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Back 3 a.m.
Chapters (67)
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  67. 3:46 a.m.

“And, while I was looking at that lease of yours, I happened to notice there was no mention of a pet.”

“Just trying to save fifty bucks a month,” I say with a smile.

“Really,” says Cal. “With all that money you made with that lucky phone, you're worried about fifty bucks?”

I glare at him. Take a deep breath.

“Lassie.”

He jumps off the chair and sits at my feet.

I take a deep breath. Please work. Please work.

“Lie down.”

He lies down on his belly and wags his tail.

“Roll over.”

He rolls onto his back.

“Play dead.”

He extends his legs, closes his eyes, and I swear he sticks his tongue out the side of his mouth.

“Do a backflip,” I say, knowing I'm pushing my luck.

Lassie doesn't do anything, and I look up at the two detectives – Cal whose eyebrows are scrunched and Ray whose mouth is slightly agape – and say, “We're still working on that one.”

I open the door and the two detectives grab their shoes and leave.

It is only when Lassie and I are lying in bed, when I realize my mistake and jump up.

The glass Detective Ray was drinking out of.

It's gone.

And my fingerprints with it.

:06

I expect to wake up in jail. I don't.

And when I still haven't heard a knock on the door at 3:25 a.m., I decide that one of three things has occurred: 1) it takes longer than twenty-four hours to match up fingerprints, 2) I hadn't left any fingerprints (which is a possibility as I had been very conscious of this and had tucked my hands into my sleeves), or 3) there had been a break in the case and even though they had matched my prints to those found at the scene, it didn't matter, because now they had their eyes set on the most powerful man in the world.

But according to the internet, the President was meeting with last year’s NFL Champions, the Denver Broncos, at the White House. He wasn't being accused of murder. So that left 1) or 2).

“Shall we go for a run, buddy?”

Meow.

Lassie scampers behind me for about a mile, then disappears. I'm just starting to loosen up when a car turns onto the street. I haven't seen a car on the road since the Ford Focus, the one driven by the Connor Sullivan en route to strangle Callie Freig.

The car is a Crown Vic.

It pulls to the side of the road ten feet in front of me.

I pull out my ear buds and stop.

Ray steps from the passenger side and says, “We need you to come with us.”

Cal clambers from the driver’s side and pulls open the back door. “NOW,” he says.

I climb into the back seat.

They both get back in and we drive away.

It is 3:33 a.m.

…

“Did you ever go into the house across the street?”