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

“Sure you do. The off-duty cops that you had watching me the last week. Watching to see if I was going to take a drive up to Maryland to see your ex-wife.” Luckily, she lived in a different house. One he obviously didn't know about if he'd driven up here to meet me in this one.

“Again. No fuckin’ clue what you're talking about.”

“You're late by the way.” I'd texted him this address right before I'd knocked on Ray's window. Told him to meet me here at 3:45. And to be alone.

“Why'd you do it, Cal?” asks Ray.

“Do what?”

“Why'd you kill her?”

“You? They got to you?” he scoffs. “Come on, Ray, I didn't even know it was Jessie until they showed that picture of her with him,” he nods toward Sullivan. “And what difference would it have made? He killed her.”

He glares at the President.

“If you aren't gonna tell them how it went down, I will,” I say.

“I didn't do anything to that girl.”

Not his little girl. That girl.

I look down at my phone.

3:54 a.m.

Six minutes.

“What happened when Jessie accused you of raping her?”

There had been an article about it on the internet. It was one of the things that came up when I searched 'Jessie Kallomatix.' When she was twelve she accused her father, a Maryland cop, of raping her. The case was later thrown out, but it made big news.

“What other lies did she make up about you?”

His face is turning red.

“How much of your hard earned money did you spend sending her to rehab and therapy?”

I can hear his teeth grinding together.

“I'm sorry.”

He looks at the President.

“I'm sorry,” Sullivan repeats.

Cal snorts. Snorts again.

“It all started with you!” he screams. “You sticking your little dick where it didn't belong.”

He scans the room. Locks eyes with each of us. I can feel it. Feel the dam breaking.

“THAT LITTLE CUNT RUINED MY LIFE!”

Spittle shoots from Cal’s lips.

“If I could strangle her again, I would.”

The four of us don't dare move. Don't dare derail the train.

He shakes his head back and forth as he walks in a tight circle.

“Do you know that when she was fourteen she told me that if I didn't buy her a Range Rover when she turned sixteen that she was going to tell everyone that I got her pregnant and forced her to have an abortion? That little bitch got me kicked off the force. No one in Maryland or DC would touch me, even after the judge ruled that I never touched my daughter. My wife,” he points at Kim, “thought I was a sick bastard who raped our little girl and divorced me. Then I had to file for bankruptcy because I spent my life savings putting my psycho fucking daughter through rehab three times.