Gotta get out of here.
Still running, Perez spotted a coffee shop at the end of the block. It appeared to be open. Many of the coffee shops he’d been to in Mexico City were also Internet cafés with phone service. He ducked inside, his heart nearly exploding with excitement to see that this coffee shop was no exception.
“Estamos cerrados,” said the man behind the counter. We’re closed.
Perez ignored him and hurried to one of the casetas in the back. It was like a phone booth but less private; like most casetas in the city, this one didn’t have a closed top. Privacy was the least of his concerns. Perez entered his credit card information from memory. Then he put on the headset and dialed his accountant’s cell number. He got a recorded message: “The voice-mail box for the number you have dialed is full. Please try again later. Goodbye.”
“Shit!”
This was no situation for e-mail; Cesar might burst into the café at any moment, gun drawn. Perez wanted to dial his accountant at home, but it was unlisted, and he couldn’t remember the number. It was on speed dial on his cell phone, which was sitting on the dresser in the apartment. At that moment, he hated himself for not having backed up his contact list to the Cloud. He couldn’t remember any numbers, except one: his home number. Technically, his old home number. His wife’s home number. Heidi was his last hope.
“We’re closed,” the attendant shouted again, and he turned off the fluorescent lights.
Perez dialed anyway, bathed in the glow of the display screen as he listened to the lonely pulse of a ringing phone overseas. Once. Twice. She answered, and he truly had never been happier to hear his wife’s voice.
“Heidi, you have to help me!”
“Alberto?”
“Yes,” he said with urgency. “I’m in Mexico City, and I’ve run into some trouble. An emergency.”
“What kind of emergency?”
Alberto had told his wife nothing about his marijuana business, and he intended to keep her in the dark. “That’s not important.”
“What do you mean it’s not important? Alberto, are you okay?”
“I’ll be fine if you just listen to me. I need you to call my accountant, Harvey Tomlin.”
“Your accountant? Alberto, I’m heading out to dinner. You call me from Mexico City on a Saturday night and want me to track down your accountant? I’m not your secretary.”
“Heidi, please.”
“Don’t ‘Heidi please’ me. Why is it so urgent for me to call your accountant, anyway? Are you hiding assets and gearing up for divorce? Is that what this is about? Does Mr. Tomlin have some papers for the wife to sign?”
“No, it’s not anything like that! It’s a legitimate emergency.”
“Then call the police.”
“No! We can’t call the police.”
“Why not?”
He hesitated—why not?—and came up with the answer. “Because the police are corrupt down here. And this is not the kind of emergency the police can help me with.”
“Fine. If your emergency is such a big secret, then call your boyfriend. He has lots of friends who can help you, I’m sure.”
“Senator Stahl is not my boyfriend!”
“Then find a new one. Goodbye, Alberto.”
She hung up. She actually hung up.
“Heidi, you fucking bitch!”
Chapter 55
Charlotte pulled her car into her driveway, turned off the engine, and immediately reached for her cell. She’d resisted the urge to check her Instagram account while driving back from Pensacola, but her curiosity could no longer be contained. She launched the app, and her screen told the story. Amanda had accepted her friend request. Charlotte’s message—“I need to see you”—was marked seen.
But there was no reply.
It made Charlotte wonder. Could Amanda have “seen” but not read it? Did she read the message and then get pulled away to something else before she could respond? Charlotte had no way of knowing.
She was about to put her thumbs to work and access all of the personal information at her disposal as Amanda’s newest virtual “friend.” Then she stopped. Since her realization that the “promise is a promise” text message had come from Amanda, Charlotte’s feelings had run the gamut. The fact that an old friend with a military background had stepped up to protect her was in some ways flattering. The politically motivated threats against Charlotte as a faithless elector had made national news, so anyone—Amanda included—simply had to read the headlines to learn that Charlotte was in danger and needed help. But she wished Amanda had just reached out and asked, “Hey, is there anything I can do?” Instead, Amanda had acted less like a friend and more like a stalker. Charlotte was owed an explanation—but with her thumbs at the ready, poised to scroll through Amanda’s every social-media post, it suddenly occurred to Charlotte that the shoe was arguably on the other foot.
We’re all stalkers. Every single one of us.
Charlotte tucked her phone inside her purse, climbed out of the car, and started toward the front door. With each step, the second-guessing escalated. She’d selected the words in the message carefully—nothing accusatory, which would have only pushed Amanda away; just something catchy enough to make her want to respond. But in hindsight, maybe a better message would have said, “We should meet,” not “I need to see you.”
“Need” was such a loaded word.
The porch light was off, but she found the lock in the darkness, turned her key, opened the front door, and stepped inside. She flipped the two switches on the wall. The porch light went on, but the lamp in the living room was still dark. She closed the door and set the chain lock, then crossed the dark room to the lamp and turned the switch. Nothing. One possibility was that she’d unplugged the lamp for the vacuum cleaner and forgotten to replug it, but with her life turned upside down, she honestly couldn’t remember the last time she’d vacuumed. A chill came over her, and she had the unsettling sensation that she was not alone in the house.
“Amanda?” she said with trepidation.
There was no answer, but the sensation did not subside. Charlotte was carrying, but as she reached for her weapon, she felt the pressure of a cold metal gun barrel at the back of her head.
“Don’t move.”
It wasn’t Amanda’s voice. It was a man’s. He sounded Hispanic.
“What do you want?” asked Charlotte.
“Raise your hands up over your head. Very slowly.”
Charlotte complied, and another man emerged from the kitchen. He searched her from head to toe for a weapon, taking the opportunity to grope her every private place. Her Baby Glock was in the holster around her ribs. After getting a handful of her breast, the man found the gun and took it.
“My jewelry is in a box on the dresser in the bedroom,” said Charlotte. “There’s some cash in the top drawer. Take whatever you want.”
She felt the gun press harder against the back of her head.
“We will,” the man said, but he showed no interest in her cash or jewelry. He led her to the TV room adjacent to her living room and directed her to sit on the couch. The room had one window, and the man went to it and closed the slats on the Bahamian shutters. The other man went to the kitchen, and Charlotte could hear him talking in Spanish on his cell phone. The light switched on, and the man who spoke English pulled up a chair. He sat on it cowboy style, his legs straddling the seat and his forearms resting atop the chair back. The gun was aimed at her face.
“Who’s your friend talking to?” asked Charlotte.
“The boss.”
“What are they talking about?”
“You.”
“What about me?”
“Whether you should live or die.”
“I vote live.”
“It’s not up to you.”
Charlotte’s “vote” had been a nervous reaction, the way some people laughed when they were supposed to cry. This guy spoke of life and death with no more emotion than the ave
rage person’s sandwich order.
“There’s no reason to kill me.”
“That depends.”
“On what?”
“On how much Dr. Perez told you.”
“Told me about what?”
An evil smile creased his lips. “Well, if I told you, then it wouldn’t matter what Dr. Perez told you, would it? I would have to kill you.”
“Dr. Perez didn’t tell me anything,” said Charlotte.
“That may be. We’ll know soon.”
“How?”
“Dr. Perez will tell us everything he told you,” he said.
“What if he lies?”
The man’s smile faded. “Believe me,” he said in a deeply serious tone, “Dr. Perez will be in no position to lie.”
The doorbell rang. For the first time, Charlotte saw a look of concern on her captor’s face. The kitchen went silent, and the man on the phone quickly entered the TV room, cell phone in hand.
“Tranquilo!” he said in a harsh whisper, which Charlotte assumed meant “quiet.”
“Are you expecting anyone?” the man with the gun whispered.
Amanda? Charlotte wondered. “No,” she said.
“Tranquilo!” the other man said, this time even more harshly.
They waited in silence, and after a few seconds, the doorbell rang again.
Jack was in the Florida room with his father, reviewing the plans for Agnes’s memorial service. Everything was settled, so there was no work to be done. His stepmother had been sick longer than Jack had known, and Harry and Agnes had used the time to take care of every arrangement and plan out every detail.
Jack’s cell rang. He didn’t recognize the number, but it was the “305” Miami area code, so he took the call. It was Heidi Bristol.
“Jack, I’m so sorry to bother you.”
“No problem. What’s up?”
“I—I don’t know,” she said, and Jack noticed the quake in her voice. “Something very weird is going on with Alberto.”
Chapter 56
Amanda waited at the front door, wondering if she should ring the bell a third time. A light was on inside, but the window shutters were closed, making it impossible to see if anyone was home. Charlotte’s car was in the driveway. Either Charlotte was out with a friend who’d picked her up, or Charlotte had changed her mind since reaching out to Amanda on Instagram: she didn’t need to see Amanda.
The friend request with Charlotte’s message—especially the message—had sent Amanda’s heart soaring. Amanda hated the way things had ended between them in college, but she’d accepted it. No calls, texts, e-mails, snail mail, or communications of any kind. Stay at least five hundred feet away from Charlotte, her residence, her place of work or schooling, and her vehicle. Those were the terms of the permanent restraining order, and Amanda had strictly adhered to that order for years. She hadn’t even bothered to appear in court to oppose the petition. Her view was that if Charlotte needed to go to such ridiculous lengths to deny who she was, or at least one side of her bisexual self, so be it. What chance did a lesbian Latina from Miami have before a Pensacola judge, anyway? He would have thrown her in jail before siding with Amanda. She’d put Charlotte behind her and moved on—until her picture was popping up in the news every day. Seeing Charlotte’s face, and knowing that she was in danger, resurrected so many feelings and memories for Amanda.
But even after deciding that “a promise is a promise”—that she would stop even political nuts from hurting Charlotte—Amanda had done her best to comply with the order. It was, after all, “permanent.” She’d sent only the one text, and with the spoof app, there was no proof that it had come from her own cell number. She didn’t even send an electronic response to Charlotte’s Instagram message. And except for pulling Charlotte from the pickup truck that had sailed off the road, Amanda had maintained the required distance. Only when Charlotte invited her—“I need to see you”—did Amanda show up at her front door.
With flowers.
And she was feeling pretty stupid about that.
Amanda turned away, started down the porch steps, and then stopped. She heard a noise from inside the house, and it sounded like someone removing the chain lock. A moment later the dead bolt turned, and the door swung open. But there was no one there. Amanda peered inside from where she stood, but the living room was dark, and the glow of the porch light only reached so far.
“Charlotte?”
There was no answer. The door remained open.
Amanda took one step closer to the opening and stopped. “Charlotte, I’m sorry. I know it probably feels like I’ve been messing with you, but I can explain. Please, don’t—”
A blow from behind knocked every bit of air from her lungs. Flowers flew into the air, and Amanda staggered forward, driven by the force of an attacker who had lowered his shoulder, launched his body, and sent his full weight into her spine. Amanda tumbled through the doorway, the door slammed behind her, and the man who’d been standing behind the open door landed on top of her, pinning her to the floor. Amanda was on her stomach, he was sitting on her kidneys, and his enormous hand pressed down on her right cheekbone, shoving the other side of her face against the carpet.
“Don’t hurt me!” Amanda pleaded.
“Quiet!” the man said in English.
A light switched on in the hallway. Amanda couldn’t turn her head, but with a shift of her eyes she glanced up and saw Charlotte standing there, her expression taut with fear. Another man was holding a gun to her head. A third man—the lookout who’d pushed Amanda through the doorway—entered the house through the back door and hurried into the living room from the kitchen. He spoke in Spanish, which Amanda understood perfectly.
“I checked her car and went around the whole house,” the lookout said. “She’s alone.”
The man on top of Amanda spoke in English—good English, albeit with a Hispanic accent. “What’s your name?”
She chose not to lie. “Amanda.”
“Nice to meet you, Amanda. Things will go much better if we get on a first-name basis. What do you want to call me?”
Asshole. But she didn’t say it.
“Call me Paco.” He picked up one of the flowers that had scattered across the floor. “Tell me, Amanda. What’s up with the roses?”
Amanda didn’t answer. Paco looked at Charlotte, but she, too, was silent.
“Are you two . . . you know?”
Neither woman answered.
Paco smiled knowingly. “Well, agradecimiento a mi Santa Muerte,” he said, giving thanks to the holy mother of death. “The night just got a whole lot more interesting, ladies.”
Chapter 57
Jack flew out of Northwest Florida Beaches International Airport on the last nonstop of the day to Miami. Andie and Theo were with him. Jack’s father had tired of being asked how he was doing and insisted that Andie get back home to his granddaughter. She took a taxi to Key Biscayne. Jack and Theo left separately. Even with the one-hour time difference between the Panhandle and the rest of Florida, they were on Miami Beach before Dr. Perez’s accountant returned from dinner with his wife.
The Tomlins lived in a waterfront high-rise. It turned out that Theo and the security guard had grown up two blocks away from each other in the Grove ghetto, before Theo had gone to prison. He even remembered Theo’s older brother from the glory days of the Grove Lords. It came as no surprise when Theo told him that Tatum Knight, like most of the old gangbangers from the ’hood, was long since dead. With the guard’s permission, Jack and Theo waited in the lobby. They watched through the glass entrance doors as the accountant left his Bentley with the valet attendant, and they rose from the white leather couch as the couple entered the lobby. Tomlin was middle-aged and way too portly to be wearing an Armani slim-fit suit. The young woman on his arm, a walking advertisement for breast-augmentation surgery, was without question the trophy wife.
Jack introduced himself, then cut to it: “Can I speak to you about Dr. Al
berto Perez, please? It’s extremely important.”
Tomlin sent his wife upstairs in the elevator, and Jack took note of the fact that he didn’t ask “What’s this about” in front of her. The men gathered around a chrome-and-glass table at the other end of the lobby, in relative privacy behind a pair of polished granite columns and a replica of the Venus de Milo, which was every bit as tall as the six-foot-eight-inch original Jack had seen in the Louvre.
“Damn near the total WNBA package,” said Theo. “Too bad about the wingspan.”
Jack could only wonder what Theo’s lectures in art history must have been like at Florida State Prison.
“How do you know Dr. Perez?” asked Tomlin.
Surely he knew that Jack was Charlotte’s lawyer—anyone who watched the news did—so Jack skipped ahead. “I know his wife,” said Jack, and then he told him about the urgent phone call from Heidi Bristol.
“Hmm,” said Tomlin.
Jack waited for more, but “Hmm” was the totality of Tomlin’s response.
“Do you know what he’s doing in Mexico City?”
“No.”
Again Jack waited, but Tomlin had nothing to add. Jack had prepared hundreds of witnesses for depositions over the years, trying to teach them to give a yes-or-no answer whenever possible and to volunteer not the slightest information to the opposing lawyer. They usually ran their mouths anyway. Tomlin was a pro, and this wasn’t even a deposition.
“Do you know where’s he’s staying in Mexico City?” asked Jack.
“No.”
“Do you know who he went there to see?”
“No.”
“Do you have any idea why Dr. Perez would phone his estranged wife from a caseta and tell her that he needs to reach you—that it’s an emergency?”
The Big Lie Page 29