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The Counterfeit

Chapter One
June 23rd

I waited anxiously in a back corridor of Abravanel Hall. I was supposed to meet her for lunch, but apparently I’d written down the wrong time. I’d expected her rehearsal to end at noon, but that had been twenty-five minutes ago, and the orchestra was still going strong. I’d brought a book to read, but really had no interest in it and left it unopened in the front pocket of my suit coat.

From where I sat on the hallway floor, I could see Rebekah on her feet in front of a music stand. Even though she wasn’t playing, she was listening studiously, occasionally jotting down a quick note on her sheet music.

We’d been dating since autumn, following a rather atypical courtship process during which she’d been kidnapped because of something I’d given her, and we’d both nearly died. Because of that, life wasn’t exactly the same for us as it was for most people our age. Where the typical guy my age might have a busy schedule juggling a job, a girlfriend, and finishing his degree, I had a busy schedule juggling a girlfriend, endless streams of interview requests, and hour after hour of meetings with a federal prosecutor.

Rebekah seemed to handle it better than I did. She’d thrown herself into her music, even more so than she used to. In a twisted kind of way, her notoriety as That Girl Who Got Kidnapped seemed to open a lot of doors in the concert-violin world—not that she was a novelty act, but everyone suddenly had heard of her and realized how good she was. There’s no such thing as bad press, I guess.

She lived in a big house in Spanish Fork Canyon with her mom and sister. I lived in a small basement apartment with two roommates. She drove a BMW. I drove an old Chevy. She’d traveled the world, and I’d been to Disneyland every summer of my life, with the exception of the two years I spent on my mission. Even while there, as I tracted the streets of Nebraska, my mom sent me photos of the family vacation, along with some Donald Duck stationery. Rebekah and I were from two different worlds.

My roommates told me she was out of my league. Figuratively speaking, she was the first-round draft pick in the majors, and I was fighting for a fourth-string position on the high school junior varsity. My roommates also listed a dozen other reasons why it wouldn’t work out—everything from my utterly forgettable looks to my occasional snoring. A girl like Rebekah, they said, wasn’t interested in a snorer.

And yet we continued to date. Somehow, even though terrorists had stopped shooting at us, and our lives no longer hung in a tenuous balance, she still liked me.

The conductor said something—too quiet for me to hear—and the orchestra disbanded for lunch. I gathered my things and stood.

She was beautiful, and while I certainly admit a bias, my assessment had nothing to do with being blinded by love. She was nearly as tall as I was—taller on Sundays or at concerts. Her hair was sandy blond and wavy, and today it was pulled back into a simple ponytail. She wore a white collared shirt and a knee-length khaki skirt. She carried her sheet music with her and an old, worn book, and she was flipping through its pages as she walked.

“Hey,” I said, waving as she emerged from the room.

She smiled. “Eric.”

“How’d it go?”

“C’est nul!”

“What does that mean?”

She laughed and held up the book for me to see. “It means that I think I’m in over my head. It’s French.”

“I don’t believe it for a minute.”

“No, really,” she said, looking back down at the pages. “I haven’t really read any French since my freshman year at BYU, and I think I forgot more than I should have.”

“What’s the book?”

“A biography of Camille Saint-Saëns.” After seeing the blank look on my face she added, “He composed the piece I’m performing tonight.”

“Oh yeah,” I said, nodding. She’d been talking about Saint-Saëns for months, but I’d never seen the name in print. I would have sworn it was spelled Sah Saw. “Don’t worry about it—it’ll come back to you. Speaking French is like riding a bike.”

Rebekah grinned. “And how do you know this?”

“Everything is like riding a bike. A bike that tastes like chicken.”

She looked at her watch. “We need to be back by five today.”

I pushed the front door open for her. “There’s a problem with that, actually.”

“What?” She looked concerned. “You’re still coming to the concert, right?”

I nodded. “I’ll be there, but you’ll have to find something to do by yourself this afternoon. Agent Harrop called.”

Her shoulders fell. “Again?”

“Someone else from Washington is in town today, and they want to talk to me.”

“Not me?”

“I’m the lucky one today.”

“Who is it?”

“I don’t know. Harrop never tells me anything.”

“I’m getting so sick of this.”

There’d recently been a rumor that Rebekah and I might not be safe. Neither of us put a lot of stock into it because the FBI had informed us of similar rumors at least six other times, and they’d all turned out to be false alarms. Even so, every morning I had to call Special Agent Jeff Harrop, my personal knight in shining armor, and tell him my schedule for the day. He would agree to some activities and nix others, and generally be a pain in the neck.

I didn’t really like that my noble protector was named Jeff. Nobody tough is named Jeff. There’s Jeff, the sleepy guy on The Wiggles, and Jeff, the sissy mannequin on Today’s Special. And finally there’s DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince. And that’s it. No more famous Jeffs.

I wanted a bodyguard named Mad Dog.

I opened the door for Rebekah and we stepped out into the warm afternoon air. “I need to leave pretty soon. I’ll be at the courthouse, so I can just walk back here.”

She frowned. “Still have time for lunch?”

* * *

Rebekah and I sat together on a bench behind the Church Office Building, eating peanut butter sandwiches and apples. I didn’t have a job, so I couldn’t afford anything better. (I had a hard time finding a job that would tolerate my hectic court schedule.) And despite the fact that Rebekah grew up astronomically rich, her family was living under the constant worry that the FBI would seize all of their possessions. They were having to learn frugality.

She picked up her half-eaten apple and took another bite. She chewed slowly and thoughtfully, and I pretended not to stare at her.

“Are you ready for next week?” she said, fourteen beautiful chews and a dainty swallow later.

“What’s next week?”

“You know, the big one.”

“You mean for Isabella?”

She nodded.

“I guess,” I answered. “I haven’t had to think about my story for months—I’ve got it all memorized by now. Half the time, I’m not sure if I’m remembering what actually happened, or if I’m remembering what I said in a deposition or an interview or an affidavit.”

She laughed a little bit and nodded. “I know what you mean.”

I unscrewed the cap on my water bottle and drank the last few swallows. “Rebekah, I don’t know what to do at the trial. It’ll be easy testifying against Paul Arbogast—he was trying to kill us. Isabella wasn’t—she hated us, but she was trying to help.”

“She didn’t hate us.”

“Well, she hated what she was doing. She hated helping us. But she still did.”

“So say that,” Rebekah said, sitting up and scooting a little closer to me. “You’re not testifying against her. You’re just telling what happened. If the jury thinks that she’s guilty, that’s their choice. You telling the truth isn’t what would put her in prison.”

“What did she even do? Her only crime is working for your dad, and no one has even established that he’s a terrorist. No one knows what he is.”

Rebekah’s eyes turned down for a moment. “That’s what I’m hoping. They can’t convict her on terrorism charges if they can’t prove she’s a terrorist.”

“It would help if she’d say something once in a while. Sitting silent in a jail cell for five months doesn’t make you look innocent.”

Rebekah nodded. As much as we denied it, the truth was pretty clear. If Rebekah’s dad, and Isabella, his personal assistant, hadn’t been involved in anything illegal, why didn’t they come forward? Every day that Isabella remained quiet was a day closer to Rebekah being marked as a terrorist’s daughter.

“I wish Arbogast’s trial was first,” she said.

“Me too.”

“Do you know who they want to talk about this afternoon?”

I shook my head. “I assumed Isabella. I don’t really know, though.”

Rebekah took another bite of her sandwich, and thought.

I looked down at my watch. “I need to go.”

“You’ll be back tonight?” She smiled hopefully.

“Wouldn’t miss it for anything.”

Click here to read Chapter Two.



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