Page 30 of The Lie Maker

She ended the call. Talk about an attitude. If being a U.S. marshal didn’t work out someday, maybe she’d want to consider going into publishing.

Seventeen

Lana Wilshire, by her very nature, was curious. She couldn’t help it.

When she was a child, she would, without her parents finding out, search the house for hidden Christmas presents. And when it came to opening gifts on the morning of the twenty-fifth of December, she could feign surprise like a young Meryl Streep. Her snooping for gifts was not something she’d grown out of. One time, at Jack’s apartment, a week before her birthday, she had been casually looking around his place while he was out picking up some Chinese food—okay, maybe it was a little more than casual—and discovered a signed first edition of Joan Didion’s 1979 book of essays, The White Album.

She’d started out looking for evidence of possible former romantic involvements, like letters or photos, and had completely struck out on that score. In fact, she found virtually nothing about Jack’s life before his days on the paper in Worcester. No family albums, no high school yearbooks, no old birthday cards.

But the Didion book was an unexpected find. Jack knew her so well. It was the perfect gift. She didn’t let on she’d found it, and waited patiently until he gave it to her a week later. Although, if Jack had been more suspicious, he might have wondered why, that evening, she gave him a night to remember in the bedroom unlike any they had had before.

And now, Jack was keeping a secret from her, and it was driving her crazy. Did Jack really think she wouldn’t find out? He had no idea who he was dealing with.

After she had filed her story about the missing doctor, she made a call to the communications director for the mayor’s office.

“Hey, Sandy, Lana here.”

“Hey, Lana,” said Sandy Schwartzman. “What’s up?”

“Just checking on the mayor’s schedule you posted. Looks thin. That tells me he’s got some things going on he doesn’t want us to know about. I’m looking at between one and four in the afternoon, tomorrow. There’s nothing. Come on. No check presentation to the Rotary? No speech at the Chamber of Commerce? No ribbon cutting?”

“It’s a light schedule tomorrow,” Sandy said. “Not trying to pull anything over on you.”

“I’ve heard that before.”

“Seriously. Off the record”—at this point, Sandy’s voice dropped to a whisper—“the mayor’s got a case of the runs.”

“Oh, my,” Lana said.

“Intestinal flu, maybe, but it might be food poisoning. Went to a banquet last night and he might have had some bad shrimp. Does that satisfy your curiosity?”

“Definitely,” Lana said. “Hey, while we’re talking, I heard there was some new blood in your section.”

“In communications?”

“Yeah. That there was a new guy? Jack somebody? Writing speeches for the mayor?”

“That’s a new one on me,” Sandy said. “Same old, same old here. We were down one for a while there when Gracie had her baby, but she’s back.”

“Oh, my God, I totally forgot. What’d she have?”

“A little boy. Named him Gregory. Cute as all fuck.”

“Can I quote you on that?” Lana asked.

“Dare ya,” Sandy said. “Oh, and we’re putting out a statement about Willard Bentley.”

“Right. They found him.”

“It’s what you’d expect him to say. Huge loss, stellar career, that kind of thing.”

“I already did a profile, but what you’ve got could be worked into the funeral coverage, whenever that is. Might not be me who covers it.”

“We’ll send the statement out to the usual suspects.”

Once they had said mutual farewells, Lana ran the same game on the governor’s office. Got the public relations office, asked to speak to a Jack Givins.

Jack Who?

---