Page 67 of The Lie Maker

“Right on all counts.” She took a long breath. “But we don’t do it forever. Your father was taken into the program years ago. You were nine. There’s only so long we keep tabs on people. If they’re adapting well to their new situation, and continue to over an entire decade or two, there’s no need for us to maintain monitoring.”

“But don’t—I mean, shouldn’t there be? Can’t you make someone, I don’t know, wear an ankle bracelet for the rest of their lives, so at least you can keep tabs on them from a central location?”

“We don’t do that,” Gwen said. “Tell me how someone with a new identity, trying to build a new life for himself, explains a device strapped to his ankle.”

I started grasping for proverbial straws. “You inject something into their arm, like they do in the Bond movies. A tracker.”

Gwen gave me a patronizing look, like I was five.

“Hey, I’m not the one who lost track of him. How long has he been missing?”

“They’re looking into that. When I put in a status report, that prompted someone to reopen the file and initiate a contact. They didn’t hear anything back.”

“Jesus.”

“That bumped things up to the next level. Not hearing back was not necessarily cause for alarm. Your father could have been away. Could have been on a vacation.” She paused. “He could be dead.”

My eyebrows went up. “Is he dead?”

Gwen shook her head. “We don’t think so. But yes, that possibility was considered, especially considering the pandemic we’ve been through. And there’d be a record of that. In normal times, when a relocated witness passes on, years later, we don’t necessarily hear about it. But some calls were made.”

“Who did they call?”

“This takes us into an area where I can’t be very specific, Jack. Your father’s not only entitled to his privacy, but so are those he may or may not have built a new life with. I can’t tell you who he might or might not have been living with, or where he might have been working. But we were able to make those kinds of inquiries, and it appears your father disappeared sometime in the last month.”

“So that’s it,” I said. “You can’t help me. Even if you were willing to do what I’d asked, you can’t.”

“You’re right. I can’t help you. But maybe you can help me. And your father.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean maybe you can help me find your father. Provide some kind of clue to where he might be.”

“You think if I knew, I’d be asking for your help?”

“There may be things you know without realizing you know them. Or maybe your father has reached out to you over the years and you haven’t been forthcoming about that.”

I said nothing. I started strumming my fingers nervously on the table. Gwen, evidently as annoyed by that as by a bobbing knee, glared at my hand long enough that I stopped.

“You see, Jack, there’s something about all this that you’re not thinking about. The big question isn’t where he might have gone.”

I waited.

“The big question is why he’s gone. Why has he disappeared? Why now?”

“Okay, I’ll bite. Why?”

Gwen took a deep breath. “We don’t know, but there are a couple of possibilities. Our best guess is he believes his cover is blown, that he’s at risk. And that’s why he’s on the run.”

“If that’s the case, why hasn’t he gotten in touch with you guys? To set him up someplace else, with another name?”

“Good question.”

I thought about that. “He doesn’t trust you. I mean, not you specifically, but the people you work with.”

“That’s impossible. If there’s someone in the program who leaked his location... that’s unthinkable.”

“If he thinks his cover is blown, and he’s at risk, who’s he at risk from? It can’t be his boss. Galen Frohm must be dead by now.”