“She changed her identity twice,” I tell Ray. “Her real name was Jessie.” I explain about the pawn receipt and my chat with Ricky Sullivan in Vegas, how I'd found Jessie on the missing person's database on the internet, and how after searching her name, I'd put the pieces together. Then I turn to the President and say, “He thinks you killed her, you know.”

“Better than the alternative,” he says, leaning his head back. “Better than him knowing he's been fucking his half-sister for the past three months.”

“Wait!” shouts Ray. “Will one of you tell me what is going on?”

I nod toward the President. “Why don't you start at the beginning? And no lies this time.”

“All right, but first tell me where we're going.”

“You don't recognize the address?”

“Just that it is in Maryland. Should I know?”

“Yeah, you married the woman who lives there.”

…

It was a story that was said to have won Connor Sullivan the presidency. A story that could have been told in any bar in the world. It made you see him as a guy, any guy, who accidentally married the wrong woman.

Kimberly A. Bells was born in Nevada. She went to college at a small school in Ohio, Dayton University, where she met and fell in love with one of the stars of the basketball team. After graduating, Kimberly moved to Virginia with her new love, married him, spawned him one child, and eventually became the First Lady of the United States of America.

Kimberly S. Bells grew up in Virginia, met Paul Kallomatix when she was 22, and had a daughter. The couple would move to Maryland years later, stay happily married for sixteen years, then divorce bitterly.

Both marriages took place at the same church in northern Virginia. Kimberly A. Bells to Connor Sullivan on the Saturday. Kimberly S. Bells to Paul Kallomatix on the Sunday.

To this day, it still isn't known how it happened, if it was the clerk at the courthouse, the minister, or a third party, but the documents were mixed up and Connor Sullivan ended up married to Kimberly S. Bells and vice versa.

You would think one little initial wouldn't have been such a troublesome problem and it wasn't, at least, not until it came time to pay taxes. It took Connor Sullivan two weeks to figure out why he owed so much money to the United States government. It was because he wasn't married to a third grade teacher as his wife had been for the past three years, but to a marketing executive who made nearly three times her salary.

He finally realized the small faux pas and after a couple of phone calls, rectified the matter.

“I wanted to meet her, meet the woman I was married to,” the President says with a laugh. “But not just her, I wanted to meet him too.”

I glance at Ray and wonder what is going on in her head.