“What’re you talking about?”
“You were, what, sixteen years old when he was released? Just taking the SATs, starting to wonder about going to college. You really think having a convicted murderer enter your life was the best thing for you?”
“You don’t know that. You met him, what, four months ago?”
“Six months,” she says. “How’d you know that, anyway?”
“I was bluffing. But that’s my point: You barely know him. I heard you at the hospital, asking if he got the shipment. So answer my question, Serena: Why’d you really come to the airport?”
I wait for her yellow blue eyes to narrow, but they just get wider. She’s not insulted. She’s hurt. “I came for the same reason you did,” she tells me.
“Let me guarantee right now that’s not true.”
“Do you really think you’re the only one whose life didn’t turn out the way they dreamed, Cal? When I was eleven years old, my mother remarried a man who . . . well, shouldn’t’ve been living around eleven-year-old girls. Or their younger brothers. I still pay for those years. But when I was seventeen—when I finally told my mom, and she threw me out because she couldn’t handle that it might actually be true—I remember sitting in this filthy McDonald’s. It was pouring, one of those thick Florida rains, and I had this feeling to go outside. When I did, I saw this puddle—shaped like a mitten—that reminded me of this great puddle we used to jump in back when we could afford camp. And reliving that moment . . . that was blissful. Real bliss. All because I listened to that feeling to go outside.”
“Okay—so to find true meaning in life, I need to go stand out in some sentient downpour. Very Shawshank Redemption.”
“Let me ask you something, Caclass="underline" Why’d you come on this trip?”
“I almost got killed this morning.”
“Before that. When you saw your dad lying there in the rain . . . You had your own feeling, right? You listened to something inside yourself and suddenly your life was reignited. Like in Don Juan, where he says that sometimes you need to lace your belt the opposite way. We get so comfortable in our lives, things get so mundane, we spiritually fall asleep. But you don’t have to go to an ashram in India to reignite your life. If we just follow those feelings, like my feeling to go talk to your dad at the airport—”
“Serena, the only reason I got on this plane was to save my own rear.”
She undoes her Indian-style position, stands up from her seat, and never abandons the soft, knowing smile that lifts her cheeks. “Your father told me where you work, Cal. If you really were as tough as you think, you wouldn’t be there. And if you really didn’t want to connect with him, you wouldn’t be here. It’s no different than taking me along with you. In that act, you did one of the most beautiful things anyone can do. You said yes to me. And with your father, just getting on this plane, you did the same. You buckled your belt the other way.”
As she walks back to her seat, I look down at my unfastened seat belt. “Airline buckles only go one way,” I call out.
“Not when you share them with the person next to you,” she calls back.
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—”