The Perfect Lie

by Dinah McCall

  “Yes, son, I’m here, and I swear to God, when we get out of this, I will never leave you alone again.”

  Evan’s fingers curled into fists as he clutched at the fabric of Jonah’s shirt.

  “They killed Mother…and Grandfather. And they’re going to kill me.”

  It was all Jonah could do to look at the wounds on Evan’s face and not wail.

  “I know about your mother,” Jonah said. “And I’m as sorry as I can be. But your grandfather didn’t die, although he’s suffered a stroke.”

  “How…?”

  “Your aunt Macie,” Jonah said. “She found me.”

  Evan wanted to be strong for this man who seemed impervious to harm, but the tears were welling just the same. Even while he was wanting to hope, he was enveloped with hopelessness. His voice quivered.

  “They’re going to kill us.”

  “Not if I can help it,” Jonah said.

  It was the first time since hell had come to Evan’s world that he believed he might truly live through it.

  Elena was feeding Calderone soup, one spoonful at a time, taking care to blot any drips from his lips before they could fall.

  “Eat well, my love,” she crooned, then leaned forward and kissed his forehead. “Soon we will be home where we belong.”

  Calderone smiled and laid his hand on the crown of her head.

  “You miss the niña?”

  Elena’s eyes teared. “Sí, although I know she is being cared for.”

  When she tried to feed him another spoonful of soup, he pushed it away.

  “Enough. I will rest now. Tomorrow I will avenge Alejandro and then we will all go home.”

  “The man…Jonah Slade…he is with the boy now?” Elena asked.

  Calderone nodded. “So I have been told.”

  A slight frown creased the middle of her forehead.

  “It seems strange that he is captured so easily, don’t you think?”

  Calderone shrugged. “No man is as perfect as he seems…even me.”

  “No, Miguel, you are wrong. You are perfect in every way.”

  Calderone’s gaze moved from Elena’s lush mouth to the thrust of her breasts beneath her blouse.

  “As are you, my love. Show me your perfection. I have need of you now.”

  Elena’s heart quickened. Miguel Calderone was a lusty lover. Just the thought of him between her legs made her weak. Still, only yesterday he’d been lying near death. She laid her hand in the middle of his chest, assuring herself that the heartbeat was strong.

  “Are you sure?”

  Calderone grabbed her hand and moved it from his chest to the place between his legs.

  “Feel this?”

  Already his body was responding to her touch. She encircled him, then began to stroke, taking pride in the swell of flesh and muscle.

  “Yes, my love, I feel you. Now feel me,” she whispered, and replaced her hands with her lips.

  Calderone leaned back on the bed and closed his eyes, letting the pleasure of her mouth and hands shatter his control.

  Collum came to, getting a brief glimpse of wreckage and the oil slick in which he was floating before a wave came crashing down onto his back. Once it had passed, he had time to ascertain his condition.

  He was hanging on to a life vest. He had no memory of grabbing it, or of the impact of the plane, but he was alive, and for now that was all that could matter. He did remember calling the number Jonah had given him. But he wasn’t sure it had done any good. He’d heard the FBI agent saying something about repeating the message, but by then the chopper had been on its way down.

  Another wave came suddenly, shattering his concentration and making him scramble to hold on to the vest. Once his equilibrium was somewhat steady again, he thought of Jonah and groaned. His instincts had been right after all. He should have called Ruger earlier. At least Jonah would have had a chance. This way, they were probably all going to die.

  Something brushed against his leg beneath the water, and he froze. Earlier, the water that had washed over him had stung his back, so at the least, he had cuts, maybe worse. The fact that he was cut, meant blood in the water, which also meant sharks.

  “Please, God, don’t let me wind up in the belly of some fish.”

  He held his breath, waiting to see if there was any other contact, but thankfully felt nothing. As time passed, Collum began to realize that he was drifting away from the site of the wreckage. If there was a chance of rescue, he needed to stay close to where he’d gone down. He’d been flying below radar, so hoping that an air traffic controller would have seen the blip disappear was pointless. All he could do was hope that someone had heard his Mayday, or that Ruger had gotten more of his message than he’d thought.

  But the longer he floated, the more certain he became that if he was to get out of this alive, he was going to have to save himself. Ignoring the shooting pains in his shoulder and his head, he moved the life vest out from under him and slipped it on. Once he’d secured it around him, he started swimming toward shore. It didn’t take long for him to realize that he was caught in a current running parallel to the shore. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t get any closer to land. Exhausted and weak from the pain of his injuries, he finally leaned back and felt himself being swept away.

  Macie was bordering on the verge of hysteria. She’d heard just enough of the panic in Ruger’s voice to know that Collum McAllister’s chopper had crashed before he was able to give Jonah’s location. It was her worst nightmare come to life, and there was nothing she could do about it. She’d gone to her room in complete dejection. As she was pacing the floor, a knock sounded at her door.

  “Come in,” she called.

  Rosa entered.

  “Señora…is there something I can do for you?”

  The tenderness in the woman’s voice was Macie’s undoing. Her eyes welled.

  “There’s nothing anyone can do,” she said.

  Rosa touched Macie’s arm, then shook her head. “You are wrong,” she said gently. “You can still pray.”

  She left, quietly closing the door behind her.

  Macie stood within the silence of her room as the echo of Rosa’s words played back in her head. She dropped to her knees and closed her eyes.

  “God…please, God…don’t let them die.”

  16

  The Coast Guard found the crash site just after 5:00 p.m., but there was nothing to lead them to believe the pilot had survived. The largest piece of wreckage they pulled out of the water was part of a seat cushion. Bits and pieces of wreckage floated in an oil slick, but the body of the chopper was gone. Ruger was sick at heart as the chopper in which he was riding circled the area. He’d given up finding Evan Blaine alive. Now they were looking at having to recover Slade’s body as well as the pilot of this ill-fated flight. The problem was that none of it should have happened. He’d let professional consideration for a fellow government agent override his good sense. He never should never let Slade in on what was going on or allowed Carl French to help with the investigation—for all the help he’d been. If French had turned up any new clues, he had yet to share them.

  Ruger sighed. The press was going to have a field day with this. The fact that the grandson of one of the wealthiest men in the country had been kidnapped was bad enough, but trying to explain the involvement and death of two Company men in what should have been a Federal investigation was probably going to get him demoted, if not dismissed altogether. What was ironic was that he couldn’t bring himself to care. He would quit the job himself if they could only find Slade and his son alive.

  “What now, sir?” the pilot asked, as they circled the area one more time.

  “Take it back,” Ruger said. “But fly along the coast. There has to be something there that we’re missing. The pilot was following Slade, so it stands to reason that he can’t be far from where the chopper went down. Maybe we’ll get lucky.”

  “What are we looking for?” the pilot asked
.

  “A miracle,” Ruger muttered, then added. “That and a dark van.”

  It was ten minutes after 6:00 p.m. when Macie got the call from Ruger.

  “Miss Blaine, Agent Ruger here. I’m afraid the news isn’t good.”

  Macie’s knees went weak. “Tell me,” she said.

  “We found the crash site, but there’s no sign of the pilot, and without him, there’s little hope of finding where Jonah was taken.”

  The floor tilted beneath Macie’s feet. “No…that can’t be right. There has to be something else you can do.”

  “We flew along the coast as we came back, but without knowing what we were looking for, it was impossible to make any kind of connection to what we saw. I’m sorry. We’ll talk more when—”

  Macie hung up the phone. She didn’t need to hear any more platitudes, not when her heart was breaking. She leaned against the wall and then slid all the way to the floor. Her heart was pounding erratically; her skin felt cold and clammy. She was going into shock, but what she wanted to do was to die. She drew her knees up beneath her chin as she started to shake.

  Time passed. She didn’t know how much, but reason began to return, along with the sound of another person’s voice. Someone was talking to her, trying to get her to stand up, but she didn’t have the energy to tell them she was right where she needed to be. She wanted to die. They just needed to leave her alone long enough to let it happen.

  Carl French had returned, but was he going to be in time? he wondered. He’d burst into the Blaine mansion with his briefcase in hand, expecting to see the place crawling with feds. Instead he’d found a couple of them manning the phones in the conference room, and they’d given him only vague answers to his questions. Otherwise, there were only the same security guards patrolling the outside grounds. Frustration had turned into temper as he’d demanded to be put in contact with Ruger and been ignored.

  He hadn’t told anyone where he’d been going, because he wasn’t sure he could deliver the goods. But a desperate flight back to headquarters and some fast-talking with the director had yielded a second computer, set to track on the same wavelength as the one that had gone down with McAllister. Now all he had to do was find Ruger and get it in the air.

  But the FBI was no longer cooperating. He could only imagine what had happened in his absence. Then he thought of Macie. She would know what was going on.

  He soon found her, but not where he’d expected. She was sitting on the floor in her room, with her back to the wall. The devastation on her face made him sick. He dropped to his knees beside her.

  “Macie! It’s me. Carl. You have to get up and tell me what’s happening.”

  Macie buried her face in her hands. “It’s all coming undone.”

  Carl cursed beneath his breath, then grabbed her by the shoulders and started to shake her.

  “Stop it!” he yelled. “Pull yourself together and talk to me, damn it! I need to know what’s happened.”

  Macie looked up, staring blindly at the man through a wall of tears.

  “Happened? I’ll tell you what happened. Ruger called. They found where the chopper went down. There’s no sign of the pilot, which means they can’t find Jonah, which means now I’ve lost him, too.”

  “Maybe not,” Carl said. “Get up and come with me. There may still be a chance.”

  Under Carl’s guidance, Macie staggered to her feet, then let herself be led into the conference room.

  “This is an emergency. Get Ruger on the phone right now,” Carl ordered.

  “He’s already en route,” the agent said.

  “How long?” Carl asked.

  “Thirty minutes, maybe less.”

  “Is he in the air?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then tell him to refuel before he gets here and ask questions later.”

  “Yes, sir,” the agent said, and reached for the phone.

  “What are you going to do?” Macie asked.

  Carl picked up the briefcase that he’d left there earlier and took out a small gray laptop.

  “This is a duplicate of the one McAllister had when he went down. If we can get in the air with it, there’s a chance we’ll get lucky. But remember, we have to be within twenty-five miles of Jonah before we can pick up the signal.”

  Macie looked at the computer, then back up at Carl.

  “Oh God…do you think—”

  “I’m not promising anything,” he said. “But it’s damn sure worth a shot.”

  Macie threw her arms around Carl’s neck. He was taken aback, but only for a moment. He grinned as he returned the hug, then gave her a friendly kiss on the forehead.

  “It’s a good thing Slade can’t see me now. He’s a little possessive about his things.”

  Macie laughed as he turned her loose. She wanted to shout—to weep for joy. But it was too soon for a celebration. Right now she was happy just to settle for a second chance.

  The breakers were loud against the rocks as the sun began to set. Somewhere beyond where Collum was lying, he could hear the guttural grunts and barks of sea lions, and the occasional squawk of gulls as they squabbled over a bit of dead fish.

  His body was shaking so hard his teeth were clacking. Either he was getting a fever or he’d gone into shock. Before he’d been so cold, but now, even with the sun beginning to set, he was too hot.

  It had taken hours before he’d drifted out of the current and been able to swim to land. It was only then, when he’d tried to walk onto the tiny bit of beach, that he’d realized he must have broken his leg. It had buckled under him almost instantly, followed by a wave of mind-shattering pain. When the worst of the pain had passed, he started to crawl, making sure that he was high enough and far enough away from the beach so as not to be swept away by the rising tide. When he finally stopped and then rolled over on his back, limp from exhaustion, he realized that any planes would not be able to see him.

  And he had seen the planes. He knew they were looking for him, because they’d been flying in search patterns for most of the afternoon. He’d tried to crawl out toward the water to wave for help, but he was too weak, and it was too far to the beach. All he could do was pray, as they flew out of sight, that with daylight they would return. He lay back, pillowing his head on the sand, and tried not to think of what was happening to Jonah.

  Jonah stood at the window in the near-airless room, peering through the crack. He couldn’t tell how late it was, but he knew it was nearing sunset. They should have been here by now, but they weren’t, which meant something had gone wrong.

  His gut knotted, but he refused to let on that he was in any way concerned. Maintaining a confident air for Evan was paramount, especially now, when their lives were hanging by a thread. He hunched his shoulders and then turned, eyeing the room in which they were locked. There had to be a way out of here. All he had to do was find it.

  He glanced at the boy on the bed and was overwhelmed by the sudden surge of emotion. His son. God in heaven, that six-foot stretch of a boy was his son. There were so many things he wanted to know about him, but now was not the time. He began walking the planked floor, every now and then bouncing up and down on one board or another to test it for strength, but nothing seemed to give. He’d gotten out of bad situations before, but this time, time was not on their side.

  Evan pretended to sleep, because he didn’t know what to say to Jonah Slade, although he snuck a look every time Jonah’s back was turned. It was as if he was trying to cram a lifetime of memories into what could be the last day of their lives. Even though Jonah kept saying it was going to be okay, Evan didn’t believe it. However, it didn’t seem so bad anymore. He wasn’t alone. His father had cared enough to come looking for him, and he’d found him. It was the culmination of every dream he’d ever had.

  Then he saw Jonah toeing the hole at the end of the room where Harold the rat always made his escape.

  “That’s where Harold lives,” Evan said.

  Jonah turned.r />
  “Who’s Harold?”

  “A rat. When I was first brought here, he sort of saved me.”

  “Saved you how, son?”

  Evan’s heart skipped a beat. He’d waited all his life to hear this man call him son, and he had to concentrate to remember what it was Jonah had asked.

  “Uh…it was the food. The first tray of food they brought was drugged. Harold got to it first. I saw him lying beside the partially eaten food and thought he was dead. I thought they were going to poison me. So I wouldn’t eat. It made the guard pretty mad. There was even a woman who came once and tried to make me. I made her pretty mad, too. So mad that I think she would have killed me, but the guard stopped her.”

  “Damn him,” Jonah muttered, thinking of Calderone. “Damn Miguel Calderone’s sorry soul to hell.”

  Evan rolled over on the cot and started to get up, then winced when he put pressure on his hands.

  It wasn’t the first time Jonah had seen Evan cradling his hands beneath his arms, but he’d thought it was because of his ribs and the beating he’d taken. Now he wasn’t so sure.

  “Need some help?” he asked, and grabbed Evan’s wrist.

  The wince on Evan’s face turned into a shriek. The sound was horrifying, as was the pain on his face. Immediately he doubled over, rocking himself back and forth until the pain subsided.

  Jonah was distraught. He didn’t know what he’d done but was afraid to touch him to see.

  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Jonah said. “What did I do?”

  Evan shuddered, then shook his head, as if shaking off the shock.

  “I didn’t mean to…you didn’t know that…” Then he sighed and held out his hands. “I think they’re infected.”

  Jonah looked, then had to swallow before he could speak.

  “What happened to them?”

  Evan pointed toward the boarded-up windows. “The first day I was here, I kept trying to get out. Guess I tore them up pretty good.”

  “May I?” Jonah asked, and held out his hands, palms up.

  Evan hesitated, then laid his own hands in his father’s.