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

“Then two months ago, I get called to a strip club. One of the strippers is going bat-shit on a customer, and low and behold it's my own flesh and blood. She's coked out of her mind, and I take her home, and she tells me a funny story about who her real dad is. Turns out this crazy fucking girl who ruined my life isn't even mine. Says that she has his hair in the freezer if I want proof. She passes out and I start looking through her place. Her email is open on her computer, and I see a message to the President. She's blackmailing him. He's supposed to drop off two hundred grand in two days.

“I didn't plan on killing her. I was just going to take the money. I deserved it, damn right I did, after all the shit she put me through. But when I broke in and saw her holding the President's fucking cell phone, I decided it was too good of an opportunity to pass up. I dragged her to the garage, wrapped my hands around her larynx—the same one that told a judge that I'd raped her—and squeezed the life out of her. Left the President's cell phone under the car, sprinkled some of his hair on the bed, grabbed everything of Jessie’s I could find, then tossed the cell phone and wallet in the dumpster two blocks away.”

“You're the one,” Ray says, shaking her head at Cal. “You're the one that gave the FBI the anonymous tip.”

“Well, our captain turned out to be too big of a pussy.”

“But you said yourself, Cal, that you didn't think it was Sullivan.”

“Well, no shit, Ingrid. What the fuck was I gonna say? I know that's his fucking hair because I put it there?”

“She's yours,” Kim says.

Cal looks at his ex-wife, who continues talking.

“Jessie was lying. She was always lying. Connor wasn't her dad. You were. I had her tested when she was a baby.”

The color drains from his face.

He staggers.

I lean over to brace him.

“No . . . no . . . NO!” he yells.

He is behind me before I can react. I can feel the gun sticking to my ribs.

“Move over there!” he shouts, directing the others to the front of the living room, their backs to the window.

“Settle down,” says Ray. Her fingers inch toward her gun.

“Don't even think about it!” Cal shouts into my ear.

She drops her hand.

“You don't have to do this,” I find myself saying.

It is 3:58 a.m.

In two minutes I am going to fall over and he's going to think I'm trying to get away and he's going to shoot me.

“You!” he screams in my ear. “If you would have just minded your own fucking business, then everything would have gone just fine.”