Page 20 of The Lie Maker

“What?”

“Can I go with Dad?”

“Is that what you’d like? You want to leave me alone? Would that make you happy?”

“I didn’t mean that. Can’t we both go with him?”

“No. Don’t ask me again.”

Twelve

Jack

I was given the address of a redbrick six-story building on Boylston that was a stone’s throw from the Lenox Hotel on the other side of the street. I’d only been in there once, for a friend’s wedding reception about five years ago. My meeting was to be held in the fourth-floor offices of Pandora Importing, but when I checked the directory in the lobby I didn’t see it posted.

I got into the elevator and pressed 4. The doors opened onto an unadorned, pale-yellow corridor with entrances to offices every thirty feet or so on either side. I passed Delroy Accounting and Kendrick Asset Management and Childers Talent Agency before reaching the door marked, with a narrow, horizontal brass nameplate, Pandora Importing.

And what the hell was Pandora Importing? What services could I possibly provide for a company that brought goods into the country? Why the secrecy? Maybe I was going to be working for El Chapo after all. Writing a manual on how to import various illegal substances into the United States. That didn’t sound like something I wanted to do.

When I turned the handle, I found it locked.

That was when I noticed the small panel mounted on the wall by the door, and the red button. I pressed it.

Seconds later, a male voice crackled over the intercom. “Yes?”

“Uh, Jack Givins? I have an appointment?”

Nothing for several seconds. But then the door buzzed, and before it stopped, I turned the handle and entered.

This was an office that could have been dedicated to just about anything. Half a dozen desks topped with files and computers, two of them in use. A man with a short-cropped military-style haircut, dressed in crisp white shirt and tie, sat at the desk closest to me, bobbing his left knee up and down like a rapidly firing piston. Beyond him, a silver-haired woman in a blue business suit sat at another. They could be processing insurance claims, booking customer flights to Tasmania, or monitoring Russian intel sites on the dark web for all I knew. Whatever it was they were doing, it was more interesting than my arrival, given that neither of them gave me a second glance.

What might, or might not, have offered a clue as to who was running this office was the framed portrait of the current president of the United States that hung on the wall, and the American flag that stood in one corner near the door. Beneath the flag were a couple of chairs and a table with magazines, a kind of mini reception area.

From somewhere at the back of this office, a woman appeared, walking my way and flashing a remotely welcoming smile. When she reached me, she extended a hand.

“Mr.Givins,” she said.

“Hello,” I said. She motioned to the two chairs, inviting me to take a seat, which I did.

She was about my age, maybe a year or two older, which put her in her mid-thirties. Medium height, dark hair that fell just to her shoulders, green eyes, and a build that suggested a kind of solidness, like maybe she worked out, knew how to handle herself. She was dressed in black jeans, a white blouse, and a black jacket. Businesslike, in a laid-back kind of way.

Before she said anything else, I thought back to our brief conversation the night before when I answered the mystery phone.

“Is this Jack?” she’d asked.

“It is. Who’s this?”

“Gwen.”

“What’s this about, Gwen?” I’d asked.

“An opportunity.”

“What kind of opportunity?”

“Are you available to meet tomorrow morning at ten?”

I’d hesitated a moment, then said, “Okay.”