He reminded himself that they’d already arrested the killer, Malik Montgomery. They had hard evidence against Malik. But then Blake Hellstrom, Malik’s lawyer, came rushing to mind. The doubts ignited inside of Sean, burning through the entire three-hour drive.
At home, Sean retreated to the shower. He closed his eyes, the hot water pouring over him, and lapsed into a crying jag. After the shower, he put on his suit pants, white dress shirt, and a conservative tie for his meeting with the president. He’d considered skipping it, but Emily had said, “Abby loved the Supreme Court. What would your daughter want you to do?”
He went to his home office and sat behind the desk, staring off into space. He was consumed by thoughts of Japan, the bottle, and Kenny reappearing. The isolation was the worst part. He was in this alone. Now was not the time to unload his past on Emily. She was barely keeping it together as it was. And, anyway, where would he even begin after all these years?
There was a knock on the open door, and Ryan popped his head in.
“Preparing for your meeting at the White House?” Ryan asked. He had a thick folder in his hand and placed it on Sean’s desk. “You left this in the car.”
It was the file Jonathan Tweed had given him: Abby’s vetting research. She’d been assigned to dig into the past of the front-runner for the nomination, Senator Mason James.
He’d analyzed Abby’s file at the beach and found nothing out of the ordinary. Newspaper articles, speeches, campaign expenditure reports, Facebook and Twitter posts, printouts from high school reunion websites, the senator’s voting record, and a stack of Internet research organized in folders and covered with highlighter, all focused singularly on the impressive career of Mason James. Sean assumed there were now several such files throughout Washington focused on himself.
“I probably should prepare, but I figure that I just need to be honest. Thanks for asking, though. Hey, you know the meeting is supposed to be secret, you can’t tell—”
“I know, Dad,” Ryan said. He let a long moment pass, then said, “Is that Abby’s stuff you were looking at last night?”
Sean nodded.
Ryan’s eyes settled on the floor and he lingered at the doorway. He then bit on a thumbnail.
Sean asked, “Is there something you wanted to talk about?”
Ryan continued working the nail.
“Ryan?”
When his son lifted his gaze, more tears. Sean wondered if it was possible to run out of tears. If so, the entire Serrat family must be getting near empty.
“About what happened at school—the Facebook messages about the weed,” Ryan muttered. “I’m so sorry, I—”
“Buddy, stop.” A family crisis just two weeks ago, those events seemed trivial now. On top of his grief, Ryan shouldn’t be carrying around guilt about inappropriate Facebook messages and made-up pot sales.
“You don’t understand,” Ryan said. He continued to cry and seemed to be having a hard time catching his breath, like when he was a little boy. “It’s about Abby.”
Sean digested that. “Abby? What about Abby?”
“Remember I said she was mad at me?” Another sob. Ryan was sucking his breaths in gulps now. “It’s because of the weed.”
Sean gave him a confused stare.
“I went to her for help. I was scared.”
“Scared? Scared about what? What are you talking about?”
“The man from Chipotle.”
The guy in his Facebook messages. The man in red. The dealer. “I thought Chipotle Man was made up, that you were just trying to impress your friends?”
Ryan looked away and wiped his nose with the back of his hand. “I got weed from the guy, Dad.” He whimpered. “He gave it to me for free. I was supposed to sell it and give him the money and keep some for myself, but I got scared, so I flushed it.”
Confusion was replaced with a surge of anger, but it didn’t have the energy it once did. Sean drew a deep breath to slow the pounding in his chest. “What’s it have to do with Abby?”
“The dealer. He said he was gonna hurt me if I didn’t get him the money. I went to Abby for help.”
The words bounced around in Sean’s head. Abby knew about this? And she hadn’t come to him? He remembered her call. Her last ever to Sean. That goddamned missed call.
Ryan was crying again. “Abby went to see the guy. She paid him what I owed, but he said it wasn’t enough. He said we’d better come up with five thousand bucks or he’d go to the press—he knew who you were. He ripped her necklace from her neck, said she could get it back when he got the five grand. Abby thought she was being followed, and she was scared and gonna go to you for help.”
“When? When did she say she was going to talk with me about this?”
“The day she was killed.”
CHAPTER 22