The Book of Lies Read Online Free PDF Page B

was stolen from the Leadership. Ellis’s grandfathers hunted it for decades, tracing it to father and son. Always father and son. And tonight, seeing Cal and his dad, Ellis finally understood how near the end was. All he had to do was wipe out these villains. Then Ellis—for himself, for his family—would finally be the hero.
    “Is that concern in your voice?” the Judge asked.
    “Not at all.” Ellis scratched Benoni’s nose, barely even hearing the ambulance siren that approached behind them. “Lloyd Harper can bring as many dogs as he wants into this fight. It won’t take much to put ’em down.”

6
    Y ou’re gonna feel a sting,” the nurse says, wheeling my dad into one of the emergency exam rooms. As she’s about to pull the curtain shut, she turns back to me and stops. “Only relatives from here. You related?”
    I freeze at the question. She doesn’t have time for indecision.
    “Waiting room’s back there,” she says, whipping the curtain shut like a magician’s cape.
    Sleepwalking toward the L-shaped hub of pink plastic waiting room chairs, I’m still clutching the mound of my dad’s crumpled belongings—his bloody shirt, pants, and shoes—that the EMTs cut off him. A digital clock on the wall tells me it’s 1:34 a.m. To Roo-sevelt’s credit, as I slump down in the seat next to him, he doesn’t say a word for at least four or five seconds.
    “Cal, if he’s really your dad—”
    “He’s my dad.”
    “Then you should go back there.”
    I start to stand up, then again sit back down.
    I’ve waited nineteen years to see my dad. Nineteen years being mad he’s gone. But to hop out of my chair and peek behind that curtain and reenter his life . . . “What if he doesn’t want me back?” I whisper.
    Smart enough to not answer, Roosevelt quickly shows me why, after he raised his own hell in high school, he was such a great Methodist minister. Sure, he still had his rebellious side—with a few too many Iron Maiden quotes in his sermons—but the way he breathed life into Scripture and related to people, everyone loved that pastor with the ponytail.
    The only problem came when church leaders told Roosevelt they didn’t like the fact that he wasn’t married. In the wake of all the church pedophile cases, it didn’t reflect well that even though he was from one of the wealthiest families in town, at nearly forty years old, he was still single. Roosevelt pleaded, explaining that he hadn’t found anyone he loved. His family tried to help by throwing around their financial weight. But in rural Tennessee—where a handsome, unmarried, thirty-eight-year-old man can mean only one thing—his church refused to budge. “If you want to be queer, don’t do it here,” said the message that was spray-painted on the hood of his car. And Roosevelt had his first personal heartbreak.
    Which is why he empathizes so well with mine.
    “Cal, when you were little, you ever watch
The Ten Commandments
?”
    “This gonna be another sermon?”
    “Boy, you think you’re the only one who likes saving people?” he teases, though I know it’s no joke. No matter how happy he is, Roosevelt would kill to have his old parish back. It’s not ego; it’s just his mission. He’ll never say it, but I know that’s the reason he took this job. And though I bet his family could easily buy him a new church, well, it’s the same reason he won’t buy us a new van. Some battles you have to fight by yourself. “Think about the Moses story, Cal: Little baby gets dropped in a basket, then grows up thinking he’s Egyptian royalty—until his past comes kickin’ at the door and reveals to him his true purpose.”
    “That mean I’m getting the long beard and the sandals?”
    “We all hate something about our past, Cal. That’s why we run from it, or compensate for it, or even fill our van with homeless people. But when something like this happens—when your dad shows up—maybe there
is
a bigger purpose. ‘What you