The Book of Lies

“Stop! Right now! Stop!”

“She’s fine, Calvin. I know what I’m doing.”

“You could’ve killed her!”

“She’s fine,” he repeats, his voice at full gallop as he runs with the chair.

I check the librarian’s chest. She’s passed out but definitely breathing.

“Lloyd, she was just—! Listen to me!Why aren’t you listening?”

“This is it—I finally got it. You see it, don’t you, Calvin? Cain’s murder weapon . . . the Book of Truth—it’s not a book!” he says, shoving the chair against the bookcase and climbing up toward the horn. “You can see the carvings—it’s written on the animal horn! This is it!”

“Lloyd, you can’t do this.”

But he already is. Standing on the chair, he stretches above the bookcase, up toward the trophies, where he grips the animal horn and tries to rip it from the wall. It doesn’t budge. He tries again with both hands. It’s glued on better than he thought.

“Dammit, get down!” I shout.

Undeterred, he yanks the nearest hardcover from the top shelf of the bookcase and flips it around so the spine is facing the wall. Turning it into a makeshift guillotine, he slices the book downward, slamming it into the horn and trying to cleave it from the trophy wall.

“Lloyd, I’m talking to you!”

“He’s not listening, Calvin,” a voice announces from behind me.

I spin back to the front door of the library, and my heart falls from my body. “Th-That’s not possible.”

“Sure it is,” the Prophet says as he slowly steps forward. “All I needed was a little help from your dad.”

75

I’m lost. Back up,” Naomi barked into her phone, scootching up on the gurney as she stared down at the polished floor. “What does this have to do with the Prophet? And where the hell’s Scotty? He explains stuff better than you.”

“Okay, forget the Prophet. Go back to Cal,” Becky says. “What’s Cal’s job? He picks up homeless people, correct? So to make sure he’s not taking these people and selling them to tattoo parlors for practice skin, Cal is required—by law—to put the name of every person he picks up into his laptop, which connects to the state database that keeps track of such things. You with me so far?”

“Keep going.”

“The point is, Naomi—on that first night Cal found his father, he keyed in his dad’s Social Security number and entered him into the database.”

“So?”

“So Cal’s dad’s name came right up.”

“Again . . . so?”

“And again . . . so Cal’s database isn’t NCIC—he doesn’t have a full list of everyone on the planet. The only people in there are people who were put in there.”

“And for the third time . . . why is that so damn important?”

“Naomi, you have to understand: On most nights, when Cal enters a client’s Social Security number, it’s not just so the government can play big brother and I Spy from the Sky. It’s so Cal can pull up the homeless person’s records and see who he’s dealing with. Does this person have a history of drugs? Of mental illness? When was the last time they were helped? Or is this someone just leeching off the system, who goes to a different place every night? Cal covers the entire Fort Lauderdale area—he needs this information to do his job.”

“But you’re saying Cal’s dad was already in his system.”

“There you go. If it were any other night, Cal would’ve scanned the file, looking for details about whoever they found. But when his father’s name popped up . . .”

“. . . Cal went bursting from the van, anxious to start dealing with his daddy issues.”

“And thus he misses one key detail about his father’s background.”

“So which is it?” Naomi asked. “Drugs? Mental illness? You should’ve seen Lloyd attack me with that trophy. He’s a sociopath, isn’t he?”

“Not according to his Service Point file. In fact, the last time he got picked up . . . Dad’s got some real issues.”

“Define issues.”

“He’s suicidal,” Becky said as Naomi hopped off the gurney. “His case notes say he was a mess, too. Found him on Fort Lauderdale beach four months ago after he swallowed fifty tabs of trazodone and fell in a pile of fire ants that were—no joke—eating him alive.”

“Okay, and that makes me officially feel bad,” Naomi agreed. “But I’m confused. You said Dad was picked up four months ago—that that’s when he was put in the system. But if Cal picked him up . . . even with the fire ants, didn’t he recognize his own father?”

“See, that’s where I was stuck, too. Until I finally started thinking that maybe Cal wasn’t the one who found him that first night.”

“Wait, I don’t get it,” Naomi shot back. “You just said Dad was found on the beach in Fort Lauderdale. That’s Cal’s route, right? But if Cal wasn’t the one who picked Dad up, who else is driving around in a homeless van except for—?”

This time, Becky didn’t say a word.

Naomi grabbed a nearby IV pole just to help her stand.

“Fudge. Me,” she whispered to herself.

76

I understand pain. I’ve lived with pain my entire life. But pain is nothing compared to betrayal. And betrayal is nothing compared to knowing that the javelin in your back was rammed there by the one person in your life you actually trusted.

His ponytail swings like a hypnotist’s watch as he calmly enters the room. I have no idea how he got in here or how he even—

“Cal, you need to listen to these words,” Roosevelt says, his hands out and his palms up. “I need you to hear this, okay? I’m sorry this had to happen. I mean that. This was never supposed to be about you.”

“Y-You’re the Prophet,” I blurt.

“You’re not listening, are you?”

“In the park—when we stumbled onto my dad—that was no stumble, was it?” I stutter. “You knew he’d be there, didn’t you? Just like you knew I’d come running to— How could—? You’re supposed to be my brother!”

“I still am. Don’t you see?” he asks. “Months ago, when I started setting up the shipment . . . when I got word that the man in the coffin—the doctor in China—was dying—I could’ve asked you from the start. But I was trying to protect you.”

“That’s how you protect me? By using my dad as some emotional carrot and then . . . with Ellis . . . You sent that psycho to kill me!”

“No. That’s not— Cal, if there wasn’t that hold notice, I never would’ve involved you. Never. In fact, I didn’t find your dad until after the doctor died. But as I was putting together the shipment—to see your dad on the street that night—how could I ignore a sign like that?”

“That wasn’t a sign! It was my father!”

“And I did nothing but right by him. I saved his life! But with that shipment coming—you know what it’s worth and how easily those things get stopped. I didn’t know if I’d need you, Cal. Your dad was just— I needed insurance.”

“Oh, then that’s a far more forgivable story. So now my dad was just your lucky rabbit’s foot? What’d you do,