Page 61 of The Lie Maker

“Fine.”

“And don’t go hunting him down tonight. I’m coming by your place at seven.” A pause. “I have some news about your father.”

For a second there, the room seemed to spin.

“I’ll see you then,” I said.

She showed up fifteen minutes early. She had the envelope in her hand and dropped it on the kitchen table.

“It’s good. I have a couple notes in there, but it’s something we can work with.”

I didn’t really care what she thought about what I’d done.

“Did you hear from your agent?”

“No,” I said. “I think he’s avoiding me.”

Gwen said, “I looked into why your history escaped our attention. When we did a search on your name, we were looking for ‘Givins,’ not ‘Donohue.’ ‘Jack Donohue’ is in our files. We were sloppy. It shouldn’t have happened. Someone’s going to get fired.”

“Not you, I hope.”

She shrugged. “Time will tell.”

“What did you find out about my father?”

“Can I sit?”

I nodded and she took a kitchen chair. I sat opposite her. “I made some calls,” she said. “A lot of the people who worked for the program back when your father was relocated are no longer with us.”

“But you keep files.”

“Of course,” she said. “I’m just saying, that’s why it took a little longer for me to track down who might have handled his case.”

“It was a woman who came that night,” I said. “The one who took my dad away.”

Gwen nodded. “Yes, right. She retired a few years ago, moved to Scottsdale. And within a month of her retirement, she died. Cancer.”

“Shit.”

“Your father’s file was passed on to someone else, and he was attached to that person for another few years, and then that guy retired, and then there was one more person who became your father’s liaison with the witsec program.”

“And you were able to talk to that person?”

“I was.”

“And?”

She sighed, looked at the table before meeting my eyes. “Jack, there’s still a lot I can’t tell you. I can’t tell you where they placed your father. I can’t tell you what kind of job they got him, or whether he found someone else, whether he was living with someone. I mean, it’s all in the file, but I can’t reveal it.”

“I don’t have to know all that. I just want to be able to talk to him.”

“I know, I know. And if it were in my power to arrange that, I would. I feel like I owe you that.”

“But?”

“But the bottom line is, I can’t do it.”

I reared back in my chair. “For fuck’s sake, why not?”