One Perfect Lie

by Lisa Scottoline

  Chapter Fifty-nine

  The next few hours were a blur, during which Chris was escorted to the United States Attorney’s office, a concrete monolith on Chestnut Street in Philadelphia. The Rabbi gave him a relieved hug and Alek shook his hand, acting as if Chris had followed his orders to the letter, a charade in which Chris played his part. After that, Chris, the Rabbi, and Alek met with the heads of JTTF, Homeland Security, FBI, and ATF, in addition to the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, the Middle District of Pennsylvania, the mayor of Philadelphia, and the police commissioner. Chris met so many members of the top brass that he lost track of the names, the uniforms, the suits, and the badges.

  Everybody needed to be briefed, and he answered all the questions they had, though they answered none of his. The most he could get out of them was that they were getting ready to give an official press conference at six o’clock today, at which he was expected to speak. Chris couldn’t ask the Rabbi and Alek about it because they weren’t alone until the end of the day, when he hustled them down the hall to the first private room he could find, which was a large supply closet.

  “Why do I have to speak?” Chris asked Alek and the Rabbi, closing the door behind them. “That’s not how we roll. We don’t parade the details of our undercover operations in front of the public.”

  Alek looked at him like he was nuts. “Operation Varsity Letter is a major victory for federal law enforcement. You’re the hero. You’re a celebrity. You’re truly the new Eliot Ness. You are The Untouchable!”

  “Curt, listen to me.” The Rabbi placed a hand on Chris’s shoulder, his lined face weary. “I know you hate the limelight. But you got it done, and this was a major operation. We thwarted a domestic terror attack. We need to explain that to the media and the public.”

  “We never did anything like this before, had an undercover agent speak.”

  “Correct, and you know why?” the Rabbi asked, patiently. “Because this scenario is unprecedented. We didn’t stop the Oklahoma City bombing. But we stopped the Philadelphia bombing, and you’re blown anyway.”

  “Rabbi, I know that, but what about the next undercover agent? How many questions are we going to answer? How much of the story are we going to tell? Rather, am I going to tell?”

  Alek dismissed him with a wave. “Just the basics, Curt. Nothing granular. This is ATF’s time to shine. If you don’t do it for yourself, do it for them.”

  “You mean us. You’re still ATF for another hour or two, aren’t you?”

  Alek’s smile faded. “I’m still your boss, Curt. You’re still reporting to me. You’ll go to that press conference and you’ll say what ATF needs you to say.”

  “On one condition.” Chris had gotten an idea during those endless debriefings with the nameless suits. In fact, it was his own personal Plan B. “If I can’t work undercover anymore, I still won’t work a desk. After the dust settles, I want a different job.”

  “What do you want?” Alek asked, his smile back, though he was still ugly.

  “I want to start a field-training program for undercover agents, over and above what we had at Glencoe, based on my experience. It could start as a pilot program in Philadelphia and extend to the other divisions around the country.”

  Alek hesitated. “A field-experience program? That job doesn’t exist.”

  “I know, I want to create it. I want to teach everything I know to undercover agents coming up.”

  Alek frowned. “Curt. This is the government. We don’t create jobs willy-nilly, and you won’t get any more money.”

  “I don’t want more money. I’ll stay at my pay grade.” Chris was a GS-13, making a little over a hundred grand a year.

  The Rabbi interjected, “I think that’s a great idea, Curt. You know so many tricks of the trade, and I think it would be great if you could impart that knowledge to our newer agents.”

  “Thanks.” Chris returned his attention to Alek. “If I can look forward to a new job, I’ll be happy to speak at the press conference.”

  “Oh, I get it. We’re negotiating.” Alek folded his arms. “You never give up, do you?”

  “Lucky for you, no.”

  Alek thought a minute, then his grin returned. “Curt, a field-experience program is an excellent idea. I was just thinking the same thing myself!”

  Chapter Sixty

  Police guarded the doors, and Mindy sat in the waiting room of the emergency department waiting for Evan to come back. He had taken ten stitches through his eyebrow and had bruises on his right cheek, though his orbital bone hadn’t been fractured or his eyesight impaired. He was being X-rayed because they suspected two cracked ribs, but otherwise, he would be physically okay.

  Mindy had cried all the tears she could cry. She could never live with herself if more people had been killed. She felt exhausted, sitting next to her new lawyer, Maxwell Todd, Esq., of Logan & Dichter. Todd specialized in the legal problems of the children of their corporate client CEOs. Mindy would never have guessed there were enough spoiled brats to support a law practice, but maybe affluenza was contagious.

  Evan was in police custody, and he was going from here to the Federal Detention Center until his arraignment. The charges against him had yet to be decided upon, but Mindy would be there for him, not to excuse him, but to help him deal with whatever sentence they gave him. A mother was a lighthouse in a storm, and she would stand with him always. And even though, if she’d said yes to him before, when she should’ve said no, they both still had time to turn it around. She could change, and so could he.

  She glanced at Paul, sitting several rows away from her with his criminal lawyer. They were the only people in the waiting room, which had been cleared by the police. Her phone rested in her lap, but she didn’t look at it. She’d stopped checking Facebook when the posts about Evan started appearing in her feed, mostly horrible and vile. She was ditching Facebook and going back to real books.

  Mindy’s gaze found the TV mounted in the corner, playing on mute. There was a car commercial, and the screen returned to the the courthouse and the rescue, above the banner BOMB PLOT FOILED. Then came a shot of Evan’s latest school photo, then photos from his Facebook and Instagram accounts, a continuous slideshow of media coverage.

  Mindy watched the coverage, having an out-of-body experience. She couldn’t believe that Evan was on TV, that hers was the family they were talking about, that she was inside the news, even though they were real people. They weren’t a story. It was her, Evan, and Paul.

  The screen switched to a photo of Coach Brennan above the title UNDERCOVER HERO CURT ABBOTT. Mindy watched as the video in which Coach Brennan—she still called him that in her mind—flew upside down like a trapeze artist, holding on to Evan as they soared over the Benjamin Franklin Bridge.

  Mindy felt tears come to her eyes. Coach Brennan had saved Evan’s life, as well as the lives of thousands of innocent people, and risked his own. Her first impulse had been to call him and she’d gotten his cell phone from the Booster directory, but her lawyer had advised her not to call him.

  Mindy picked up her phone, scrolled to the text function, and typed a message, straight from the heart.

  Coach Brennan, this is Mindy Kostis. I’m not supposed to be communicating with you, but what’s right is right. Thank you very much for saving Evan’s life. God bless you.

  Mindy swallowed hard. Her attention returned to the television, and she found herself watching her own Facebook album, the Kostis Klan in the Kaymans.

  “Mrs. Kostis?” said a female voice, and Mindy looked up to see the doctor entering the waiting room, with a professional smile.

  “You can see Evan now. He’s asking for you.”

  Chapter Sixty-one

  Heather tossed the salad, alone with her thoughts while Jordan sat in the living room with the television blaring CNN.

  “… this is Wolf Blitzer, welcoming our viewers in the United States and around the world. We’re only five minutes away
from our coverage of the press conference, which we will be bringing you live from Philadelphia, regarding the terrorist bomb plot that was thwarted today by federal law enforcement, working in connection with state and municipal law enforcement…”

  Heather screened out the TV, trying to process her emotions. She couldn’t wrap her mind around the fact that Chris wasn’t who he said he was. She had a crush on a guy that didn’t exist. Worse, Chris, or Curt, had used Jordan to get information. She still didn’t know the details and she didn’t care if she ever found out. The bottom line was that she had been lied to, and so had Jordan.

  She kept tossing the salad, bringing up the tart scent of the apple-cider vinegar, which she’d never used before. She’d finally had the time to make an Ina Garten recipe, a corn salad made from real corn, not canned, with red pepper, red onion, and fresh basil. She’d never used kosher salt either, so she’d gone to Whole Foods to buy some, celebrating the fact that she had a job interview on Wednesday, as an administrative assistant in the corporate headquarters at ValleyCo.

  Heather smiled to herself. She felt confident about her prospects, considering that her boss would be Susan, who had all but told her that she’d get the job. Almost overnight her life had changed, and she had the possibility of a new job with a desk, a nameplate, and a tuition-matching program. Not only that, she could wear whatever she wanted as long as it came from a ValleyCo outlet, which was where she shopped anyway. She was even baking a poached salmon filet, filling the small apartment with an expensive, culinary aroma known only to home cooks, like her.

  “… stand by for a briefing from the Director of Homeland Security, who will be outlining the details of today’s breaking news, the thwarting of the bombing of the James A. Byrne U.S. Courthouse and the William J. Green Federal Building in Philadelphia, which would’ve caused thousands upon thousands of deaths in and around the building. The loss of life and property would’ve been catastrophic, but for Operation Varsity Letter. You will hear from Special Agent Curt Abbott of the Bureau of…”

  Heather screened out the name, which was much less appealing than Chris Brennan. She wondered how he had chosen his alias, and if he had actually looked up online for friendly-sounding names that would fool single mothers who were desperate enough to believe anything.

  She tossed the corn salad and tried not to think about it. Jordan had come home from school early and had spoken with her only briefly before he went to his room and closed the door. He’d been shaken by the fact that Evan had almost been killed, as well as being involved in a lethal terrorist plot. In fact, he had come out of his room only ten minutes ago, to watch the press conference on TV.

  “Mom, it’s about to start,” Jordan called from the living room.

  “I’m making dinner. I can hear it from here.”

  “Mom, are you serious?”

  Heather didn’t answer, and in the next moment, Jordan appeared at the entrance to the kitchen in his baseball sweats.

  “Mom, you’re not going to watch?”

  “I’ve heard it all day, the coverage has been nonstop. You’ve been at school, you don’t know.”

  “We had it on there, too. That’s all anybody’s talking about. It’s major, Mom. You have to watch.”

  “They’re not going to say anything new. It’s all the same thing. We know it all. We lived it all. It’s about us.”

  “Don’t you care about Evan? They arrested him. He wasn’t in school today. I think he might be going to jail.”

  “Of course I care about Evan.” Heather felt terrible for Mindy, for what she must have been going through. Heather never would’ve thought it could happen to a family like the Kostises.

  “Everybody says he was in with those guys, but I don’t think he was.”

  “I’m sure he wasn’t,” Heather said, though she wasn’t sure. She didn’t know Evan, but her father always said, If you go through life with your path greased, you could end up on your ass.

  “I mean, it’s so random that it was Madame Wheeler in the picture, but Evan is not a terrorist. He wouldn’t kill anybody, he wouldn’t blow up a courthouse.” Jordan glanced at the TV, where CNN was teasing the press conference. “Mom, come on. I want to see what happens.”

  “Jordan, I’m cooking—”

  “Why are you being so weird?”

  “I’m not being weird.” Heather kept tossing the salad like a madwoman. Maybe she was being weird. A weird version of Ina Garten.

  “You’re acting like you’re mad.”

  “Well, I am mad.” Heather turned to him. “Aren’t you? How do you feel? You went in your room and vanished after school. Do you want to talk about it?”

  “Okay,” Jordan answered, less certainly. “It’s a big deal, and I think you should watch the press conference. Don’t you want to hear what the coach has to say?”

  “He’s not the coach.”

  “Okay, I know that. Whatever.”

  “Curt. It sounds like Chris, but it’s not Chris.”

  Jordan cocked his head. “Are you mad at him?”

  “Aren’t you?” Heather told herself to calm down. She let go of the serving fork and spoon. “How do you feel about it, Jordan? You believed he was a coach, didn’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you believed he liked you, that he was showing interest in you as a friend. As a coach. Isn’t that right?”

  “Okay, yes.” Jordan shrugged uncomfortably. “Why are you acting like a lawyer? You sound like a lawyer.”

  “I’m trying to understand how you feel. Don’t you feel angry that you were lied to? That he lied to us both? Did he ever ask you questions about Evan or the other boys on the team?”

  “Yeah, I guess. Once.”

  “So he was using you for information. He was pumping you for information. He was only pretending to be your friend, and mine. Doesn’t that make you angry?”

  “Um, it’s not great, I admit.”

  “It’s more than not great, Jordan. It’s a lie. I teach you not to lie. I don’t like people who lie. But he lied to us, and I’m mad at him, so you’ll understand if I don’t want to watch the stupid press—”

  “That’s not what I think,” Jordan interrupted her, which he rarely did, especially to offer his thoughts.

  “What do you think?”

  “I know he lied and all, and that’s not right, but I still think he liked us.” Jordan blinked sadly, and Heather felt a wave of guilt for her son, let down not only by his father, but by his father figure.

  “Maybe he did, I’m sure he did. But I don’t like being lied to.”

  “Mom, he had to lie, don’t you see?” Jordan gestured at the TV, where Wolf Blitzer was counting down. “He saved Evan’s life and he saved the lives of all those people. Like they just said, thousands of people would have been killed.”

  “But he deceived us. He pretended to be somebody he wasn’t.”

  “He had to, for the greater good. He did what he had to do to save people’s lives. It’s like he really was a coach, and we’re all the team. Mom, he did the right thing for the team.”

  “But he’s not a coach,” Heather said, softening, thinking back to that night in this very kitchen, when Chris had coached her to think about her skill set.

  “It doesn’t matter if he really was. He did what a coach would do, a really great coach. He went to the standard, Mom. The standard did not go to him. It’s seventeen inches, Mom.”

  “What?” Heather had no idea what he meant.

  Jordan shook it off. “It doesn’t matter. All I’m saying is, he flew upside down through the air holding on to Evan. He rescued him. He achieved excellence.”

  Heather felt a glimmer of new pride in Jordan. “You know, you should express yourself more often. You make sense.”

  “So you agree?”

  “No.”

  “Mom, come on.” Jordan took her hand and tugged her into the living room, where they sat down in front of the TV, side by side, something they hadn�
��t done for some time.

  Wolf Blitzer continued, “We take you directly to Philadelphia, where the press conference is beginning.” The screen morphed to a man in a suit standing behind a lectern with a cluster of men in suits. To the man’s right was a tall ugly guy, a shorter older man, and on the end, Chris.

  “There’s Coach!” Jordan leaned forward, resting on his knees.

  “Not a coach,” Heather said reflexively, though her gaze went immediately to Chris and stayed there. It was so strange to see him in such a different role, on TV to boot. She couldn’t deal with the fact that it was the same man. She couldn’t help but think, If nothing he said was true, is it the same man? Then she answered her own question, Of course not, you idiot. But he’s still hot.

  “My name is Ralph Brubaker, Chief of the Joint Terrorism Task Force. I’m here to brief you on the thwarting today of an act of domestic terrorism whose goal was to destroy the James A. Byrne U.S. Courthouse and the William J. Green Federal Building in Philadelphia, murdering the persons inside and causing considerable property damage. The plot was foiled by JTTF and many other law-enforcement agencies, but first mention goes to the Philadelphia Field Division of ATF, headed by Group Supervisor Alek Ivanov, Special Agent David Levitz, and the hero of Operation Varsity Letter, Special Agent Curt Abbott.”

  Jordan hooted. “Woohoo!”

  Heather grumbled. “Hmph.”

  “… Law enforcement scored a major victory today in our ongoing battle against domestic terrorism. We have no reason to believe that there are other conspirators or participants in this plot, so the City of Philadelphia and the region remain safe. Structural engineers are inspecting the Ben Franklin Bridge, and it will remain closed until further notice. We will retain the severe threat level, out of an abundance of caution. Most important, no confirmed lives were lost today in connection with this plot, except the perpetrators, brothers James and David Shank of Headley, Pennsylvania.”

  Jordan looked over. “Mom, can you believe Madame Wheeler sent Evan that selfie? I knew I should’ve taken French.”