But once you have that excon label on your neck — You don’t know

what it’s like to be judged like that.”

I think back to the days after they took my gun and badge. Even the

secretaries from the office were instructed to hang up when I called.

“Okay, first we need to get out of here,” I say. As we run across the road 

and back to my van, I scan the ground, the road, even under the van itself.

Timothy. His body’s gone.

“Y’think he’s still alive?” my dad asks.

I pause a moment. Then I picture that bubble of blood in Timothy’s neck. 

“I don’t think so.”

“Maybe Ellis took the body with him.”

“Maybe,” I say. But to set all this up — to bring my van out here just to

make us look like the killers . . . to leave no witnesses . . . I cross around to

the passenger side of the White House. Down the tall grass of the

embankment, there’s another canal that runs parallel to the road. When we

were hiding on the other side . . . There was another splash.

“Gator food,” my father says, pointing over the fence.

“That’s what I would do.”

I wait for him to ask why, but to’ve abandoned me this long, my dad’s got

plenty of heartless in him. He doesn’t need help developing the picture: Ellis

is a cop. He did his homework. My dad’s a convicted murderer . . . I’m a

disgraced agent . . . There’s no question who’s the easiest to blame for this.

And why he asked my dad to hand him Timothy’s gun.

“He’s got my prints on one of the weapons,” my father says.

“You think he didn’t drive my van all around the port, making sure the 

eyesin-the-sky got a good look? Ten seconds’ worth of homework before 

ICE realizes I’m the one who snuck into the port with Timothy. . . .”

“On behalf of a shipment that’s tied to your father,” my dad adds.

Which brings us right back to the gun. We’re both silent as it all seeps in.

Forget what happened with Mom. Ellis just has to point his cop finger our

way. Once they hear we killed a federal agent — we’re repeat offenders. They

don’t make bags small enough that’ll carry our remains.

“We should follow the truck,” my dad suggests, looking out toward the dark

road. “He didn’t have that much of a lead.”

“Yeah, maybe,” I reply.

“Maybe? The only way to prove what actually happened is by finding what’s

really in that—”

I turn away. That’s all he needs.

“You know what’s in that truck, don’t you, Calvin?”

18

“Stay, girl. . . . That’s my girl,” Ellis said to Benoni, adding a quick scratch

between the dog’s ears. In the passenger seat of the truck, Benoni was

breathing calmly now — but with her ears pinned back and her eyes narrow

and intently fixed out the window, it was clear she was just simmering.

After setting the odometer back to zero, Ellis grabbed an old pair of bolt

cutters from the toolbox behind his seat, shoved open the driver’s door, and

climbed down from the cab of the truck. He was still annoyed that he’d let Cal

get away, but when he’d heard Benoni cry like that — the way she was

shaking on the ground — family had to come first.

Most important, as he glanced around the empty rest stop and walked around

to the back of the truck, he had what he wanted. And thanks to his police

uniform, surprise was most definitely on his side. Especially with Timothy. But

that was the benefit of taking on a partner — there was always someone else

to blame things on. As his grandfather wrote, the mission was bigger than a

single man. Finally, after the headache in China and Hong Kong and Panama

and here — finally — mission accomplished.

He dialed quickly on his cell, then pinched the phone between his chin and

shoulder and lifted the bolt cutters to the metal seal that looked like a silver

bolt at the back of the rust-colored container. The phone rang in his ear . . .

once . . . twice . . . He knew the time — it was six a.m. in Michigan — but this

was victory.

There was a loud cunk as the bolt cutters bit down and snapped the seal.

“Judge Wojtowicz’s line,” a female voice answered. “You need him to sign a

warrant?”

“No warrants. This is a personal call. For Felix,” Ellis said, knowing that using

the Judge’s first name would speed things up. With a twist of the thin metal

bars on the back of the container, Ellis unlocked the double doors.

He knew how he got to this moment. His grandfathers — in their commitment

to the Leadership — began the quest. For all Ellis knew, his mother had

searched, too. But the research had survived only because of the waterstained

diary.

The word Schetsboek was embossed in faded gold on the front. Dutch for

“Sketchbook.” Flipping through it that first time, Ellis had stopped on a page

dated February 16, 1922, on a passage about the covenants between God

and man. In the story of Noah, God made a rainbow as a sign of His

covenant. With Abraham, God’s sign was a circumcision. And with Moses, the

sign was the engraving on the tablets. But covenants could also be between

people. That’s what the diary was, Ellis realized. He’d been so focused on the

Cain part — on the tattoo and the dog — he’d nearly missed it. The diary was

his true sign. His covenant. The promise from his mother. And the way, over a

century later, surrounded by cricket songs, he finally found the Book that was

more powerful than death itself.

“Who may I say is calling?” the woman asked through Ellis’s phone.

“He’ll know,” Ellis said as he tugged on the back doors of the truck. There

was a rusty howl as the metal doors swung wide open, clanging against their

respective sides of the truck. Surprised by his own excitement, Ellis was up

on his tiptoes, peering through the mist of—

It was supposed to be cold. And smell like shrimp. Why didn’t it smell like—?

Reaching up and pulling frantically, Ellis yanked the nearest box to the

ground. His breathing started to quicken as he ripped it open. Pineapples.

Plastic pineapples. He pulled out another box. Fake. They were all fake. Like

the government uses when they—

Damn.

They switched it. Switched the bloody trucks.

“I’m paging him now, sir,” the secretary announced.

“Paging?” Ellis asked. He looked at the phone. “Don’t page him. Leave him

be.” Shutting his cell phone, Ellis stood there a second. Just stood there, eyes

closed. A rat-tt-tat drumbeat — rat-tt-tat, rat-tt-tat — hammered at the back

of his neck at the top of his spine. He clenched his jaw so hard, he heard a

high-pitched scream rushing in his ears. Anger. All he had was anger now.

People didn’t understand what a life’s worth of holding back and hiding could

do.

He wouldn’t hold back anymore.

He knew who’d done this. Timothy. Timothy and the other one. The one who

hurt Benoni. Cal.

Cal caused this. Cal and his damn father. But Ellis had it wrong before. Lloyd

wasn’t the only trickster. Cal was one, too. To switch the trucks — to steal

what was inside — Cal hadn’t just stumbled into this. He’d planned it. Stolen

it. And now Cal had the Book of Lies. He had what Ellis had waited a lifetime

to find.

But the one thing Cal didn’t have? A good enough head start.

Ellis looked down at his tattoo. With the Book, Cain unleashed murder into

the world. That was nothing compared to what Ellis would unleash on Cal

Harper.

19

“Do you know what’s in the truck or don’t you?” my dad asks.

I stomp my feet to shake off the excess water, then open the door to my van,

hop inside, and flick off the blue lights. “Not yet.”

“Whoa, whoa — hold on,” my dad says, climbing into the passenger seat. “I

saw him take the truck and drive off with—”

“He didn’t take anything.”

Landing with a squish in the passenger seat, my father looks at me, then out

at the empty road, then back at me. “No, I saw it — container number

601174-7. I checked the numbers myself. There’s no way you could’ve

unloaded it that fast. And when I drove it out, you were following right behi

—”

I close my eyes and picture the black numbers on the side of the forty-foot

rust-colored container: 601174-7. At three in the morning, in the dark, it’s

amazing what you can do with some black electrical tape.

“The numbers. You switched them, didn’t you?” my dad blurts. “That

container Ellis just drove off with—”

“Is filled with three thousand pounds of plastic pineapples, courtesy of the

controlled delivery sting operations that Customs keeps prepared for just such

an occasion.”

Starting the van and noticing the exposed wires that Ellis used to hot-wire

underneath, I swing the steering wheel into a U-turn and do my best to

ignore the blue pulsing swirls as Timothy’s unmarked car fades behind us. Up

above, the purple-and-orange sunrise cracks a hairline fissure through the

black sky. The water from my clothes soaks my seat and puddles at my

crotch. But as I look in the rearview mirror, it still hasn’t washed off the flecks

of Timothy’s blood that’re sprayed across my cheek.

“You think this book — whatever it is — you think maybe there could be

something good in it? Y’know, like, maybe we’re finally getting some good

luck?” my father asks.

I turn to my dad, who’s eyeing the steering wheel and — Is he studying my

hands? He turns away fast, but there’s no mistaking that gleam in his eyes.

He’s anxious, but also . . . it’s almost like he’s enjoying himself.

“Lloyd, let me be clear here. There’s nothing good about this. The shipment .

. . the shooting . . . everything. It’s rotten, okay? And once something’s

rotten, it can never be good again.”

Surprised by my own outburst, I sit there silently, my chest rising and falling

far too rapidly. I’m not stupid. I know all the emotional reasons I went

chasing after my dad instead of just writing him off after the hospital. I still

believe in those reasons. But that doesn’t mean I believe him.

“Cal, I promise you, I have no idea what book Ellis is after, or what’s inside

that container.”

“Doesn’t matter,” I shoot back. “We’re about to get our answer.”

20

“Here?” my father asks, looking inside the dark doorway. Our clothes were

soaked from the water, but he’s still fidgeting with the spare dry T-shirt and

jeans I always keep stored in the van. “Y’sure?”

I nod, holding open the door with no doorknob and thankful that the punchcode

lock is still so easy to jimmy. Inside the old warehouse, the walls are

bare and peeling, while each corner hosts a small hill of crumpled newspapers

and garbage. Up high, the few horizontal windows are shattered. And the sign

out front carries the spray-painted love note “LO” (a gang-inspired tag that

means “Latinos Only” just in case anyone misses the welcome mat).

But as I flick a switch and the fluorescent lights blink to life, they reveal what

we’re really after: the navy blue container with black tracking number

601174-7 painted across its back. Beached like a metal whale, it rests its tail

against the narrow loading dock that runs along the back of the room.

“You sure it’s safe?” my father asks, racing for the container.

He’s missing the point. The warehouse may be decorated in modern dungeon,

but that’s the goal. Hidden under layers of fake corporate names, this place is

owned by the U.S. government.

We — They. They own them all around the city: fake warehouses that ICE,

Customs, and the FBI can use for whatever sting operations they happen to

be running. When Timothy offered to have the container delivered here, I

thought he was doing me a favor. All he was really doing — once he

presumably got rid of me and my dad — was swiping it for himself.