. In the corner, the fridge was open, too—and picked just as clean. Jars of ketchup, soda, and spaghetti sauce were still spinning on the floor. In the center of the kitchen, his six-foot-two-inch dad was bent forward in pain as Mom brandished a fat white jar of mayonnaise, ready to smash her husband in the head.

“Mom?” Calvin said in a small voice.

His mother wheeled around, off balance. The jar fell from her grip. Calvin saw it plummet. As it hit the floor and exploded, there was a low, thick pooomp, sending a mushroom cloud of mayo spraying across the floor. Calvin’s mother never flinched.

“You always root against me!” she seethed at her nine-year-old boy with her dark, alligator green eyes.

“Maniac!” his dad erupted, and with one brutal shove pummeled his wife squarely in the chest.

“Mom!” Calvin shouted.

The blow hit her like a baseball bat, sending her stumbling backward.

“Mom, look out for—”

Her heel hit the mayonnaise at full speed and she flipped backward like a seesaw. If Lloyd hadn’t been so big or so enraged . . . if he hadn’t blown up with such a fierce physical outburst . . . he might not have shoved her so hard. But he did. And as she fell backward, still looking at Calvin, she had no idea that the back of her neck was headed straight toward the lower kitchen drawer that was still wide open.

Calvin tried to run forward but could scarcely lift his arms and legs.

In mid-air, his mother was turned toward him, her alligator eyes still burning through him. There was no mistaking her final thought. She wasn’t scared. Or even in pain. She was angry. At him. The white blond, wet-haired boy who caused her to drop the mayo and . . . from that day forward, in his nine-year-old mind . . . the person who caused her to fall.

“Mom!”

She was falling. Falling. Then—

The sound was unforgettable.

“Rosie!” his father screamed, leaping forward and scooping her head toward his chest. Her arms rag-dolled across the mayonnaise-smeared floor.

“Calvin, don’t you look!” Lloyd cried. The tears were running down his twisted Irish nose. “Close your eyes! Don’t you look!”

But Calvin looked. He wanted to cry, but nothing came. He wanted to run but couldn’t move. As he stood frozen, a stream of urine ran down his right leg.

Most lives crumble over time. Cal Harper’s crumbled in one crashing fall. But nineteen years later, thanks to a single call on his radio, he’d begin his quest through history and finally have a chance to put his life together.