Page 103 of The Lie Maker

There was a covered patio on a concrete apron next to the front door, none of it lit, although I was able to make out a name on a mailbox mounted to one of the posts holding up the patio roof: barker. I made my way across it, careful not to bump any of the rusted folding lawn chairs, mounted the two steps to the door, and, not seeing anything that looked like a doorbell, rapped on it with my knuckles.

Waited.

After about fifteen seconds I tried again, harder this time. Still no answer.

I took a look toward the road, glanced at the other nearby trailers to check whether anyone was looking my way. Confident that no one was watching, I tried the door.

It was unlocked.

I opened it slowly, fearing the slightest squeak would bring the entire trailer park’s population down on my head. And squeak it did, but not enough to alert the cavalry. I opened the door wide and stepped inside. Then, thinking I didn’t want to have someone inadvertently announce my presence, I took my phone out of my pocket long enough to mute it.

My eyes were already getting adjusted to the darkness, so between light coming in from the street and ambient light from a digital clock, I could make out my surroundings. I’d entered onto a small living room to my right, and to my left was a kitchen and a narrow hallway that led to the aft end of the trailer.

I took a few steps, turning toward the kitchen. There was a plastic microwaveable container on the counter by the sink with what looked like a bite of macaroni and cheese still in it. Aside from that, the kitchen area was neat and tidy, and as best I could tell in the minimal light, the leftover mac and cheese didn’t look like it had been sitting there a long time. I touched it with my finger to see whether it was dry and cold.

Cold, but still moist.

I wiped the tip of my finger on a tissue from my pocket and opened the refrigerator, filling the kitchen with light. Not much in there. A few cans of beer, a container of half-and-half coffee creamer. I took it out, checked the expiry date, figuring that if Dad had cleared out some time ago, the cream would already be undrinkable. But the date stamped into the lid was two weeks into the future.

I put the cream back, closed the refrigerator, and peered down the long hallway that led to a couple of bedrooms and a bathroom. Did I really want to go down there? I did not. I suddenly had a very bad feeling about how this was going.

Gwen had said my father had gone missing, but had Dad’s witness protection handlers actually come here to look for him? It seemed unthinkable that they wouldn’t. Would they have concluded he was missing just because they’d failed to raise him by phone, text, or email? Could he be dead in the back of this trailer and no one had bothered to check?

But if Dad had been killed here, wouldn’t there have been, well, some clue? Like a smell in the air that would make you gag? The incessant buzzing of flies? There was neither. Then again, if something had happened to him in the last few minutes, there wouldn’t be any of that. Someone had been here recently. That mac and cheese was proof of that.

And then it hit me that just because Dutton thought I shared a passing resemblance to the man who lived here, it didn’t have to mean it was my father. It was possible I was snooping through the home of a total stranger.

I ventured down the dark hallway.

At this point, I got out my phone again and brought up the flashlight app. Enough light to see where I was going, but not enough to attract much attention from the outside.

The doors ran off the right side of the hallway like berths in a first-class train. I reached the first one and shined the light in. A bedroom not much bigger than a kitchen table, but there was no bed. It served as a storage room. Banker’s boxes, golf clubs, various tools. The next bedroom, same size but a mirror image, was similarly filled with junk.

Next was the bathroom. No one in there.

That left a larger bedroom at the tail end. I stepped in, waved the phone around. The bed was made, the dresser clear of clutter. If someone had left here in a hurry, they’d tidied up first.

There wasn’t much else to see, unless I started opening up closets, and I wasn’t up to that. I killed the flashlight app, turned around, and looked back up the length of the hallway.

My heart did a rollover.

Where the hallway ended and the kitchen began stood a dark figure. It spoke:

“Make a move and I will fucking kill you.”

It wasn’t my father’s voice.

The man at the end of the hallway raised a hand and flicked a wall switch. Suddenly I could see him, and the handgun he was pointing at me, quite clearly.

There was something about him that was familiar. I was sure I’d seen him before, if only for a moment, but I couldn’t quite place—

Fuck, no.

It was my road rage friend. The dude from the pickup truck.

Fifty-Five

Once he was off the phone with Earl Givins, Cayden considered how he would go about finding Lana Wilshire. He decided to start with online phone listings. This stuff didn’t have to be rocket science.

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