CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE - FINN
I know this man. Walcott. Senator Walcott. A part of me is relieved to see him. It puts things in perspective. It all adds up. It almost makes sense.
“Do you know how fuckin’ close you came to being arrested tonight, Senator?” Caleb says.
“What are you talking about? I told you to keep your fuckin’ head down after you got out and what did you do on your first day of freedom? You go and kidnap a girl.”
“Is that what I did?” Caleb says. He starts pacing the floor, making a wide circle around the senator. “Is that what you think this is about? This girl? I didn’t take her,” he sneers. “She was just there when I took him.”
He points at me.
The senator’s gaze lands on me. He squints, confused.
I sigh. Close my eyes. Open them and look at Issy. She’s confused too.
“Who the fuck is this?”
“This?” Caleb says, kicking me in the ribs. “This is Special Agent Finn Murphy, Senator. The guy they sent here to bring you down, motherfucker!”
I’m still looking at Issy. She’s still looking confused, so I shrug, close my eyes, shake my head, and shrug again.
But then the senator comes to stand between us, severing our connection. “What?”
“What?” Caleb mocks. “Jesus fuckin’ Christ. Do I need to spell it out for you?”
The senator doesn’t answer.
So Caleb continues. “About four months ago there was a raid outside DC, remember that?” He kicks me again. Right in the same place as last time.
“Drugs?” the senator says.
“Good guess, but try again, you goddamned elitist idiot. Payoffs, asshole. You remember what those are, right? Bribes? You should,” Caleb says. “You took enough of them.”
The senator stays silent.
“And there was a standoff between two federal agents. Both named Murphy.”
No, no, no. This asshole does not get to tell my fucking story.
“And they drew on each other.” He leans down to grab my hair the same way he was grabbing Issy. “Isn’t that right, Finn? But you, being younger, got there first and pulled that trigger.”
I close my eyes, wanting to make this all go away.
“At least you thought you did. Maybe.” He stops to lean over to look me in the eyes. “Did you really think you killed him?”
“What?” I croak.
“That wasn’t a trick question, son. Did you really think he died?”
“Of course he fuckin’ died!” I say. “I went to his goddamned funeral!”
“Are you sure about that?”
“I’m—” But I stop. Think about that day. I caught him taking bribes. I confronted him. He pleaded with me to see it his way. Tried to give me some of the money. And I said no, and I said a lot of other shit too, and then we drew. Him first, but really, me first. And we fired.
I shot him in the chest, but he didn’t have armor on. He shot me in the chest too, but I did have armor on.
Then there were sirens and flashing lights, and I was in the ambulance, and he was in another ambulance, and a few hours later, his boss, Deputy Assistant Director Kenner, came into my hospital room—I had two broken ribs because his bullet didn’t hit me center mass—and he broke the news.
“Your father didn’t die, Finn. They all lied to you. They’ve been lying to you your whole life and you ate it up. And so when they pulled you aside after he died”—Caleb does air quotes for that—“they offered you a deal, right? ‘Go spy on someone for us. Go get those bad guys. Go bring them in, Finnegan. And we will forgive you for killing one of our own. For killing your father? No. Just one of our own.’”
“What?” Issy whispers. “This is all about you?” she asks.
“And then I found this,” Caleb continues. Out of the corner of my eye, I see that he’s holding up my burner phone.
He throws it at me, hitting me in the head. It bounces off me, then it bounces off Issy’s cheek, leaving a red mark. Just like it left a red mark on mine when she threw it at my cheek in the car.
It spins, like a top, between us.
Caleb and the senator argue back and forth about who is about to go down, walking into the kitchen to look for a drink.
I realize this is the fucking safe house Declan sent me to with Issy. And just as that thought manifests in my head, he’s there. Standing in the doorway, looking down at me with pure malice.
He looks at me, then Issy, and I close my eyes and pray, Don’t, please don’t… please don’t…
Then he says, “Go get rid of that fuckin’ car,” to the group of thugs waiting around for Caleb to give them orders. “Take it somewhere remote and drive it over a cliff.”
The goons leave. Even the giant who started this little party fighting a girl. Someone helps him up and he stumbles through the door, probably hoping he can get dropped off at a hospital.
Declan joins Caleb and the senator in the kitchen while I take my attention back to Issy.
Get the phone! I mouth.
Her eyes dart to it, then to me. How?
Scoot, I mouth. Grab. Pass.
She nods, understanding, as she scoots her body down, turns on her side, grabs the phone between the palms of her bound hands, and then maneuvers herself almost on top of my back to hand it off to me.
My fingertips find all the buttons. Because this is an old phone. It’s not a smartphone. Hell, that little bit of clear plastic hardly even counts as a screen. So I find the right button. The one I programmed for my contact when I took this deal and left DC to go undercover in Denver to pay the Bureau back because I killed my father.
As I press it, I wonder if he’s gonna be the guy to pick it up on the other end.
“Hello?”
The voice is so loud in this small house.
“Hello?” it says again.
And then the phone is kicked out of my hands. I am kicked, repeatedly. In the ribs, in the face, in the chest…
Issy is screaming as Declan pulls her up from the floor, and drags her down a hallway into a bedroom.
The senator follows Declan, unbuckling his belt as he walks.
And then Caleb grabs my hair once more, forces my head back, and says, “She’s gonna pay for that. We’re gonna make sure her little sex fantasy comes true.”
My heart races, thumping inside my chest as he stands back up, walks down the hallway, and stops. Turning to look at me.
“Don’t worry,” Caleb says. “I’ll leave the door open for ya.”