The Book of Lies

40

The blue lights swirled, the siren howled, and Naomi held her breath.

Three minutes. She’d be there in three minutes, Naomi told herself, clenching the wheel as her car slowly elbowed through the lunchtime traffic on Miami Gardens Drive.

In her ear, Scotty was gone. She needed her cell to make sure—

“Pick up the damn phone, Mom!” she screamed. But all she heard back was a droning ring, again and again and—

“This is Naomi,” her own voice replied on the answering machine. “I’m probably screening you right now, so—”

With a click, she hung up and started again. Mom’s cell. Still no answer. Home phone . . .

“This is Naomi. I’m probably screening you—”

Click. Redial.

Two minutes. Less than two minutes, she swore to herself as she cut off a black Acura and the phone continued to ring. . . . Dammit, why isn’t she picking up!?

On the GPS screen, the glowing crimson triangle still hadn’t moved from her house. No, don’t think the worst—

Swerving across two lanes of traffic, Naomi jerked the wheel to the left, and her dark green Chevy bucked and bounced over the last few inches of the street’s concrete turning lane. The phone beeped and she reacted instinctively.

“Mom?” she asked, picking up.

“Local police are en route,” Scotty said. “For all you know, this is just—”

“Just what!? He’s at my house, Scotty—with my son!”

“That doesn’t mean—”

“How the hell’d he know where I live!?”

Ramming the gas, Naomi sank her nails deep into the rubber of the steering wheel. As she craned her neck wildly back and forth, she fought to get a better look past the thin trees. At the far end of the block was a modest, faded yellow rambler with a crooked garage door and . . .

Her mom’s car. Still in the driveway. Oh, no . . .

“Who gave him my address!?” she shouted at Scotty.

“Listen, you need to—”

“I’ve never been listed! Someone gave him my damn address!”

The brakes were still screaming as Naomi threw open her car door and leapt outside.

“Nomi, if he’s still in there . . .” Scotty warned.

“Scotty, swear to me you didn’t give anyone my address. By accident or on purpose . . . I need to hear it.”

“A-Are you—? I— Of course I didn’t!”

There was real pain in his voice. She trusted that pain.

“Lucas!” Naomi screamed, pulling her gun and sprinting for the front door. Her feet felt like anvils, her throat like a pinched straw. She tried to breathe. . . .

“Luuucas!” She jabbed her key at the bottom lock, but even before it got there . . . the door slowly swung away from her. God. It was already open.

She could hear the sirens in the distance.

“Nomi, you need to wait,” Scotty pleaded. “Don’t go in without—”

Darting inside, she felt her heart kicking in her neck. Her eyes scanned the hallway . . . the front closet . . . but all she was really looking for were her son’s shoes . . . There.

Lucas’s flip-flops.

That means Lucas is still—

Frantically sprinting toward the kitchen, she heard her phone beep in her ear. Another call.

“What’re you, a mental patient?” her mother asked as Naomi clicked over. “Who leaves fifteen rambling messages like that?”

“L-Lucas . . . where’s—? Where are you?” Naomi asked, her gun pointed straight out and her back touching the wall as she prowled around the corner of her dark and clearly empty kitchen.

“The video store—we walked from the park—though I didn’t realize that was a reason to call out the entire Customs Service,” her mother shot back.

“Where’s Lucas?”

“Right next to me. He wants one of those Star War movies—those are okay, right? No nudity or anything?”

Naomi doubled back into the hallway and quickly checked both bedrooms . . . closets . . . bathrooms . . . All empty. Back in the living room, she studied the carpet, the sofa cushions, even the slight sway of the vertical blinds that led to the backyard. Nothing was out of place. The back door was still locked. But something still . . .

“Mom, go to the back of the video store,” Naomi said into the phone. “There’s a bathroom there—”

“Wait, what happened?”

“Just find the bathroom—they’ll let you use it if you ask nice—then lock the door and wait there for me, okay? I don’t care who bangs on that door, you don’t open it, you don’t let Lucas out, you don’t check on anything until I’m there. Only me.”

Naomi pulled out her GPS device, clicked back to Scotty on her cell, then began to search for the red triangle.

“Nomi, don’t click off like that!” Scotty scolded. “I thought you were—”

“Shh.” It took a moment to reorient herself. On-screen, the tiny crimson triangle stood completely still. So did Naomi. She was rushing so fast, she never even saw it. According to the screen, the beacon was now coming from behind her.

Naomi twisted around and dashed up the main hallway, rammed her shoulder at the front door, and crashed outside, back into the bright sun.

Outside, her front yard was empty. There was no breeze. And no sound but the shrieking sirens that finally turned onto her block.

“He’s gone,” she whispered.

“You sure?” Scotty asked. “If he came there— No note? No message?”

On-screen, the crimson triangle overlapped almost perfectly with the white, elongated triangle that represented Naomi’s location. Overlapped . . . Looking straight down, Naomi stepped off the exploding-fireworks-shaped doormat she still hadn’t removed since July Fourth and took a peek underneath. On the ground was a tiny and familiar flat oval disk.

“Oh, he definitely left a message,” Naomi said, pinching the transmitter with two fingers. Ellis didn’t come here just to leave it under the mat. If her son had been home, Ellis would’ve— A boil of anger bubbled up the back of her neck. The last time she was this mad was during her repo years. The victim sued for the cost of the hospital bills. And won. Four figures.

“You okay there?” Scotty asked.

Naomi let go of the welcome mat, and as it slapped against the concrete, a swirl of dust cartwheeled out the sides. For a moment, Naomi just knelt there, thinking about her son, and her mom, and everything that might’ve happened if something might’ve happened. But it hadn’t. And that’s what made it so damn easy to focus back on Ellis. And Cal. Especially on Cal. The former agent . . . the one who was at the port last night . . . and the one who could’ve easily given her family’s address to—

“You’re plotting their deaths now, aren’t you,” Scotty said.

“I want the next flight to Cleveland.”

“Yeah, and I want to eat cream sauce without feeling puffy after.”

Naomi didn’t say a word.

“I was joking, Nomi. (Kinda.) Now do you want the bad news or the really bad news?”

“Bad news.”

“You just missed one of the flights to Cleveland; you’re on the next one.”

“And the really bad?”

“I got Ellis’s full file from the prosecutor, like you asked. They got everything in here: psych profiles, behavior reports, even identifying marks.”

“I thought you said this was really bad?”

“Hear that noise? That’s the other shoe falling, Nomi. Because that tattoo on Ellis’s hand? You’re not gonna believe what it stands for.”