When I wake up the next day and walk into the kitchen, Ingrid is sitting at the kitchen table with my dad. Lassie is sitting in her lap, and Murdock is under her chair.

Ingrid jumps up when I round the corner, sending Lassie flailing to the ground.

“Honey!” she yells, rushing me.

I pull her into a long kiss. I nearly forgot how much I loved her lips. Loved every inch of her.

“What are you doing here?” I ask.

“Well, after you went to sleep last night, your dad filled me in, and I booked the first flight out.”

“Is your dad gonna be okay without you?”

“Oh, yeah, they’re sending mom home today, and my aunt will be there. I was going to fly back the next day anyhow. Plus, I just missed you so much.”

She gives me another long kiss, then breaks away.

“This is crazy. Project Sandman or whatever and your mom. It’s hard to believe.”

“But, do you?”

“After all your dad told me, yeah, I do.”

“What about President Sullivan?”

“I don’t know where he fits, but he is definitely the one who put the wheels in motion.”

“I’m gonna call him.”

My dad says, “Good luck. He’s in Russia at some big conference.”

I whip out my cell and dial the number the President gave me.

He doesn’t answer.

I ponder leaving a message, something along the lines of, “Hey, Conner, it's Henry. Just wondering why you wanted my girlfriend to look into a thirty-year-old murder case that involves my mother. Holla back.”

I put the phone down and head for the kitchen. I grab some yogurt and some Grape Nuts, then join Ingrid and my father at the kitchen table.

“So, we’ve made some headway,” my dad says. “We made a list of all the congressmen in 1985. Because of what Jennifer wrote, we narrowed it down to just the first-termers.”

“So how many were there?”

“Twenty-seven.”

“You track any of them down yet?”

“About half. Others are unlisted, some moved out of country, some died.”

“We’ve ruled out a few already,” Ingrid says. “Guys who didn’t fit the bill. Who couldn’t possibly be confused for handsome.”

“How many are left?”

“Twelve.”

“That’s not too bad. Narrowed down from three billion, twelve guys who were possibly involved in Jennifer’s murder?”

“Yeah, but they’re scattered all over the globe. Arkansas, Colorado, Germany, Iowa. And it’s gonna be nearly impossible to verify alibis for those days. I mean, we’re talking over thirty years ago.”

“What I don’t understand is why the DC detectives didn’t look into this back then. They said they could only track down three of the guys Jennifer blackmailed, but they obviously could have tracked down this congressman if they really wanted to.”