Page 132 of The Lie Maker

Seventy

Jack

I thought of a story my dad told me when I was little, maybe seven or eight years old.

We were at the park and he was pushing me on a swing. I mentioned that when I was only three or four, he used to toss me in the air and catch me. It reminded him of some parable, the origins of which remain unknown to me. He might have made it up himself.

“There was this dad and a little boy,” Dad said. “The boy asked his father to pick him up and toss him into the air. The dad says okay, and picks the kid up, and is getting ready to toss him, but just before he does, the kid gets scared and asks, you’re gonna catch me, right? You won’t let me hit the ground? And the dad says, of course not, and he tosses the kid in the air, and makes no attempt to catch him, and the kid hits the ground hard. He starts crying and he says to his dad, you said you were going to catch me, and the dad says, let that be a lesson to you. Never trust anybody.”

And here I was, locked in a trunk. I had trusted him, and he had failed to catch me.

Unless, in his mind, this was the only way to protect me.

I was thinking about all that as I ran my hand over that flare. Did I seriously believe I could burn my way out of the trunk without killing myself? Did it make sense to light it up when I was trapped in here, no doubt right over the car’s gas tank?

A few more attempts at breaking through the rear seat seemed in order before I tried anything that stupid.

I figured whatever bracket held the seats in place would be at the top, so that was where I tried to focus my efforts. I bashed it again and again and again.

“Come on, you motherfucker!” I shouted. In the cocoon of that trunk, I nearly deafened myself with my own exasperation.

I thought the seat gave way, ever so slightly.

“Yes! Yes!”

And with three more strikes, half of the back seat tipped forward.

“Ha!” I cried. I pushed the seat farther forward, and it flopped down onto the bottom cushion. The starlit sky provided enough illumination to make out the interior of the car.

The question now was whether I could squeeze myself through the opening. If I could get even partway, I might be able to reach the release atop the other half of the back seat. If I could drop that, things would get a little easier.

I managed to stretch my arms out above my head, attempting to narrow my body. I got my arms through the hole, gripped the front edge of the seat, my fingers rubbing up against the back of the driver’s seat. I twisted onto my back, the metal framing of the opening digging into my abdomen, and reached up to find the other seat-back release. I pulled on it, and suddenly my escape hatch became twice as large.

I allowed myself no more than ten seconds to savor my victory and catch my breath before I slithered the rest of the way out of the trunk. As I’d feared, the back doors would not open, so I had to crawl through the space between the two front seats, reaching the passenger seat on my two hands. I grasped the door handle, pulled, and pushed the door wide, light filling the car from the overhead fixture as I slid headfirst out the side and onto the gravel shoulder.

The stones dug into my palms and body as I landed. I was about to get up when I heard something.

Footsteps.

Someone running up the road.

I stayed low, not wanting to be seen, but the light coming from inside the car was hindering my attempt to stay hidden.

A figure came around the back of the car, spotted me on the ground.

“Hey,” said Walton. “I came back to help you get out.”

I wanted to laugh. But instead, I struggled to my feet, made the instinctive gesture of dusting myself off, and said, “It’s the thought that counts.”

“I would have flagged down someone if anyone had gone by,” he said, “but there haven’t been any cars along here. But I found a house.”

“A house?”

He pointed in the direction he’d come from.

“A farmhouse. Went up to the door and started banging. Some lady came to the door but wouldn’t open it. I told her to call the police, to look for this car.”

I reached out and patted him on the shoulder. “Great. Do you think she did it?”