For my mom,

Teri Meltzer,

who still teaches me how fiercely,

how selflessly,

how beautifully,

a parent can love her child 

 

 

The story of Cain and Abel takes up just sixteen lines of the Bible.

It is arguably history’s most famous murder.

But the story is silent about one key detail: the weapon Cain used to kill his brother.

It’s not a rock. Or a sharpened stone.

And to this day, the world’s first murder weapon is still lost to history.

 

 

PROLOGUE

Nineteen years ago

Miami, Florida

 

When Calvin Harper was five, his petite, four-foot-eleven-inch mom ripped

the pillow from his bed at three a.m. and told him that dust mites were

feeding off his skin. “We need to wash it. Now!” On that night, his mom

seemed to change into someone else, as if she were possessed by some

ghost or devil . . . or demon.

His dad told Calvin it was one of Mommy’s “bad days.” The doctors had a

name for it, too. Bipolar.

When Calvin was seven, his mom called home with a cheery slur in her voice

(the demon loved a good drink) to proudly tell him she had carved Calvin’s

initials in her arm. When Calvin was eight and she was in a drunken rage, she

took the family dog to the pound and “accidentally” had him put down. The

demon liked laughs.

But none of those nights prepared Calvin for this one.

Fresh from his bath, with his white blond hair still soaking wet and dangling

over the birthmark near his left eye, nine-year-old Calvin sat in his room,

bearing down on his paper with an orange Crayola, while his parents shouted

in the kitchen.

Tonight, the demon was back.

“Rosalie, put it down!” his father growled.

Crash.

“Get away from me, Lloyd!” his mother howled. Clang.

His father grunted. “That’s it — you’re done!” he screamed back.

“You’re done!”

Cling. Clang. Cling.

Calvin twisted the doorknob, ran for the kitchen, and froze as he turned the

corner. All the kitchen’s lower drawers were open and empty, their contents —

pans, pot lids — scattered across the floor. In the corner, the fridge was open,

too — and picked just as clean. Jars of ketchup, soda, and spaghetti sauce

were still spinning on the floor. In the center of the kitchen, his six-foot-twoinch

dad was bent forward in pain as Mom brandished a fat white jar of

mayonnaise, ready to smash her husband in the head.

“Mom?” Calvin said in a small voice.

His mother wheeled around, off balance. The jar fell from her grip. Calvin saw

it plummet. As it hit the floor and exploded, there was a low, thick pooomp,

sending a mushroom cloud of mayo spraying across the floor. Calvin’s mother

never flinched.

“You always root against me!” she seethed at her nine-year-old boy with her

dark, alligator green eyes.

“Maniac!” his dad erupted, and with one brutal shove pummeled his wife

squarely in the chest.

“Mom!” Calvin shouted.

The blow hit her like a baseball bat, sending her stumbling backward.

“Mom, look out for—”

Her heel hit the mayonnaise at full speed and she flipped backward like a

seesaw. If Lloyd hadn’t been so big or so enraged . . . if he hadn’t blown up

with such a fierce physical outburst . . . he might not have shoved her so

hard. But he did. And as she fell backward, still looking at Calvin, she had no

idea that the back of her neck was headed straight toward the lower kitchen

drawer that was still wide open.

Calvin tried to run forward but could scarcely lift his arms and legs.

In mid-air, his mother was turned toward him, her alligator eyes still burning

through him. There was no mistaking her final thought. She wasn’t scared. Or

even in pain. She was angry. At him. The white blond, wet-haired boy who

caused her to drop the mayo and . . . from that day forward, in his nine-yearold

mind . . . the person who caused her to fall.

“Mom!”

She was falling. Falling. Then—

The sound was unforgettable.

“Rosie!” his father screamed, leaping forward and scooping her head toward

his chest. Her arms rag-dolled across the mayonnaise-smeared floor.

“Calvin, don’t you look!” Lloyd cried. The tears were running down his

twisted Irish nose. “Close your eyes! Don’t you look!”

But Calvin looked. He wanted to cry, but nothing came. He wanted to run but

couldn’t move. As he stood frozen, a stream of urine ran down his right leg.

Most lives crumble over time. Cal Harper’s crumbled in one crashing fall. But

nineteen years later, thanks to a single call on his radio, he’d begin his quest

through history and finally have a chance to put his life together.

1

Nineteen years later

Hong Kong

“Good girl — such a good girl,” Ellis said, down on one knee as his dog

snatched the beef treat from his open palm. With a bite and a gulp, the treat

was gone, and Ellis Belasco, with his sleek copper red hair, smiled proudly and

added a strong authoritative pat to the back of his smoky brown pet’s neck.

As the trainer said, attack dogs had to be rewarded.

“P-Please . . . my leg . . . he chewed my leg!” the thin Chinese man whined

as he crawled across the worn beige carpet toward the hotel room door.

“To be clear, she chewed your Achilles’ tendon,” Ellis said, calmly standing up

and brushing back his long European-style haircut — he was always

meticulous — to reveal amber eyes framed by striking, lush eyebrows that

almost merged on the bridge of his nose. Because of his rosy coloring, his

cheeks were always flushed, as were his full lips, which he licked as he stared

down at a small tattoo between his thumb and pointer finger.

His birthright was healing nicely.

For the past two months, Ellis had been tracking the ancient book from

collector to collector — from the doctor in China whose death gave it away, to

Zhao, the shipper, who schemed to deliver it elsewhere. Every culture called it

by a different name, but Ellis knew the truth.

“I know you have it,” Ellis said. “I’d like the Book of Lies now.”

From the corner of the bed, Ellis reached for his small gray pistol.

“Nonono . . . you can’t — My fiancée — We just got engaged!” the young

dockworker begged, scrambling on his one good knee as his other leg left a

smear of blood across the carpet.

Ellis pressed the barrel of his gun against the man’s throat. It was vital he hit

the jugular. But he knew he would. That was the advantage of having God on

your side. “I paid what you asked me, Zhao,” Ellis said calmly. “But it makes

me sad that someone else clearly paid you more.”

“I swear — the book — I told you where it’s going!” Zhao screamed, his eyes

rolling toward the pistol as Ellis glanced out the hotel window, into the dim

alley. The view was awful — nothing more than a blank brick wall. But that

was why Ellis had Zhao meet him here. No view, no witnesses.

With a squeeze, Ellis shot him in the throat.

There was no bang, just a pneumatic hiss. Zhao jerked slightly, and his eyes

blinked open. . . . “Ai! Ai, that—! What was that?” he stuttered as a drop of

blood bubbled from his neck.

The military called them “jet injectors.” Since World War I, they had been

used to vaccinate soldiers quickly and easily. There was no needle. The burst

of air was so strong, it drilled through the skin with nothing more than a

disposable air cartridge and the one-use red nozzle that looked like a thimble

with a tiny hole. All you’d feel was the snap of a rubber band, and the vaccine

was in your blood. For Ellis, it was a bit overdramatic, but if he was to find the

Book that had been taken from him . . . that had been taken from his family .

. . He knew every war had rules. His great-grandfather left him this gun — or

the plans for this gun, at least — for a reason. It took time and patience to

build it from scratch. Ellis had plenty of both.

“Forty . . . thirty-nine . . . thirty-eight . . .” Ellis began to count, peeking

under the wrist of his starched shirt and checking his new Ulysse Nardin

watch.

“Wait . . . ! The shot—! What’d you put in me!?” Zhao screamed, gripping

the side of his neck.

“. . . thirty-seven . . . thirty-six . . . thirty-five . . .” Ellis said, his voice as

serene as ever. “My family first encountered it in Belgium. Conium

maculatum. Hemlock.”

“Are you—? You put hemlock—!? You put a poison — are you a fool!? Now

you get nothing!” Zhao yelled, fighting hard as he thrashed and crawled

toward the door.

In a way, Zhao was right. Shooting him was a gamble. But Ellis knew . . . it’s

not a gamble when you know you’ll win. After unscrewing the empty hemlock

vial, he replaced it with a vial filled with a cloudy yellow liquid.

“I-Is that the antidote?” Zhao asked. “It is, isn’t it!?”

Ellis stepped back, away from his victim’s reach. “Do you know who Mitchell

Siegel is, Zhao?”

“Wh-What’re you talking about?”

“Thirty-one . . . thirty . . . twenty-nine . . . In 1932, a man named Mitchell

Siegel was shot in the chest and killed. While mourning the death of his

father, his young son Jerry came up with the idea of a bulletproof man that he

nicknamed Superman.”

Mid-crawl, Zhao’s feet stopped moving. “M-My—! Wh-What’d you do to my

legs!?”

Ellis nodded and stood still. To this day, scientists didn’t know why hemlock

poisoning started in the feet and worked up from there.

“Such a dumb idea, right, Zhao — a bulletproof man? But the only reason

Superman was born was because a little boy missed his father,” Ellis pointed

out. “And the best part? The murder’s still unsolved. In fact, people are still

so excited by Superman, they never stop to ask just why Mitchell Siegel was

killed — or to even consider that maybe, just maybe, he might’ve done

something that made him the bad guy in this story. . . . Twenty . . .

nineteen . . . eighteen . . .”

“I can’t feel my legs!” Zhao sobbed as tears ran down his face.

“You think I’m the bad guy here, but I’m not,” Ellis said, putting away the

empty vial, zipping his leather doctor’s case, and smoothing the sheets on the

edge of the bed. “I’m the hero, Zhao. You’re the bad guy. You’re the one

keeping the Book of Lies from us. Just like Mitchell Siegel kept it from us.”

“P-Please, I don’t know who the hell you’re talking about!”

Ellis crouched down next to Zhao, who was flat on his belly, barely able to

catch his breath. “I want my Book. Tell me its final destination.”

“I — I — I told you,” Zhao stuttered. “W-We — It’s going to Panama.”

“And then where?”

“That’s it — Panama . . . ” he repeated, his nose pressed to the carpet, his

eyes clenched in pain. “Just . . . the antidote . . .”

“You feel that tightening in your waist?” Ellis asked, looking down and

realizing that his shoes could use a new shine. “Your thighs are dead, Zhao.

Then it’ll climb to your testicles. Hemlock is what killed Socrates. He narrated

his entire death — how it slithered from his waist, to his chest, right up to

when his eyes were fixed and dilated.”

“Okay . . . okayokayokay . . . Miami! After Panama . . . they’re . . . it’s going

to Miami! In Florida,” Zhao insisted. “The sheet . . . the lading bill . . . it’s . . .

I swear . . . it’s in my pocket! Just make it stop!”

Ellis reached into Zhao’s pocket and extracted the sheet of light pink paper

that held all the details of the shipment’s arrival.