The Perfect Lie

by Dinah McCall

  Gunshots.

  A thin, high-pitched scream, and then Felicity falling into camera range.

  Jonah flinched. He could tell she was dead before she hit the stairs, but the spill of blood was horrifying.

  Then more gunshots.

  Rosa screaming and praying aloud in Spanish, begging for mercy. Begging them to stop.

  Jonah knew that Declyn had been shot somewhere in there, but the camera hadn’t caught that on film. What he did see next was his son being dragged into view—limp and unconscious.

  He stood abruptly.

  “Play it back,” he said.

  “But—”

  “God damn it, Ruger, play it back. That’s my son. I want to see his face.”

  Ruger hit the remote, rewound a bit of the tape and then replayed it.

  Again Felicity screamed, then fell into view. Again the blood spilled out from under her head and onto the stairs.

  “Oh God, oh God.”

  Jonah spun. Macie was standing in the doorway with her hands pressed to her mouth. Her eyes were wide and filled with shock. Before he could move, her eyes rolled back in her head.

  “Catch her,” he yelled, but it was too late. She fainted, hitting the floor with a thump.

  “Damn it,” Jonah muttered, as he scooped her up in his arms. “Why wasn’t someone watching her? She didn’t need to see this.”

  “Sorry,” Ruger said. “I thought she was upstairs. Should I get a doctor? She hit her head pretty hard.”

  “Hell if I know,” Jonah said. “I’m taking her back to her room. Someone go get the maid and send her up.”

  Ruger pointed at one of the agents, who got up from his chair and followed Jonah out of the room as he carried Macie up the stairs. This time he didn’t even notice the damp patches on the carpet. His focus was entirely on the lack of color in Macie’s face and how frighteningly limp she was in his arms.

  Moments later, he gained the second floor, only to realize he didn’t know which room was hers, so he carried her into his room, instead. He laid her gently on his bed and then hurried into the bathroom, dampening a washcloth before rushing back to her.

  He slid onto the side of the bed and laid the damp cloth across her forehead while cupping the side of her face. Her eyelids fluttered, and then she moaned.

  “Easy honey,” Jonah said softly.

  At that moment Rosa burst into the room, took one look at Macie lying unconscious on the bed and clasped her hands to her mouth.

  “Madre de Dios…the niña…the niña.”

  “She’s all right,” Jonah said. “She just fainted.” Then he grabbed Rosa’s hand and laid it on Macie’s head, where a small bump had arisen. “I need some ice. Do you have an ice bag?”

  “Yes, yes, Señor Jonah…. I hurry.”

  Rosa bolted out of the room.

  A phone rang somewhere downstairs, and Jonah flinched, praying to God that it was the kidnappers. They needed a break in this mess, and they needed it fast.

  Macie moaned again, then reached toward the lump on her head. Jonah knew it must be hurting.

  “You’re okay,” he said gently. “You bumped your head, but you’re okay.”

  Her eyelids fluttered, then opened. Jonah found himself caught in her gaze.

  “This is a nightmare,” Macie whispered, and then she started to cry.

  Jonah groaned softly, then lifted her off the bed and into his arms. “I’m sorry you saw that.”

  “Poor Felicity…poor Evan. Oh God…is he dead, Jonah? Is he already dead like Felicity? Am I just kidding myself?”

  Jonah held her close, rocking her gently in his lap, and struggled to find an answer that wouldn’t be a lie.

  “I won’t lie to you. There’s no way of knowing for sure, but I don’t think so. At least, not yet. I told Ruger not to tell any more people who I am. I think Calderone will come after me next. I think he will want me to see Evan die. But we can buy some time if they can’t find me. Maybe even enough time to find Evan first.”

  Macie’s chin quivered. “I can’t believe this is happening.”

  Jonah saw his own reflection in her tears and shuddered.

  “Me either,” he said, then leaned forward, intent on kissing the side of her cheek.

  Instead Macie turned her head. Their lips met.

  There was a brief moment of shock, then a slight increase in pressure, as if both of them were testing the depth of the connection. Before they knew it, Macie’s arms were around Jonah’s neck and his hands were sliding up her back beneath her sweater.

  Suddenly Jonah thrust her backward and stood, all but dumping her off his lap. Before Macie could object, Rosa hurried into the room carrying the ice bag. She hurried to Macie’s side and pressed it against the lump beneath her hair.

  “Poor little head,” she said. “Poor niña.”

  “I’ll be downstairs,” Jonah said to Macie. “Send Rosa if you need me.”

  Macie was left with no option but to watch him walk away. It was all Jonah could do not to run. All the way down the stairs, he kept asking himself what the hell he was thinking. He’d come to save his son’s life, not get mixed up with another woman named Blaine.

  When he got back downstairs, he cornered Ruger.

  “How is she?” Ruger asked.

  “She’s all right,” Jonah said. “I, however, may never be all right again. You and I know that it may already be too late to save my son. I pray it’s not…but in my world, facing reality is what’s kept me alive. There is a chance that he’s still alive, small though it may be, and I’m counting on it. I don’t know Evan Blaine. I wouldn’t know him if I passed him on the street, and that alone makes me sick to my stomach. I can’t be publicly involved, but I need to do something.”

  Ruger sighed. “I have a seventeen-year-old and a fourteen-year-old. I can’t imagine the hell you’re going through, let alone that you never knew about the kid’s existence. We’re doing all we know how, but I’m not going to lie to you. This is the worst case I’ve ever worked. We have nothing. Not one lead has panned out. Frankly, Slade, I’m scared shitless.”

  “I want to see the video again,” Jonah said. “Maybe there’s something…”

  “Be my guest,” Ruger said. “I’ll take all the help I can get. Tony’s working on it now. Pull up a chair and make yourself at home.”

  Jonah dragged a chair up beside the man Ruger had referred to and then focused on the computer screen where the video was being analyzed. Another agent had the security tapes from the front gates on a different screen and was doing the same to them. Jonah didn’t know which one to look at first.

  Thirty minutes passed with nothing remarkable becoming apparent on the interior video. At that point Jonah turned his chair to the other monitor and then leaned back, letting his mind focus on the images and not on his fears.

  “What are we looking at?” he asked.

  Agent Bobby Joe Thomas momentarily stopped the tape, then checked his notes. “The security tape for the day before the abduction.”

  “How many have you gone through?”

  Thomas looked up. “So far…a dozen, going back through the past twelve days.”

  Jonah frowned. “And nothing?”

  “Nothing obvious,” Thomas said. “If there’s something to be seen, we aren’t seeing it. Maybe you’ll see it from a different perspective.”

  “That’s why I’m here,” Jonah said.

  “What do you want to look at first?”

  “Just finish running the one you’ve got, and then we’ll go backward from there.”

  Thomas nodded and resumed his analysis.

  For a while there was no activity on the tape other than the sound of traffic passing by on the street and the occasional bird flying by the camera lens. Then an old pickup truck pulled into view. Jonah leaned forward.

  “Who’s that?” he asked.

  “The gardener,” Thomas said. “According to the last twelve tapes I’ve viewed, he arrives at this time ev
ery day.”

  “Oh.”

  Thomas’s explanation made sense, but still Jonah kept staring as the small Mexican leaned out the window of his truck and reached toward the keypad to punch in the code. As he did, Jonah caught a glimpse of the man’s profile, but it wasn’t his face that caught his attention. It was when the sleeve of his shirt caught on the window, revealing a good portion of his forearm, that Jonah bolted upright.

  “Son-of-a-bitch!”

  Everyone in the room froze, staring at Jonah as if he’d just lost his mind.

  “What?” Ruger asked.

  “The gardener. He’s one of Calderone’s men.”

  Ruger frowned as he shuffled through his notebook. “He can’t be. He’s been working for Declyn Blaine for…for five years. If Evan’s kidnapping is retribution toward you, then there’s no way Calderone would have planted someone here that long ago.”

  “I don’t care how long he’s been here,” Jonah said. “He’s one of Calderone’s.”

  “How do you know?” Ruger asked.

  “Run that tape back to where he puts his arm out the window. No…a little more…more…There!”

  “What is it? What do you see?” Ruger asked.

  Jonah put his hand on Thomas’s shoulder and pointed to the image frozen on the screen. “Can you enlarge that?”

  Thomas moved the mouse over the picture, clicked once, then twice, then again, until maximum enlargement had been achieved.

  “Any more and I’ll lose the image,” Thomas said.

  “That’s good enough,” Jonah said, then looked at the picture again. What he saw only reinforced his belief. “Do you see that?” he asked.

  Ruger leaned forward. “Looks like a tattoo.”

  Jonah nodded. “You can’t see all of it, but I know what it looks like. It’s a python swallowing an eagle. The python is Calderone’s totem, so to speak. The eagle represents the United States. Everyone who belongs to the Calderone organization bears that tattoo.”

  Ruger stood back and stared. “Are you sure?”

  “Oh, yeah,” Jonah said, and took off his shirt and then turned around, giving them a full view of his back. “Undercover work has its own set of drawbacks. As you can see, some of them are permanent.”

  “I’ll be damned,” Ruger said. “But how does that explain the man’s presence here? It can’t just be a coincidence. Or maybe he was a part of that life until he immigrated? After all, he’s pushing fifty. Sooner or later a man gets too old to run and gun.”

  Jonah pulled his shirt back over his head and was tucking it back into his pants when Ruger’s last statement soaked in.

  “Fifty? If that man is pushing fifty, then I am, too. What’s his name?” he asked.

  Ruger looked back at his notes. “Felipe Sosa.”

  “Have you checked his papers?” Jonah asked.

  Ruger turned to his men. “Did we?”

  No one answered.

  “Go find him,” Ruger ordered, then Jonah grabbed him by the arm.

  “No, wait!” he said. “I don’t know what kind of switch Calderone has pulled, but I’d bet my retirement that the man cutting Blaine’s grass is not Felipe Sosa, and alerting him to the fact that we know that might end our chance to find Evan. I say let him be, but watch him. Find out where he lives, who he makes contact with…that kind of thing. He might be the key to getting us to Evan.”

  Ruger grabbed his phone and headed out of the room as Jonah turned toward the monitor, once again staring long and hard at the man’s face. To his knowledge, he’d never seen him before, but that didn’t mean the man hadn’t seen him. He had to be careful—to make sure he kept a low profile. He thought about another disguise, and the moment he did, he realized that the way he looked now was his best disguise. Calderone had never seen him without long hair and a beard. Unless they were face-to-face, he doubted he would be recognized. Still, he wasn’t going to take chances.

  “Run the rest of that tape,” Jonah said. “Let’s see if there are any other little surprises to be had.”

  Outside, on the grounds of the Blaine estate, the man calling himself Felipe Sosa was wielding a pair of clippers on the ornamental shrubbery along the graveled pathway. He wore a floppy straw hat and loose-fitting denims, and hummed to himself as he worked. Although he knew what had happened inside the big house, it changed nothing about what he’d been hired to do. He snipped and clipped while trying not to make eye contact with anyone carrying a badge. Even though his gut instinct had been not to come back to work after the incident, he didn’t have the luxury of making that decision for himself. If he’d been a no-show, he would have been automatically put on the suspect list. Then the authorities would have come looking for him, and that would have been a disaster. The last thing he wanted to do was produce his papers or his green card. He was fifteen years younger than the real Felipe Sosa, who’d been eating beans and tortillas when he’d drawn his last breath, but he’d been assured by the man who’d smuggled him into the States that, to the white men, all Latinos looked alike. So he did his work without fuss, moving about the lush and elaborate landscaping like a small brown bird, unaware that he’d already been made.

  The noise level on the cell block was secondary to the smell. It offended every one of Miguel Calderone’s senses and pissed him off to no end—and he had but one man to thank for his change of abode. Jonah Slade.

  He slapped the flat of his hand against the wall of his cell and then laid his forehead against his bunk. Alejandro. His first son. His best son. Dead by Slade’s hand.

  Pain roiled in his belly like a snake, coiling and then striking—first at his heart, then blinding him to everything but the need for revenge. Procuring a good lawyer and concentrating on his own trial had taken a back seat to avenging Alejandro’s death, and the means by which to do it had come when he needed it most. He owed his informant, a hit man who called himself The Snowman, more than he could ever pay. When he got out of prison—and he knew he would get out—The Snowman could name his price. Everyone knew that he, Miguel Calderone, was a man who kept his word. He’d vowed to make Jonah Slade pay, and pay he would. Before Slade died, he would watch his own son bleed out before his eyes. It was this vow that kept Calderone from going insane.

  “Hey, Calderone! You got a visitor. Come with me.”

  Calderone looked up. The guard at the cell door was an intimidating son of a bitch. Calderone had hated him on sight, but for now, he played their game. More was gained by patience than panic. He held out his hands, refusing to acknowledge by expression or word that the handcuffs the guard placed on his wrists were too tight, or that the leg irons they put around his ankles were too small. He let himself be led meekly to the visitor area. The guard was merely a gnat in the soup his life had become. He would not lower himself to small pains when there were bigger issues at stake.

  He was led to what appeared to be an interrogation room, which was where prisoners were allowed privacy with their counsel. Assuming it was his lawyer, he hid his surprise when he saw the nun waiting for him on the other side of the table. Hindered by the handcuffs, it was difficult to make the sign of the cross, but he did so without thinking.

  “Sit here,” the guard said, and shoved him into a chair, then turned his gaze to the nun. “You sit there. No touching. Understand?”

  “Yes, my son, and I thank you,” the sister said, smiling benevolently at the guard, who backed away, only to stop just inside the closed door a short distance away.

  Calderone glanced over his shoulder, gauging the distance between himself and the guard, then shrugged and nodded, as if to acknowledge the guard’s presence. When he turned, his back to the guard, he allowed himself a brief moment of recognition before playing out the game. It was his woman, Elena.

  “Sister…you have come to pray for me?”

  The nun nodded, took out her rosary and then bowed her head. Calderone leaned forward, lowering his voice and his head. Although they were not touching, there was less than
a foot between them.

  “You have news for me?” he asked.

  The nun nodded while continuing to run her fingers along the rosary beads. To the guard, it appeared as if she was praying.

  “It is done,” she said.

  “And the Padre…how is he?” Calderone asked.

  The nun’s fingers paused on one small bead, and then she shook her head slightly from side to side.

  “Alas…not to be found,” she said softly.

  Calderone’s heart skipped a beat. “And do we know why?”

  “No, señor…we do not. But we search for him.”

  Frustration made Calderone careless. “It doesn’t work without him,” he hissed.

  The guard shifted at the door. The nun began to pray a little louder. To her relief, the guard stayed, seemingly satisfied by what he heard.

  “All that can be done is being done,” the nun said, then kissed the cross, and for the first time since Calderone sat down, lifted her head and looked up. “I miss you, Miguel. I miss our nights together and your lips at my breast. Please tell me this will soon be over.”

  “Elena…my beautiful Elena. How fares our child?”

  “She is well…missing her papa.”

  Calderone sighed. The woman was a whore, a puta…but she’d stolen his heart just the same. When she’d borne him a child, he’d taken her into the hacienda as if she were his wife. She’d enjoyed all the privileges of being the padrone’s woman without benefit of the church’s blessing, and that would never come. Even a man like Calderone had his limits, and marrying a woman who had fucked other men for money was one of them.

  “Give her my love,” Calderone said. “Tell her I will see her soon, and tell Juan Carlos not to let me down…understand?”

  “Yes, Miguel…I understand.”

  She stood abruptly and looked at the guard. “I am done here,” she said.

  The guard moved toward Calderone, took him by the arm and all but dragged him out of the room. Calderone didn’t look back. It wouldn’t do to cast a longing and lustful look at one of Christ’s brides.

  4

  Jonah came out of the makeshift conference room and started up the stairs. He’d just identified a man who might be their first real lead to finding Evan, but he wasn’t sure he was going to tell Macie. They didn’t want the gardener alerted to the fact that he’d been made, and the more people who knew, the less likelihood they had of pulling it off.