Page 120 of The Lie Maker

“That will be my lasting memory of him,” Gwen told the doctor. “Of blathering away to him, telling him how much I loved him, and he didn’t hear a goddamn word.”

Cayden waded into the water, dragging the doctor with him, gripped her by the wrists, and took her down.

That left one more. The plan to find Michael Donohue had been in the works for a while. Gwen had researched the witness protection program. She learned all she could about Jack Givins. She had ID made up in the name of Gwen Kaminsky. She’d put to use those lessons from the theater classes she took in school years ago.

To find Michael Donohue, Gwen would have to pull out all the creative stops. Set up a fake office. Staff it with some Frohm employees. She hadn’t expected Jack to demand a face-to-face with the “witness,” which necessitated some last-minute scrambling, but all in all, it came together.

She was almost there.

Sixty-Three

Jack

“Gwen,” I said with forced calm, “why do you have Lana’s phone?”

“Because she’s right here with me, Jack.”

“Put her on.”

“Can’t do that right now,” she said.

“Jesus Christ, put her on the phone,” I said, my jaw clenching.

“I told you, Jack. That’s not possible.”

“Have you hurt her? Have you done something to Lana?” I tried to tamp down the panic in my voice. “Who the fuck are you, really?”

“You’ve found your father, haven’t you? That’s why you have some doubts.”

“Jack! JACK!”

Lana’s scream chilled me. “Lana!”

“There,” Gwen said. “Now you know she’s fine.”

I said nothing. I had no words. I felt helpless, terrified, in no way prepared to deal with this turn of events.

And during that moment of silence, I heard, in the background, this:

Tickety tickety tickety tickety tickety.

“You know, Jack, I should be angry with you, running off without informing me. You’ve put our arrangement in jeopardy. Where are you?”

I said, “The witness protection program has never heard of you.”

“That would seem to confirm that you’ve found your father. Been doing some checking.”

“I have to hand it to you, Gwen. You pulled it off. I fell for it.”

“It would have been easier, I suppose, to just waterboard you or pull out your fingernails to find out where your dad was, but that only would have worked if you’d actually known where he was. So I had to go another way. Hope you knew where he was, or even if you didn’t, find a way to lead us to him. And it appears to have worked. You’ve found your father, but you didn’t take me with you.”

I was thinking back to events of the last few weeks that would have made me unlikely to turn down her job offer.

“You set my car on fire,” I said. “You got me fired from that other job before I’d even started.”

“A simple phone call to the boss,” she said. “About sexual harassment allegations from a previous job.”

“That’s not true. He never mentioned that.”