Page 52 of Touchdown

The ocean is full of fish. Sushi is food. And blood is liquid. Even squid ink is liquid.

Where the fuck did I think I was going to catch any calamari?

“Look,” Noah said. “What I said... I wasn't trying to distract you.”

“I definitely do not feel distracted,” I assured him. “I am very much aware we have a three-ring goat rodeo circus going on.”

He managed a laugh. “I'm not the guy. I'm not the target. They're wrong about me if they think so.”

We could both see from the elaborate way they were choosing to hold and question him that they thought he had something in his head worth getting. I didn't say so. Might as well reserve what was left of my spit.

Venus was out. The evening star that was only a planet. The real stars would start switching on soon.

“I know what it looks like,” Noah says. “Seeing all they've done, all they're still doing, I won't deny they targeted me. But why do they think I still know anything they don't know? They've been pumping me full of drugs to mess with my mind. They'd have the truth of everything I knew by now. I wouldn't be able to keep up a lie.”

“Truth serum drugs don't work. I saw a YouTube about it...”

“You're not under oath when you make a YouTube.” His laugh was more of a soft grunt. “Besides, drugs are only to make it easier. When you have somebody for days on end, you can't necessarily force them to tell you the truth, but they get so tangled up in your lies that you figure it out anyway.”

I thought about that.

“Like the police,” Noah said. “They get people under questioning for a couple of days, and pretty soon they're so tangled up they'll say anything, and all the contradictions give the cops what they need to figure out the whole story. And they don't use any drugs. They don't have to.”

He was right. Cops tripped people up with basic psychology all the time. Not just shiny federal agents, but regular local cops. Weird mind-messing drugs were just a bonus.

“You know how it goes,” he said. “You've seen it on TV if nowhere else. You're constantly hammered with questions until you're so confused you end up changing your story. Lie or tell the truth, either way, they see the gaps and contradictions. So I could be saying all kind of things, true and untrue all mixed up, but it wouldn't matter. Soon it's either obvious I know something or obvious that I don't.”

Nothing was obvious to me. His inflatable bumped up against my inflatable. His leg brushed my naked leg.

“By now,” he said, “they have to know I'm not the guy.”

I didn't say anything for a long time. What he said made sense. Sort of.

Noah sighed. “Please just say it.”

“Say what?”

“Whatever you're thinking.”

“You're going to think I'm a victim of sunstroke. I'm going to sound so crazy.”

“Crazier than all this?” He slapped the sea we were floating in. The splash of salt water barely missed his face.

“Noah, babe.” I took a deep breath. “It's what I said before. If they think you're the guy, and they've dug into you this deep over this much time and they still think you're the guy, then maybe, just maybe, you are the guy.”

Chapter 37

The sea was starting to chop. Little waves kept breaking on my face. Annoying. If we had to have chop, then why couldn't we have clouds?

Or rain. I could definitely use some rain. How I longed to throw back my head, open my mouth, and drink.

What was wrong with me last night to be annoyed by a little rain? I didn't know when I was well off.

“I'd know if I was the guy, Slate.” Noah's voice was cracked and weary. “I'm not the guy.”

“Would you know?” I paddled around to shift myself in a tight circle so I could look into his face without getting ocean in my face. My vision had adjusted to starlight, and there was an answering starlight in his eyes.

“Of course I would know.” The words would sound sure, or even indignant, if read from a transcript printed on a page. But the tone was off.

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