The Book of Lies

69

Cal’s white rental car was moving quickly—not too quickly, no reason to stand out—as it dashed down the final empty stretches of Martin Luther King Jr. Drive and headed toward the entrance ramp for I-90 that was up ahead.

Thankfully, there still weren’t any nearby sirens or much traffic. In fact, as the car blew past the empty bus stops in the Siegels’ old neighborhood, it became abundantly clear that it was one of the only cars on the street.

It wasn’t hard to figure out why.

“This is not good.”

Already racing up the on-ramp, the white Pontiac followed the corkscrew and climbed toward the interstate . . .

. . . where a barricade of half a dozen police cars, motorcycles, and unmarked federal vehicles were blocking the way and at least a dozen state troopers and other agents were ducked down with their guns drawn.

“Freeze or we will shoot you!” one of them barked through a megaphone.

The rental car screeched to a stop just as a silver-and-blue police helicopter rose straight up, appearing from nowhere.

“Out of the vehicle! You’re under arrest!” a speaker in the helicopter blasted from the sky as the ground agents swarmed the rental car, guns still drawn. Within seconds, they tore open all four doors, searching for Cal and his father.

But the only person inside was the light-skinned black woman sitting behind the steering wheel.

“I’m sorry. I give up,” Serena said as she held up her hands in surrender.

“Out!” yelled one of the state troopers, yanking her from the car.

“Whattya mean, they’re gone?” a female voice squawked through a nearby walkie-talkie. “Christ on a crutch, don’t you see what he—? Get someone back to that parking garage! Now!”

“Is that Naomi? Is she okay?” Serena asked, meaning every word.

“Let me be honest with you,” the state trooper said as he clamped handcuffs around Serena’s wrists. “You’ve got far bigger things you need to be worrying about.”

70

It was easy for us to swipe the librarian’s keys. It was even easier to find the librarian’s car (parked right in front, best spot at the library, and hopefully won’t be missed until the end of the day) and zip away in the opposite direction from Serena. The early bird gets the worm, but the smart bird is the one who knows the value of a good distraction. Still, as I grab yet another glance in the rearview, only the fool bird would think we were home free.

“Will you relax? They have no idea where we are,” my father tweet-tweets from the passenger seat as we follow I-80 out of the city. We’ve been driving for nearly forty minutes, and it’s scary how fast billboards and morning traffic have given way to farmland and pristine forests. From the passing signs, we’re deep in Cuyahoga Valley National Park, which is dotted with pine trees and layered in fine white snow imported directly from a Christmas card.

“We shouldn’t have left Serena like that,” I tell him.

“I thought you didn’t trust her.”

“That’s not—” I cut myself off. “I trust her.”

“Why? Because you kissed her, or because she offered to run interference with Naomi?”

I again look in the rearview. There’s no one in sight. “You’re still mad about the kiss, aren’t you?”

My father laughs to himself, staring straight out the front window. “I was never in this for a kiss, Calvin.”

It’s a beautiful response. Plus it deflects from Serena and the kiss and all the other heavy baggage we’ve been trying to hide in our respective overheads. In fact, when you add in the huge frozen lake and the snow-misted trees on our left, it’s damn near the perfect father-son moment.

“Lloyd, are you the Prophet?” I blurt.

“Pardon?”

“It’s not an attack. I just need to— Everywhere we’ve been— everything that’s happened—you’re never surprised. When we found the coffin, you went right for the comic. When we got here, you knew how to find the Siegel house. When we got to the Siegel house, you knew how to find that hole in the wallpaper.”

“And that makes me the enemy?”

I bite my lower lip and take one of Serena’s deep, cleansing breaths. It doesn’t help. “I heard you talking, Lloyd. You were whispering outside the museum . . . then again back at the motel room. Every time we go somewhere, you disappear for a few minutes, and then right after that—ka-pow—Ellis somehow magically knows where we are.”

“I’d never do that to you.”

“Then who were you talking to?”

“Calvin, I don’t even have a phone.”

“Cal. I’m Cal. And that wasn’t the question. Who. Were. You. Talking. To?”

He doesn’t answer.

“Aw, jeez, I knew this was—”

“Your mom,” he says softly. “I was talking to— I was talking to Mom.”

“W-Wha?”

“Sometimes—I don’t know—when things get hard . . .” He stops and turns to me. “You don’t talk to her sometimes?”

My thumbnail picks at the cruise control buttons on the steering wheel. I see him looking at me, but this time I’m the one staring straight ahead. Beads of sweat rise up, filling my brow. “Sometimes,” I whisper. “Usually on her birthday. And sometimes on mine.”

“See, no—don’t save it for birthdays. She’s there, Calvin. I believe it. You talk, and she’s there. She’ll always be there for you.”

The car rumbles across a tall bridge that overlooks one of the most breathtaking and deepest valleys I’ve ever seen, with just the tops of the pine trees peeking through the snow. I usually hate heights. The falls are too long.

“How is she?” I finally ask.

“I don’t—?”

“Mom. You speak to her, right? How is she?”

My father thinks about this one. He turns away, pretending to stare out his passenger window. But I see his watery eyes—and his smile—in the reflection. “She’s better.”

For a moment, we just sit there, listening to the dmm dmm dmm as the car’s tires churn across the long bridge.

“Y’know, I pushed her,” my dad eventually says, still staring out his window. “On that final night—the lawyers said I just tapped her . . . that she slipped on the mayo—but I pushed her. I remember pushing her. Hard.”

I nod, more to myself. “I know. I saw it,” I tell him. Below us, there’s a frozen waterfall—long, captured shards of ice frozen in midfall. Like they’ll never hit bottom. “Still didn’t mean you had to run away.”

“Sure it did.”

I pause at this, for the first time wondering if he might be right. “Even still . . . if I hadn’t walked in—if she hadn’t turned to me—I’m the only reason she didn’t see it coming.”

The dmm dmm dmm flattens and disappears as we leave the bridge. The world has never been more silent.

“Calvin, she forgives you,” my dad insists.

They’re just words—stupid, empty words—but the tears quickly well in my eyes.