Page 146 of The Five Year Lie

Back at the Jeep, he moves the passenger seat forward and lifts the car seat into the back.

“Step aside. I’m a pro at this,” Ariel says.

She isn’t kidding. Turns out his Jeep has anchors in its seats that he didn’t even know were there.

“All right, buddy,” he says when Ariel clears out. He’s anxiousto get on the road, so he picks Buzz up off the ground, and now he’s holding his little boy for the very first time. He can’t help wondering what it would have been like to hold him the day he was born. “Can I strap you into your new seat?”

The boy puts a warm hand on his chest and frowns, his blue eyes holding his own. “But I can do itmyself.”

He laughs. And having no more excuses to hold him out here in the sunshine, he leans over and eases him onto the seat instead.

It’s a thirty-five-mile drive back to the house. That’s what you get for hiding out in the middle of nowhere. In the back seat, Buzz is chatting with both his Tonka truck and the shark stuffy.

Jay listens with one ear while keeping an eye on the other vehicles on the highway. He’s watching for a tail.

“Can I ask a question?” Ariel says.

“Anything.”

“How do you make a living?”

“Ah.” He chuckles. “That’s a boring question. I do freelance programming as an LLC registered in Delaware. Freelancing isn’t the most lucrative, but my house is cheap, and my taxes are low. My bills are all in the corporate name, or in Woody’s name. The VA handles my healthcare, but I use a fictitious address and drive out of state to see doctors, just in case someone hacks their records.”

His phone chimes, and he puts a hand on Ariel’s knee. “Check that, would you?”

She picks up the phone and unlocks it by turning it toward his face. “Okay—Woody is up, and says everything is quiet.”

“Excellent. Do me a favor and check your email? There should be a signal here.” It’s not a given in Northern Michigan.

She taps away at the screen for a while, as his curiosity grows.

“Anything?”

“Yeah. It’s interesting. I’ll show you when you pull over for gas.”

He stops a few minutes later. She gets out of the Jeep to show him what her mother and Ray have written back.

Her mom wrote:

Ariel, could you call me? You are giving me such a scare. It’s not like you to disappear. Is something wrong?

Ray’s message is both vague and irritating:

Honey, this is serious. Please tell me where you are, so I can keep you safe.

He nudges Ariel. “Note the lack of detail. He’s still trying to cover his ass.”

“Keep reading,” Ariel says. “I pushed that point.”

So she did.

Safe from who?

And her cowardly uncle responded only a moment later:

There are bad people in the world.

She fired back: