“I never slept with her.”
“No, you did something far more ridiculous: You fell in love, didn’t you? And then when you heard we were raiding a South Beach steakhouse that she was gonna be at, you whispered in her ear and told her to stay away.”
“I had a right to protect my informant!”
“Then you should’ve done it like everyone else: let her get swept up and then pull strings from the inside!” Naomi shouts at full blast. “But to tip her in advance in some pathetic come-on: You have any idea how many of our guys could’ve gotten killed, racing into a raid where everyone knew they were coming?”
“No one got killed.”
“Only because she ratted you out for the scumbag you are! But that’s the true justice, isn’t it? Here you are fighting to keep this dear, defenseless woman safe, and she runs back to headquarters, says she got tipped off by an agent, and offers you up as long as she gets citizenship for the rest of her family. Man, that must’ve stung, huh, Cal? Almost as bad as doing a favor for . . . I don’t know, your own father, and then realizing you’re suddenly the one holding the smoking gun.”
On the sofa, Serena scratches my dad’s back as I stand there, silent. I remember my mom scratching his back when he had a tough day at work.
“I thought for sure you’d nibble at that one,” Naomi tells me.
“Then you remember me as stupid.”
“Actually, I remember you as a stubborn idealist. But I got your psych profile right here, Cal. Every few years, we get a new candidate who takes the job to right some wrong in his past—and then becomes so obsessed with saving people, he starts letting the job substitute for his entire life. That’s your problem, Cal. You’re Sisyphus. You just don’t know it,” she says. “But if I’m reading that wrong . . . yee-haw . . . life must be going pretty beautifully for you these days, huh?”
In front of me, Serena continues her back-scratch, doing her best to calm my dad down. Maybe she is here just to help him. But the way my dad watches her and stares at her—even the way he laughs extra hard at whatever she’s saying—I don’t know what Serena thinks of him, but he clearly would love to have his hands on her.
“Things are just stunning here, thanks.”
“Wonderful. Then let’s do the rest of this face-to-face. You wouldn’t mind coming over for a quick chat, would you?”
Another cop trick: Offer something easy—if I run, she knows I’m guilty. Still, I need to know whether she’s working on hunches or facts. “Happy to, Naomi. Just tell me what we’d be chatting about.”
“Oh, you know—silly little details like why we haven’t heard from Timothy since last night, and what his abandoned car was doing on Alligator Alley. . . . Or to really put a pin in your balloon: how yours was the last call on his cell, and how your van is on every camera in the port at three in the morning, and how the one shipment Timothy was fiddling with just happens to be the one that was picked up by your ex-con dad. Not the prettiest picture that’s being painted here, Cal. Now you wanna tell me what’s really going on, or would you rather fast-forward eight months and tell it to a jury? I’m sure they’ll take your side—I mean, who wouldn’t trust a disgraced agent and his convict father?”
On the floral couch, my dad and Serena both look up at me. I stay where I am, trying to keep my own calm. Between Ellis the killer cop and Naomi the overdetermined agent, I feel another trapdoor ready to open beneath my feet. The only thing keeping it shut is, from what I can tell, they still haven’t found Timothy’s body. As long as that’s true, I may be suspicious, but I’m not a murder suspect.
“Cal, y’know that part in The Fugitive where Harrison Ford says he didn’t kill his wife?” Naomi asks.
“Y’mean when Tommy Lee Jones tells him, ‘I don’t care’?”
“Exactly. But here’s the thing: Despite what you think, I do care. Especially about my partner. Now I know you’ve gotta be exhausted—that’s the only reason you made the mistake of getting on the phone with me, right? So if you tell me what you and Timothy were really up to out there, you know I can save you so many kinds of headache.”
It’s a perfect offer, delivered with perfect pitch. But every story needs a bad guy, and once Ellis comes racing in, pointing his cop finger at me—
“This is a TSA security announcement,” the PA system blares from above. I snap the phone shut, praying she didn’t— Oh, my crap! Of course she did! Her whole maudlin speech—just a stall so she could figure out where I— Dammit, that was rookie of me!
“We need to get out of here,” I shout to my dad. “Feds are on their way!”
31
He’s in an airport!” Naomi barked into her earpiece, darting from Cal’s room and weaving through the small mob of black kids who were eavesdropping from outside. “Scotty, I need all local flights leaving from Miami and Fort Lauderdale in the next two hours. I’m going to Lauderdale now.”
Flying down the stairs, she could hear the clicking of Scotty’s keyboard in her ear. If she was fast, she’d make the airport in no time.
“Okay, here we go,” Scotty said. “There’re over sixty flights, not including international. But when I put in ‘Cal Harper’ . . . He has reservations on three different flights, all of them to Texas: Austin, Dallas . . .”
“He’s not going to Texas.”
“How d’you—?”
“Cal Harper was one of us. He’s not flying under his real name. Those are fake reservations to slow us down. Check the flights again, but this time, make a list of every ticket that was bought today and/or paid in cash.”
“That’s gonna take some time. Oh, and by the by, when I traced Cal’s phone—assuming he didn’t switch it until this morning: Last call went to Benny Ocala. Seminole Police.”
“That’s fine. Send me his number,” Naomi said, jumping down the last three steps. Above her, all the homeless kids had flooded back into Cal’s room. Glancing back as she ran, Naomi couldn’t help but stare.
“Why you so quiet?” Scotty asked.
“Dunno,” Naomi said as she cut through the courtyard, past a skinny girl with greasy hair. “If you saw this place—even Cal’s room—this guy doesn’t just work at the shelter—he lives here. With kids.”
“Maybe they give him free rent.”
“Maybe. But the way they were all crowded and playing video games in his room, he’s the one they all hang out with.”
“Oh, c’mon—so now he’s the disgraced cop who’s also a hero to the sad, pathetic homeless kids? How many more clichés you wanna add? Lemme guess: He’s gonna coach their debate team all the way to the state championships.”
“You’re missing the point, Scotty. From what I can tell, Cal sleeps and works and eats his meals surrounded by lost teenagers. So do it like this: Is Cal taking care of these kids—or are these kids taking care of him?”
“Nomi, don’t dream Cal into a wounded hero. If he were an angel, he wouldn’t be running. And neither would you.”
Nodding to herself, Naomi plowed through the lobby and shoved her way through the set of doors that led outside. A blast of Florida heat embraced her, and as she darted toward her car, the repo girl inside her couldn’t help but scan the area: Cal’s van still parked out front, the beat-up Fords, Pontiacs, and Hyundais that sat in a neat row and lined the south side of the building, and even the single black sedan that was parked at one of the meters across the street. There was a man inside that one. She still had time. If she was lucky, maybe he’d seen Cal leave.