We get so comfortable in our lives, things get so mundane, we spiritually 

fall asleep. But you don’t have to go to an ashram in India to reignite your 

life. If we just follow those feelings, like my feeling to go talk to your dad 

at the airport—”

“Serena, the only reason I got on this plane was to save my own rear.”

She undoes her Indian-style position, stands up from her seat, and never

abandons the soft, knowing smile that lifts her cheeks. “Your father told me

where you work, Cal. If you really were as tough as you think, you wouldn’t

be there. And if you really didn’t want to connect with him, you wouldn’t be

here. It’s no different than taking me along with you. In that act, you did one

of the most beautiful things anyone can do. You said yes to me. And with your

father, just getting on this plane, you did the same. You buckled your belt the

other way.”

As she walks back to her seat, I look down at my unfastened seat belt.

“Airline buckles only go one way,” I call out.

“Not when you share them with the person next to you,” she calls back.

40

The blue lights swirled, the siren howled, and Naomi held her breath.

Three minutes. She’d be there in three minutes, Naomi told herself, clenching

the wheel as her car slowly elbowed through the lunchtime traffic on Miami

Gardens Drive.

In her ear, Scotty was gone. She needed her cell to make sure—

“Pick up the damn phone, Mom!” she screamed. But all she heard back 

was a droning ring, again and again and—

“This is Naomi,” her own voice replied on the answering machine. “I’m

probably screening you right now, so—”

With a click, she hung up and started again. Mom’s cell. Still no answer. 

Home phone . . .

“This is Naomi. I’m probably screening you—”

Click. Redial.

Two minutes. Less than two minutes, she swore to herself as she cut off a

black Acura and the phone continued to ring. . . . Dammit, why isn’t she

picking up!?

On the GPS screen, the glowing crimson triangle still hadn’t moved from 

her house. No, don’t think the worst —

Swerving across two lanes of traffic, Naomi jerked the wheel to the left, 

and her dark green Chevy bucked and bounced over the last few inches 

of the street’s concrete turning lane. The phone beeped and she reacted

instinctively.

“Mom?” she asked, picking up.

“Local police are en route,” Scotty said. “For all you know, this is just—”

“Just what!? He’s at my house, Scotty — with my son!”

“That doesn’t mean—”

“How the hell’d he know where I live!?”

Ramming the gas, Naomi sank her nails deep into the rubber of the 

steering wheel. As she craned her neck wildly back and forth, she fought 

to get a better look past the thin trees. At the far end of the block was a 

modest, faded yellow rambler with a crooked garage door and . . .

Her mom’s car. Still in the driveway. Oh, no . . .

“Who gave him my address!?” she shouted at Scotty.

“Listen, you need to—”

“I’ve never been listed! Someone gave him my damn address!”

The brakes were still screaming as Naomi threw open her car door and 

leapt outside.

“Nomi, if he’s still in there . . .” Scotty warned.

“Scotty, swear to me you didn’t give anyone my address. By accident 

or on purpose . . . I need to hear it.”

“A-Are you—? I — Of course I didn’t!”

There was real pain in his voice. She trusted that pain.

“Lucas!” Naomi screamed, pulling her gun and sprinting for the front 

door. Her feet felt like anvils, her throat like a pinched straw. She tried 

to breathe. . . .

“Luuucas!” She jabbed her key at the bottom lock, but even before it 

got there . . . the door slowly swung away from her. God. It was already 

open. She could hear the sirens in the distance.

“Nomi, you need to wait,” Scotty pleaded. “Don’t go in without—”

Darting inside, she felt her heart kicking in her neck. Her eyes scanned 

the hallway . . . the front closet . . . but all she was really looking for were 

her son’s shoes . . . There.

Lucas’s flip-flops.

That means Lucas is still —

Frantically sprinting toward the kitchen, she heard her phone beep in her 

ear. Another call.

“What’re you, a mental patient?” her mother asked as Naomi clicked over.

“Who leaves fifteen rambling messages like that?”

“L-Lucas . . . where’s—? Where are you?” Naomi asked, her gun pointed

straight out and her back touching the wall as she prowled around the 

corner of her dark and clearly empty kitchen.

“The video store — we walked from the park — though I didn’t realize that 

was a reason to call out the entire Customs Service,” her mother shot back.

“Where’s Lucas?”

“Right next to me. He wants one of those Star War movies — those are okay, 

right? No nudity or anything?”

Naomi doubled back into the hallway and quickly checked both bedrooms . . .

closets . . . bathrooms . . . All empty. Back in the living room, she studied the

carpet, the sofa cushions, even the slight sway of the vertical blinds that led

to the backyard. Nothing was out of place. The back door was still locked. 

But something still . . .

“Mom, go to the back of the video store,” Naomi said into the phone.

“There’s a bathroom there—”

“Wait, what happened?”

“Just find the bathroom — they’ll let you use it if you ask nice — then lock

the door and wait there for me, okay? I don’t care who bangs on that door,

you don’t open it, you don’t let Lucas out, you don’t check on anything 

until I’m there. Only me.”

Naomi pulled out her GPS device, clicked back to Scotty on her cell, then

began to search for the red triangle.

“Nomi, don’t click off like that!” Scotty scolded. “I thought you were—”

“Shh.” It took a moment to reorient herself. On-screen, the tiny crimson

triangle stood completely still. So did Naomi. She was rushing so fast, she

never even saw it. According to the screen, the beacon was now coming from

behind her.

Naomi twisted around and dashed up the main hallway, rammed her shoulder

at the front door, and crashed outside, back into the bright sun.

Outside, her front yard was empty. There was no breeze. And no sound but

the shrieking sirens that finally turned onto her block.

“He’s gone,” she whispered.

“You sure?” Scotty asked. “If he came there — No note? No message?”

On-screen, the crimson triangle overlapped almost perfectly with the white,

elongated triangle that represented Naomi’s location. Overlapped . . . Looking

straight down, Naomi stepped off the exploding-fireworks-shaped doormat

she still hadn’t removed since July Fourth and took a peek underneath. On

the ground was a tiny and familiar flat oval disk.

“Oh, he definitely left a message,” Naomi said, pinching the transmitter with

two fingers. Ellis didn’t come here just to leave it under the mat. If her son

had been home, Ellis would’ve — A boil of anger bubbled up the back of her

neck. The last time she was this mad was during her repo years. The victim

sued for the cost of the hospital bills. And won. Four figures.

“You okay there?” Scotty asked.

Naomi let go of the welcome mat, and as it slapped against the concrete, a

swirl of dust cartwheeled out the sides. For a moment, Naomi just knelt

there, thinking about her son, and her mom, and everything that might’ve

happened if something might’ve happened. But it hadn’t. And that’s what

made it so damn easy to focus back on Ellis. And Cal. Especially on Cal. The

former agent . . . the one who was at the port last night . . . and the one who

could’ve easily given her family’s address to—

“You’re plotting their deaths now, aren’t you,” Scotty said.

“I want the next flight to Cleveland.”

“Yeah, and I want to eat cream sauce without feeling puffy after.”

Naomi didn’t say a word.

“I was joking, Nomi. (Kinda.) Now do you want the bad news or the really

bad news?”

“Bad news.”

“You just missed one of the flights to Cleveland; you’re on the next one.”

“And the really bad?”

“I got Ellis’s full file from the prosecutor, like you asked. They got everything

in here: psych profiles, behavior reports, even identifying marks.”

“I thought you said this was really bad?”

“Hear that noise? That’s the other shoe falling, Nomi. Because that tattoo on

Ellis’s hand? You’re not gonna believe what it stands for.”

41

“Cain? As in Cain Cain?” I ask Roosevelt through my newest disposable cell.

As we whip down the highway, I scour the buttons on the dashboard,

searching for—

“Here,” my father says from the passenger seat. He clicks a switch, and a

cannonball of warm air blasts at the fog on our windshield, lifting it away like

a raised curtain.

“Now find the heat,” Serena pleads from the backseat as the gray Cleveland

sky smothers all light and we plow through the slush and past the blackened

snowbanks on I-71.

It’s December in Florida, but not like December here. At barely four o’clock,

it’s nearly dark. Still, we’re not completely unprepared. From my job, my dad

and I have the two thickest winter coats the donation room had to offer. From

Serena’s driver’s license, we have an untraceable rental car. And from the gas

station right outside the Cleveland airport, Serena has a Cleveland Rocks

sweatshirt, and I — like Roosevelt in Fort Lauderdale — have a brand-new

chat’n chuck mobile phone to make sure we’re not traced. Everything’s in

place. But it doesn’t stop me from studying every car around us. The next

Florida flight to Cleveland left barely an hour after ours. It’s not much of a

lead.

“I thought you were dropping her at a hotel,” Roosevelt says as he hears

Serena’s voice.

“If Ellis is following, it’s not safe by the airport. Trust me, we’re doing it first

thing after the house,” I tell him. “So you were saying about Ellis’s tattoo.”

“Can’t you put him on speaker?” Serena asks from the backseat, looking up

from a foldout map. Quickly backing down, she adds, “Sorry. I just—” Her

voice drops to a whisper. “It’s not like I can’t hear everything he’s saying

anyway.”

“They can hear me?” Roosevelt asks through the phone.

In the rearview, Serena nods. My dad thinks I don’t see him smile.

“Roosevelt, you’re on speaker,” I announce with the push of a button as I

stuff the phone in a dashboard cup holder. Behind us, I notice a white Jeep

with its lights off. “So the tattoo: It’s Cain from Adam and Eve. Okay, so he

loves the bad guys.”

“Oh, goodness, son — you’re missing it all, aren’t ya?” Roo-sevelt asks, and

I swear I hear a swish from his ponytail. “Sure, all the images — the dog, the

stars, the moon, even the thorns that the man is carrying — they’re all

ancient symbols of the so-called Mark of Cain. But deciphering that mark is

one of the oldest questions of the Bible. Most scholars believe it’s something

God gave to Cain as punishment for killing Abel: that God marked Cain as a

murderer — gave him horns, put a cross on his forehead, made him into

some gol-durn half-beast — then sent him wandering in the Land of Nod. But

the real question remains: Who is Cain?”