Page 127 of The Lie Maker

I could see he was debating what to say, wondering how much I knew. Sure, we’d blown his cover, but did we know who’d engaged his services and why? I decided to let him know.

“Gwen Frohm hired you,” I said. “Told you to convince me you were the real deal. Did she tell you why? Because she was using me to try to find this man.” I pointed a thumb toward Dad. “This is my father. You’ve met.”

“You can’t do this,” Walton said. “This is kidnapping.”

Dad nodded, glanced at me. “Astute.”

“Where’s that cabin?” I asked. “Where’d you put on that show?”

“I can tell you where it is,” he said. “Just let me go.”

“I have a better idea,” I said. “Take us there.” Dad was probably thinking the same thing. If we let Walton out of our sight, he might call Gwen and warn her.

“What’s so important about that cabin?” he asked.

“It has a squeaky fan,” I said.

Walton promised to behave if we let him out of the trunk. We put him in the back seat, and this time, it was my turn to drive. Dad, armed, sat next to Walton in case he decided to change his mind at some stoplight or grab me from behind. And just to be sure, I engaged the child-safety lock on Walton’s door so that it would not open when he pulled the lever.

He directed us to take I-93 North out of the city. The cabin, he said, was off Tyngsboro Road, not far from Westford.

“Whose place is it?” Dad asked.

“Her assistant’s place,” Walton said. “Cayden.”

“How’d she find you?” I asked, raising my voice to be heard over the seat back.

“I know her from years ago,” he said. “We had a couple of classes together back in college. One of them was a theater class. I was more interested in pursuing that than she was at the time, but she was pretty good. We were kind of a thing there for a while, until it stopped working out. And then, after all this time, I hear from her.”

“What was she like?” I asked. “Back in college.”

“Kind of wild, you know? Not, like, in a sexual way, but her moods. They were all over the map. She could be really nice and the next minute she’d be in a rage about something. You never knew what to expect. She had this fucked-up family. Her dad was in prison. She’d talk about him all the time, how he got this raw deal, how there were a bunch of people who’d pay someday for what they did to him. It got kind of tiresome, to be honest.”

“So when she asked you to do your little performance, why’d you agree to it?” I asked.

“Well, first of all, she said she’d give me ten grand, so a no-brainer,” Walton said. “And Gwen’s got this edge to her. You don’t say no to Gwen. You want to stay on her good side.”

Walton told me to take I-95 South, which actually headed in more of a westerly direction at that point, for a few miles, then head north on US-3 until we got to Westford. After we drove through Westford, I was to keep my eye open for Tyngsboro Road.

“I was only up here the once,” he said, “and it was daytime, so it’s going to be hard to spot. There’s a mailbox with no name on it at the end of the road going in. I remember it was just past a red-and-white real estate sign.”

Walton was quiet for a moment before asking, “Is it one of you guys? Or both of you? That she blames for what happened to her father?”

“That’d be me,” Dad said.

“Why’d she get me to put on that performance?” he asked. “What the fuck was that all about, anyway?”

“Long story,” I said. “I doubt you’d even believe it.”

As we drove up Tyngsboro, I slowed down to thirty, looking for that red-and-white For Sale sign. Walton was leaning to the right, looking between the seats and beyond the windshield.

“I think we’re getting close,” he said.

As we crept along, I didn’t have to worry about holding up traffic. It was past midnight, and we hadn’t seen another car in miles.

“There,” Walton said. “I see it.”

The sign was on the left side of the road. Now I was driving at a crawl, looking for an opening in the trees that would indicate a driveway.