Page 109 of The Lie Maker

“Likewise.”

He grabbed the beer. “Not leaving this behind.”

As he went by Dad he gave him a friendly pat on the shoulder. Dad waited until he heard the door close before he said anything.

“So what came up?”

“Someone might be looking for you. Someone with a score to settle.”

Dad laughed. “Take a number. Who is it?”

“Lana—you remember me telling you about her—thinks it might be someone from the Gartner family.”

Dad’s look saddened. “He had two kids. Twins. Boy and a girl. They’d be in their forties now.”

“The daughter’s dead. Had a history of addiction, depression.”

Dad frowned. “Oh.” I could see a veneer of guilt wash over him.

I said, “The working theory, at least Lana’s working theory, is that Gartner’s son is looking for you. Or has hired someone to find you. Bad as that sounds, it beats the other theory. That you’d gone back to doing what you used to do.”

“Never,” he said.

“But you already knew all this, right? Or had some inkling? About Gartner’s son? About someone gunning for you?”

Dad raised his head. His eyebrows popped. “How the hell would I know that? Why would you think that?”

“Because that’s why you took off for a few days.”

“Who says I took off? I’m right here, aren’t I?”

“Yeah, but no one’s been able to get in touch with you.”

“Like who?” he asked, reaching into his pocket and putting his cell phone on the table. “If someone needs to reach me, they call that. Where’s all this coming from?”

“From someone in the witness protection agency. They hired me. To write backstories for people like you, before they get relocated.”

Dad sat down. “You need to start at the beginning.”

“I figured they must have picked me because I had some personal experience with the program, but that wasn’t it. They just thought I was a good fit for the job. They were stunned to find out my own father’d been relocated by them years ago. So I asked a favor. Set up a meeting. You were always the one calling the shots on when we’d see each other. I wanted to turn things around for once. I wanted to know how you were doing. I was afraid maybe you got the virus. Anyway, when they tried, they couldn’t find you.”

Dad looked dumbfounded.

“They believed you’d taken off. That someone was hunting for you.”

“This makes no fucking sense,” he said. He pointed to his phone on the table. “My contact is a guy named Stan. He can call and get me any time he wants. He knows where I live. He’s been here, in person, several times over the last few years.”

I had a feeling I looked equally dumbfounded.

“It’s a huge bureaucracy,” I said. “Maybe the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing.”

Dad shook his head. “These people are not idiots. They know what they’re—and who is this they you keep referring to? Who have you been dealing with?”

“This woman with the U.S. Marshals Service.”

“Who?”

“Gwen Kaminsky.”

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