The Good Liar(27)

She had asked a few people to direct her to the nearest Internet café, praying such things still existed. She missed her iPhone. She knew this was ridiculous, the least of her worries. But its easy access to everything she needed—everyone—had become so woven into the fabric of her life that its absence felt like a phantom limb.

The third person she’d approached told her where she could find one. It was located on a seedy street a few blocks away. Ten dollars got her an hour online. She didn’t check her e-mail or search for news of her family. Instead, she set up a new Gmail account and spent the rest of her time looking for a place to stay and at job postings. She answered a few “looking for a sublet” ads and applied for the only positions she seemed qualified for. With her hour dwindling down, she found the cheapest hotel she could, a single room within walking distance.

She passed a corner store on the way, one that sold cigarettes and burner phones. She purchased a cheap prepaid phone that would allow her to check her e-mail. She bought enough food for dinner and breakfast. Crackers and cheese. A waxy apple. Some cereal and milk. Then she shoved her items into her backpack and went to the hotel.

The old man behind the counter wrote her passport number down with a blunt pencil in the large ledger that rested on the counter. He never fully took his eyes off the television that was still showing the Chicago coverage. He handed her an old-fashioned key to room number seven. As she held it, her thumb rubbed at the worn-down grooves. Would it bring her luck?

It was hard to think so when she got to her room. A dirt-caked window. A bed whose lumps were visible from the doorway. A listing dresser made of plywood. A desk fit for a school-age child. The predominant color was brown. Kate thought immediately of bedbugs, then reasoned that if she ended up infested, she had almost nothing to throw away.

Exhaustion took hold. She put her meager possessions away. And though she desperately wanted a shower, she couldn’t muster the energy to take one. Instead, she lay down on the bed, pulled the covers up over her head, and slept.



A year later, on the other side of Montreal, that was what Kate wished she could do. She was tired, so tired. Both alert with adrenaline and weakened by the less and less sleep she’d had leading up to this day. But she got the boys home without another incident, fed them, and tucked them in for their afternoon naps. Autopilot. It had its uses.

She circled back to the kitchen, enjoying the silence. Andrea was out at one of her lady lunches from which she’d come home two-glass tipsy and wanting to talk to Kate about why Rick was working so much and did she think it meant anything.

“Hell yes,” Kate wanted to say. Maybe not cheating. But, at the very least, that he didn’t want to come home. Instead, she always reassured Andrea. Told her she was imagining things, because what else could she do? But she couldn’t stand another conversation about Andrea’s insecurities. She had to be the least intuitive person on the planet.

Kate knew she hid things well. Her own husband had never asked her how she spent her time. Never voiced any suspicion. She knew better than to give him any reason to. But still, even if she was a rank sociopath, she put out enough odd vibes that Andrea should be asking questions. She should be suspicious. Not of her husband, who maybe was banging some pliant girl in his office but was probably simply trying to make enough money to keep paying for this lifestyle. But of the woman to whom she’d entrusted her children without so much as a background check.

Kate paced through the first floor, fear like she hadn’t known in a year catapulting through her body. She wasn’t sure what the trigger was, other than the obvious. And maybe that was the answer? Her stupid plan hadn’t worked. The idea that she could forget what the day was by avoiding screens?

She didn’t need a screen to remember.





Interview Transcript

TJ: How are you doing today, Franny?

FM: I’m good.

TJ: Was that Mr. Ring who dropped you off?

FM: Yes, why?

TJ: I’ve been trying to schedule my next interview with him. If you have any influence there, I’d appreciate it if he’d get in touch.

FM: This is hard for Josh . . . Mr. Ring.

TJ: I get that.

FM: Is it a problem? If he drops out of the documentary?

TJ: Did he say he was going to?

FM: I’m just wondering.

TJ: Ask him to call me, all right?

FM: Sure, I can do that.

TJ: Thank you. So, I’d like to fill in a few holes from the other day.

FM: No problem.

TJ: Why don’t we start with you telling me more about meeting your mother for the first time? What was that like?

FM: It was awkward at first, but we connected quickly. It kind of felt like . . . You know that feeling you get when you come back to your apartment after traveling? How it smells familiar? It felt like that. Like a place I couldn’t believe I’d been away from for so long.

TJ: That’s an interesting way of describing it.

FM: Thank you. I’ve been thinking about that poem, you know.

TJ: Which poem?

FM: That one by Tennyson you were quoting the other day. I looked it up.

TJ: Did you?

FM: I envy not in any moods The captive void of noble rage, The linnet born within the cage, / That never knew the summer woods . . . I love that.

TJ: It is lovely.

FM: And I get it, you know? That’s what I was . . . A linnet born within the cage. A linnet is a kind of bird, right? Did you know that? Anyway, I was living in a prison, but finding my mother and all this happening . . .