Page 102 of The Lie Maker

Sitting on the end of the bed, the TV tuned to CNN but the sound muted, he thought about what had brought him here. Was he making a terrible mistake? Should he check out of his hotel room, head to the airport, and go home? Abandon the plan? He’d invested so much time, and money, into it. When he’d left home, he felt determined to see it through, but now, he was less sure.

There would be fallout. Repercussions.

And who the hell had given out his cell phone number to that reporter? Cecilia? Cherie? Did it matter? He was on the cusp of getting rid of that phone, anyway. Pretty soon, no one would be able to reach him.

That reporter.

Lana Wiltshire or Wilsher or whoever she was, he began to wonder whether she was who she claimed to be. The story she was writing sounded pretty thin. Did anyone really care how he felt about Galen Frohm’s passing after all this time? Was it possible she wasn’t a reporter at all?

And if she wasn’t, who was she? Someone checking up on him? Someone who had an inkling of what it was he planned to do?

He was feeling overwhelmed.

He looked at his cell and opened up the photo app. He scrolled through, looking for pictures of his sister. It had only occurred to him now that when he pitched this phone, he’d never be able to look at these photos again. He hadn’t saved them to some cloud, hadn’t printed them out.

He found a shot from a year ago of him with Valerie, his arm around her shoulder. They’re both smiling, but there’s a vacant look in his sister’s eyes. Like she’s looking at the camera without actually seeing it.

Their father’s death was the asteroid that cratered their lives. The damage lasted far beyond the moment of impact for Valerie. Kyle had long ago accepted the fact that Valerie’s bond with their father was stronger than his. She’d always been Daddy’s Little Girl. He’d pampered her, always given her whatever she wanted. Valerie confided in him more than she did their mother. Abel Gartner was very different with his son. Kyle wasn’t to be spoiled. He was to be tough. You fell down and scuffed your knee? If you were Valerie, Dad kissed it better. If you were Kyle, you were told to walk it off.

So when their father was assassinated—because that’s what it was, really, an assassination—Valerie went into a deep funk from which there was no recovery. The father’s love that she’d lost she sought from far too many other men. She drank too much. Then there were drugs, and depression. She’d tried to free herself from the jaws of the black dog more than once, and whenever she did, Kyle was there for her. He was always there for her. Getting her into rehab programs, support groups. When she started writing in her private journal about her struggles, he talked her into submitting an article to one of the Chicago papers. The reaction was amazing. Hundreds of letters and emails poured in. Valerie was persuaded to join a nonprofit that devoted itself to helping people who’d been dealing with similar issues.

For a while, Valerie found purpose in counseling the troubled. “Listen,” she’d tell others, “some bastard murdered my dad, and if I can get past that, you can get past this.”

But too often, they couldn’t. And in all honesty, neither could Valerie.

“Maybe people can’t be saved,” she told her brother one night.

“They can,” he said. “I’ve seen you save yourself. You’ve done it before and you can do it again. I know you can.”

“I’m at the bottom of the well and I can’t see the light at the top,” she said in the last voice mail she left for him.

Kyle was in that well now, too. But he didn’t want to be hauled back up to the world he’d left behind.

He’d had enough of it.

And now here he was in a big downtown hotel in a city on the East Coast, anonymous among millions, ready to finally take hold of his life, to do what had to be done.

Kyle put the phone onto the bed, then reached into his pocket for his second phone.

He called up a number, put the phone to his ear, and waited for someone to pick up. After three rings, someone did, but said nothing.

“All set?” he asked. “I’ll meet you down in the bar.”

Fifty-Four

Jack

I asked Frank Dutton if I could leave my car in front of his place while I went down to check on the trailer where this neighbor who looked a lot like me lived.

“Could be my uncle,” I said. “Always heard he lives up this way. Family says I got his good looks.”

Dutton chuckled. “Sure, no problem.”

I gave him a salute as he withdrew back into his trailer. I went back to the car and stared for several seconds at the mobile home at the end of the court. I started walking toward it.

As I got closer, I could see a dim glow coming from somewhere inside, the kind of light you might leave on if you were going away but wanted any potential intruder to think the place was occupied.

The trailer was a good sixty feet long, the front end, with its bay window, bathed in the glow of a streetlight, the back end shrouded in darkness. Near the tail end of the trailer was a parked car. I couldn’t say for sure, but it looked like it could be the same Honda CR-V my dad had been driving when we’d had our last meeting.

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