Page 1 of The Five Year Lie

Prologue

“Soap and water,” the woman says, watching her son wash his hands in the grimy bus station sink. She catches herself hoping he won’t touch anything on his way out of the bathroom. A month ago, this sort of garden-variety worry was the only kind she had in her life.

It isn’t anymore.

“Dry your hands on your jeans,” she says when he’s done.

Her son looks up at her in confusion. In all four of his years on this earth, that was never the plan. There’s always a towel. And dinner at the table, and clean pajamas at nighttime.

“It’s okay,” she whispers, even though nothing is okay. She swipes his hands on her own jeans and then clamps one of his damp hands into hers. “Stay close.” She nudges the bathroom door open with a knee—because germs are still bad even when you’re running for your life—and guides him back into the busy terminal.

She makes a beeline for Bay 24. She’s thirtyish with light brown hair that skims her shoulders as she moves. Her clothes are well cut, because she comes from money. But her expression is pinched with anxiety.

“We’ll wait here,” she says, lifting him onto the last available seat on the end of a bench. “Hold on tight to your shark.”

The boy clutches his stuffed toy and asks, “Can we get on the bus now?”

“Soon,” she says, hoping it isn’t a lie.

So far, she’s sold this trip to him as an adventure. You can’ttell a four-year-old that you’re running scared. That you know too much, and that others who knew too much have already been killed for it.

This bus trip is her best chance at anonymity. She plants herself in front of his small body, and avoids eye contact with anyone but him.

It’s possible that she and her child have already been reported missing.

A hundred yards away, in the security office, a stocky guard drinks a cup of Dunkin’ coffee in front of a bank of monitors. With one finger on the smudged keyboard, he flips from camera to camera.

In Bay 16, he spots a man pacing erratically and talking to himself. The other passengers are clumped together on the other end of the platform, giving him space. Mick’ll have to deal with that dude before his dinner break.

He pokes the arrow key again and flips to the next set of images. He’s got forty-eight feeds to monitor, but only two eyes. So he devotes exactly 1.8 seconds to the camera focused on Bay 24.

His gaze snags on the woman and the little boy right away. He sees her anxiety. She’s fidgety, but so are a lot of people. And single moms aren’t exactly on top of his list of problems. Not unless they get pickpocketed.

He flicks to the next group of monitors, already forgetting her.

Out in Bay 24, the loudspeaker crackles to life. The young woman straightens up as they announce her bus. Her nervous fingers move instinctively to the pocket where she’s tucked two tickets issued to names that don’t match her own.

The little boy slides off the bench, and they both turn toward the security camera.

In the olden days—like 2015—unmonitored surveillance cameras were stupid creatures, with the unblinking gaze of a toddler in need of a nap. But times have changed. The overworked security guard isn’t the only one watching.

The camera in Bay 24 feeds its images to the cloud, where a piece of AI software triangulates each face in its focal range. All those eyes and noses and scowls. More data for its endlessly hungry maw. The system sees it all.

And now it sees her, too.

Even as the young woman shuffles toward the door, breathing diesel fumes, the software is measuring the geometry of her face. On a distant, humming server, the precise distance between her intelligent brown eyes is compared against the angle of her wry mouth. In a fraction of a second, the configuration is charted and checked against the database.

A match is made.

The location noted.

A few more electrons smash together, and a message pings across the ether, lighting up a distant phone.

Subject identified.

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ARIEL