The Moonlit Earth

by Christopher Rice

  She tried to remember the last things they had said to each other. Something about … Something about …

  Cameron.

  She had told him that Cameron said he would be in touch with him. And the expression that came over his face was as blank and unreadable as the one Cameron had made when he saw Lucas moving among the party guests the night before.

  Had Lucas said anything in response to her?

  Not a word. Just that blank expression, the kind of expression a person puts on their face to mask the emotions beneath. She had told him to expect a phone call from Cameron, and he hadn’t said Good, or I’ll be waiting, or Thanks for letting me know. He had said nothing, which meant he either didn’t want to speak with Cameron or it was a moot point because Cameron had already spoken to him.

  The call was from Cameron.

  For some reason, this thought spread gooseflesh up and down her arms. The bottom of her stomach went cold, and she momentarily became so distracted, she found herself searching for the nearest exit. These were the same physical sensations that set in when she first discovered a lump in her left breast that had turned out benign; a cascade of tensions throughout the body that edges on panic but doesn’t quite get you there.

  No, he couldn’t have made the call. His plane was still in the air. It was right after … It was the time he usually checked in with her, right after lunch. The same time his plane landed in Hong Kong, after which he usually managed to get in a call to her before he went to his hotel room and collapsed. Only he hadn’t called her. He had called Lucas and he had said …? Something that had scared Lucas half to death.

  Tell Lucas I’ll be in touch. This had been Cameron’s response two nights ago when she asked him if he was mad at their cousin. Not a denial or a benign explanation of his refusal to go downstairs and greet their family, just a promise. Were they the only true words Cameron had spoken that night? Maybe, as soon as his plane landed, he had kept his word.

  There was only one way to confirm this theory, and it meant she had to return to the safe house.

  11

  Rancho Santa Fe

  Lucas heard her on the steps and opened the front door before Megan could bring her finger to the buzzer. He reeked of scotch. As she stepped inside the front door, he returned to the indentation he had made in the chocolate-colored mohair sofa. His BlackBerry was resting on the glass coffee table, right next to his cocktail. The glass and steel great room was lit by television flicker, and the shades on the interior walls had been raised, revealing a rectangle of lawn dotted with modern sculptures and the turquoise footprint of a swimming pool.

  “Where’s Mom?”

  “Asleep. Where have you been?”

  “I went to L.A.,” she said.

  “A little shopping?”

  “I saw my father.”

  It was impossible to read the nuances of his facial expression in the dancing lights of the television, but the look he gave her was long and steady.

  “And how is he?” Lucas asked.

  “Cameron’s been living there for about a month.”

  Lucas shut his eyes briefly, and sipped his scotch. Surely, this news had bruised his ego, given the pride he took in being their caretaker. But instead of responding to it, he gestured at the television. “It was a bomb.”

  “I thought they knew that already.”

  “No, they weren’t sure, but they found the source of the explosion. Well, there were two explosions. The first one came from a laundry chute that was right next to the boiler for the hotel and …” He bowed his head and fell silent, and for a second, Megan thought he was hiding his eyes from some gory image on the screen. “What do you mean he was living with him?”

  “Maybe you should get some sleep too.”

  “I’m not drunk, if that’s what you’re implying.”

  “You’re not sober either.” He shrugged and sank back into the sofa cushions. To his drowsy silence, she said, “It’s been a long day. For all of us.”

  “Is he gay?” Lucas asked.

  “Who?”

  “Your dad. I always thought that might have been why he left the way he did, you know?”

  “He’s been seeing a woman for a few years.”

  “Right,” Lucas whispered. “So he’s just a complete waste of flesh then. You want to know something weird?”

  “Actually, Lucas, I’m a little full up on weird today. Maybe we could—”

  “I don’t know if I ever told you this but my father was so jealous of your dad. I mean, like eaten up with jealousy. And I could never get it—I mean, here my dad was raking in millions and playing the market like a fucking genius, and your dad was driving around in a black-and-white hassling drunk college kids on Adams Boulevard. I mean, what bullshit—”

  “Lucas, I would really appreciate it if you could—”

  “But you know, I think it was the Vietnam thing too. The fact that your dad went and mine stayed home and became a number cruncher. That’s all he thought he was. Can you believe that? A number cruncher. No matter what I said, I just couldn’t shake him of all that macho bullshit. He still thought your dad was the better man because he had walked through a fucking jungle with a rifle. Such bullshit.

  “I think that’s why he was so big on taking care of you guys. ’Cause he had to prove—even after your father pulled the biggest dick move of all—he was still the better man. Of course, he never had to prove it to me. I always knew. I never doubted it for a fucking second.”

  It didn’t take a therapist to detect the veins of insecurity and self-loathing that ran through her cousin. But she had rarely glimpsed this side of him in the flesh—this foul-mouthed, sullen, and downright predatory side of him. It usually came out after a few drinks. On another night, when she had her wits about her, she could have left the room. But she needed something from him, and a part of her believed he could sense this and was toying with her.

  “I imagine it wasn’t easy for you,” she said.

  “What wasn’t easy?”

  “Growing up with that kind of insecurity around you,” she said. “Sometimes I look at the things you have to deal with and I think … better to grow up in the space left by a missing father than to live in the shadow of a powerful one.”

  He stared at her as if she had made a strange sound, then he took a slug from his drink and wiped at the corner of his mouth with a curled forefinger. Now that he had been blindsided, she seized her opportunity. “Can I use your phone? Mine’s almost out of juice.”

  “Use the house phone.”

  “It’s long-distance. One of Cameron’s friends in London left me a message asking for an update and I haven’t had a chance to call him back.”

  “What time is it in London?”

  “It doesn’t matter. The guy isn’t really able to sleep. So can I just …” She got to her feet and reached for the BlackBerry. His hand closed around her wrist before she had it in her grasp. He had leaned forward to stop her and their faces were only inches apart. She held this uncomfortable pose for as long as she could; if she couldn’t get a look at his incoming calls folder, she could certainly make it clear how badly he didn’t want her to see it.

  “I want to keep the line open, OK?” he asked. His tone was casual but his expression was grave. “I’ve got people all over the world monitoring the situation. They need to be able to reach me, OK?”

  His scotch breath made her eyes water. When she blinked a few times, he realized he was still holding on to her wrist and released it.

  Why couldn’t she have just waited for him to pass out? Because the phone probably locked after a minute of sitting idle and she didn’t know the code.

  “You want a refill?” she asked him.

  “I’m good. Thanks.”

  As she tried to get her bearings back, she turned to the television. Some network had already assembled animation of the explosion. A small black dot fell down a translucent laundry chute with the steady speed of computerized gravity. The d
ot hit the bottom of the shaft, then exploded, showering fragments of animated metal out on all sides and denting the side of the boiler. Then the entire boiler went up in a white flash that pulsed through the outlines of doors and hallways.

  “Do you know anything about some charter flight Cameron worked?” she asked. Lucas didn’t answer. But when she turned away from the TV, she saw he was staring at her, holding his glass against his right thigh. “Apparently Peninsula Airlines flew some special charter for a bunch of Saudis, and one of them requested both flight attendants from that ad Cameron was in. They must have been pretty important guys if Zach Holder gave them an entire triple-seven to fly home in.”

  “Holder’s got a lot of business in the Middle East. I only deal with the profits.”

  “So you don’t know anything about the charter?”

  “First I’ve heard of it.”

  “Any idea who the Saudis could be?”

  “Holder’s got a construction outfit that does a bunch of work over there. But I don’t want a damn thing to do with any of those fucking Stone Age barbarians. Shit, give me the Chinese any day. Just don’t tell all your tree-hugger friends up in San Fran that I said that.”

  “Is that a no, Lucas?”

  “Is what a no?”

  “No, you have no idea who the charter flight was for?”

  “Don’t you have a phone call to make?”

  “It can wait.”

  “For what?”

  “For you to tell me the truth.”

  For a while, neither of them said anything. Then Lucas picked up the remote for the television and shut it off, leaving them in semidarkness with the sound of a fountain gurgling just outside the glass walls. The track lighting overhead was on, but at such a low setting it took a few minutes for her eyes to adjust.

  After the silence between them became excruciating, Lucas held up his BlackBerry in his right hand and pointed to it with his left. She didn’t confirm or deny her interest in his phone. But her silence was answer enough for Lucas. With a jerk of his wrist, he sent the thing skidding toward her across the glass coffee table. She hesitated before picking it up, knowing full well she was admitting to having tried to con the thing away from him.

  Her own phone buzzed once in her pants pocket—probably Hannah, sending her a text to report on how many reporters were outside her apartment. She ignored it and clicked her way to the BlackBerry’s incoming calls folder, then she scrolled through it, back through twenty-four hours to yesterday afternoon.

  There was nothing. No calls placed or received between the hours of noon and five o’clock. The gap would have looked conspicuous to anyone’s eyes.

  Hannah had seen him on the phone, and Megan had seen him bouncing the BlackBerry against his thigh when she found him on the sidewalk. But if he had gone to the trouble of deleting that entry, what point was there in asking him about it?

  The BlackBerry was still in her hand when he broke the silence. “If I had to guess I would say the charter was for the Al-Farhans. Every foreign contractor in Saudi Arabia is required to have a local business partner. They’re appointed by the House of Saud. Holder’s stuck with the Al-Farhans and that means he’s required to make them very happy.”

  “Thank you,” she said.

  “You want to tell me why you asked?”

  She got to her feet. “I’m trying to find out who the guy on the tape is.”

  When he saw she was leaving the room, Lucas got to his feet, but he didn’t follow her. “I didn’t tell you to find out who he was. I told you not to lie about it if you already knew.”

  “Obviously I don’t do everything you say.”

  “You want to explain your interest in my BlackBerry?”

  “Maybe in the morning.” When I won’t be here, because I’m not staying in this house another minute.

  She locked the guest bedroom door and the breath went out of her. She braced herself for a rap against the door, but none came. The only sound came from her phone. Another text message. Hannah again? She pulled out the phone.

  The tag on the text message was from an unfamiliar number. When she started to read it, she shot to her feet as if the president were about to enter the room.

  Megan, It’s Cameron. I need your help. I am still in Hong Kong. I am hiding. Please come. Send me a text message when you are here and we will meet. I have to turn off the phone to save batteries.

  The second message, the one that had just come through, read: Don’t trust Lucas. He is involved in this.

  She had never dialed a number so fast in her life. And it went straight to voice mail. She had to stifle a cry. Voice mail? Why the hell wasn’t he answering? Where could he be? Someplace he couldn’t answer the phone, obviously. But it was someplace where he could write out a lengthy text message. What kind of place would that be?

  Are you hurt?

  She paced the room, waiting for a response. There wasn’t any. He had just sent the messages a few minutes ago. For Christ’s sake, why couldn’t he have waited a few minutes before shutting off the phone? With each minute that went by without a response, her anger grew. If it was actually Cameron, he wouldn’t have been able to stand not getting some kind of confirmation from her. But the words she wanted to say to herself—That’s not like him— seemed childish and naïve given the series of small revelations that had been made to her in the course of the day.

  She read the message again and again. It was the second text that bothered her the most. Not because of its content; the gap in her cousin’s incoming calls folder had already convinced her he was lying to her. It was the manner in which it had been sent, almost as if it were an afterthought. Wouldn’t Cameron have put that information first? If you’re with Lucas, get the hell away from him and call me when you’re safe.

  She wasn’t sure if her brother had authored the words staring up at her from her phone’s display. What she was sure of was that there was somebody else out there who believed Lucas was playing some sort of role in this still-unfolding nightmare, a role that went far beyond caretaker and family spokesperson. If her brother wasn’t sending these messages, she needed some idea of who their author was before she hopped a plane to Hong Kong. But for now, there was more than enough cause to get her mother the hell out of there.

  She killed all the lights in the guest bedroom and opened the door a crack. Lucas was still in the living room; she couldn’t tell if he had nodded off, but he had certainly sunk deeper into the plush sofa cushions. Hopefully there was some sort of exit from the master suite into the yard. They were inside a gated community, so the owners hadn’t done much to fence in the house.

  The door to the master suite was unlocked. Inside, her mother was curled in the fetal position, cocooned inside a mountain of soft bedding. Her face looked doll-like, peering out from a wreath of sateen, illuminated by the television’s blue glow.

  Surely her mother hadn’t managed to drift off to sleep watching computer animations of the bomb that might have killed her son. As Megan neared the bed, she looked back and saw a long-forgotten blond singer strolling amid stage-set gazebos laced with fake roses, her hair a frosted wave, her dress three decades out of style. Not the news. A late-night rerun of the Lawrence Welk Show. Combined with the two prescription bottles on the nightstand, the syrupy music had landed her mother in a mild coma.

  Megan sat down on the bed and brushed sweat-damp hair from her mother’s forehead. It didn’t rouse her, so Megan gave her a light shake. Lilah squinted at her.

  “We need to go, Mom. There’s a problem. I need to get you out of here.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Lilah sat up in bed so suddenly she almost knocked Megan to the floor. She appeared to be looking for something. “You know, we could get those flowers put in water and that would probably do it,” her mother said, with slurred conviction. There were no flowers anywhere in the room and her mother seemed to be peering into space.

  “Mom, you’re talking in your sleep. Wake up.”


  “Your uncle Neal hates roses but I’m sure we could find something he’d like, ’cause after all, he’s got such a garden and Natalia says she has a green thumb so that’ll help.” As Lilah spoke, she felt the comforter all around herself as if she were looking for her car keys or a dropped comb. Uncle Neal had been dead for five years, and Natalia, one of the many women he had dated late in his life, had been out of the picture for almost a decade, since Megan was a teenager. Her mother wasn’t just sleep-talking; she was flashbacking.

  “Mom,” Megan said firmly, as she took Lilah by both shoulders. “I need you to wake up, OK?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Can you get out of bed? Can you get dressed?”

  Lilah grimaced and waved one hand in the air as if Megan had suggested they place worms on fishhooks. She was trapped someplace between sleep and waking, and whatever pills she had taken had tethered her to that strange purgatory. At least, Megan hoped it was the pills. Otherwise, this whole flashbacking thing might signal the onset of some profound mental condition. Of course it was the pills, and tomorrow, she wouldn’t remember any of this if Megan didn’t get her out of bed and on her feet. But standing up might not help either. Apparently, her mother had no memory of her antics on pain meds following her last face-lift, when she had demanded her housekeeper drive her to Saks Fifth Avenue despite the fact that she was wearing a nightgown.

  Lilah made as if she were going to get out of bed on the other side, but she sank down into the pillows on her stomach like a corpse arriving on the evening tide.

  “Mom, we need to go!”

  Megan walked to the other side of the bed and yanked her mother to a seated position. “What?” her mother groaned. This time there was more wakefulness in her eyes, along with pure anger.

  Megan knew what she was about to do was desperate, and possibly based on a lie. But she had no other choice.

  She pulled out her cell phone and paged through to the text message she had just received then she held it up for her mother to read. “What is this?” her mother slurred.