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

“The lock screen. The picture in the background, it's the Washington Monument.”

The monument is only six miles from my house and I'd assumed that Callie had loved it and taken a picture of it. Now I was hoping that it had a special place in Connor Sullivan's heart.

I look at my dad. He shakes his head. He knows plenty about the President, but the monument doesn't trigger any tidings.

“What use is it to us if it's locked?” says Cal. “Let's get it down to the precinct and get one of our resident nerds to crack it open. The faster we get it open, the faster we find out this phone isn't the fucking President's.”

“How many numbers?” asks my dad.

“Four,” responds Ray.

My father mulls. When he mulls his lips move back and forth. Mull. Mull. Mull.

“Try thirteen, forty-four.”

Ray punches them in and my dad explains, “Thirteen was his number when he played basketball at Dayton. Forty-four because he's the forty-fourth president.”

Ray shakes her head.

“Switch 'em,” I say.

“What?”

“Forty-four, thirteen.”

“Four-four-one-three,” she says aloud. Pause. “Holy shit.”

Cal rips the phone from her hand, looks at the screen, and then hands it back to her silently. She shows it to both me and my father. The Washington Monument has dissolved into the home screen. The picture is of the President spread eagle on the eagle carpet that centers the oval office. A picture that would have been infamous had it ever been leaked.

“Look at this,” Ray says, reading through his contact list. “The Vice President, the Treasurer, Supreme Court Justice Billings, the head of the CIA.” Ray shoves the phone in Cal's face and says, “Look at this picture. It's the President taking a selfie . . . and here's one of his dog . . . holy shit.” She looks at me. “You were telling the truth.”

I nod.

“Now will you get these cuffs off me so I can go home?”

Cal nods at Ray and she unlocks the cuffs.

“What time is it?” I ask.

:08

Lassie is licking my face.

Only it isn't Lassie.

It's my dad's one-hundred-and-sixty-pound English mastiff.

Murdock.

Not only has Murdock been licking my face for God knows how long, he'd slept on my legs, and I am paralyzed from the waist down.

Can't I go just one night without waking up feeling like I've been tackled by Ray Lewis?

By the time I get Murdock off me, get my legs to work, clean my face, change the dressing on my stitches, and join my dad at the kitchen table, it is 3:06 a.m.

“Why are you walking like that?” he asks.

“Your dumb dog slept on my legs.”

He laughs.

Murdock comes trotting in and buries his face in my dad's lap. “You're not dumb,” my dad tells him.

He's not dumb. To be dumb, he would have to be much smarter.