Page 106 of The Lie Maker

“There’s someone who wants to have a word.”

Fifty-Six

“Let’s do this,” Kyle Gartner said to himself as he came out of his hotel room.

He’d be checking out shortly, but would come back for his bags after he had been down to the hotel bar.

A sense of calm washed over him as he strode toward the elevator. He had made his decision. No more second-guessing.

In his pants pocket was the phone that kept him linked to Chicago. The one that reporter had called him on. He’d already powered it off, then smashed it several times on the corner of the desk in his room, shattering the screen. As he waited for the elevator to reach his floor, he took the phone from his pocket and slipped it into the small trash receptacle between two sets of elevator doors.

His new phone was in the pocket of his sport jacket, as was his new passport. New driver’s license. New credit cards. It paid off, knowing people who could acquire bogus identification for your employees. And having the money to pay them off so they’d never tell what they did for you.

He just hoped she’d be in the bar. If he got down there and she was a no-show, then all of this work, these months of preparation, would have been for nothing.

The elevator stopped at the third floor and a teenage girl stepped in. About the same age as Cherie, Kyle thought.

He would miss her.

The elevator reached the ground floor. Kyle stepped out, crossed the lobby to the entrance to the bar.

Once inside, he scanned the room, looking for her.

There she was, perched on a stool at the bar itself, no drink in front of her. She’d been waiting to have her first one with him, he figured.

She spotted him, smiled, and slid off the stool.

“Bridget,” he said breathlessly as she slipped into his arms and looked up into his eyes and allowed him to kiss her. Not some quick peck, either, but a long, lingering kiss that was filled with anticipation.

“Kyle,” she whispered. “Or should I call you Glen?”

No more goddamn linen business.

No more immigration hassles.

No more boring wife and troublesome daughter.

No more grieving and no more thirsting for vengeance.

No more Kyle Gartner.

He was a new man, literally. He was going to disappear, and he was never coming back.

Fifty-Seven

Jack

“It can’t be,” I said, looking into the face of the man at the end of the hallway.

“Do I know you?” he asked.

“We’ve... sort of met, once,” I said.

“Who are you?” he asked, and not nicely, either.

“I’m Jack Givins,” I said. “I was... I’m looking for someone.”

“Who?”