Chapter 5: What Tom Found in Twenty Minutes
Tom Greer's office was above a dry cleaner on a street I'd driven past a hundred times without noticing.
Marcus came with me.
Danny was with Marcus's wife, who had been told only that I was dealing with something and needed the morning.
Tom was younger than I expected.
Mid-forties, maybe.
He had the kind of stillness that comes from hearing bad news for a living.
He shook my hand, offered no sympathy, and got straight to it.
"Tell me what you have."
I told him.
He took notes on a yellow legal pad and didn't react to any of it.
When I finished, he set his pen down.
"The phone," he said.
"You still have it?"
I put it on his desk.
He looked at it without touching it.
"You accessed it without permission."
"It was unlocked.
It was in my kitchen."
"I understand.
I'm not judging you.
I'm telling you what the other side will say." He picked up his pen again.
"Ray Callahan.
You said that's the name?"
"That's what the messages said."
Tom typed something into his computer.
Turned the screen slightly so I could see.
"Raymond Callahan.
Forty-one.
Divorced.
Runs a landscaping company out of Millbrook."
I looked at the screen.
There was a photo — a business website, a man standing next to a truck.
Broad shoulders.
Dark hair going gray at the sides.
A smile that probably worked well on people who didn't know what it had cost someone else.
"That him?" Tom asked.
"I don't know.
I've never seen him."
Tom nodded.
"Your wife — Lauren.
Does she work?"
"Part-time.
School admin.
Three days a week."
"Which days?"
I thought about it.
"Monday, Wednesday, Friday."
"And your night shifts.
Which nights?"
"Rotating.
But mostly Tuesday and Thursday."
Tom wrote something down.
He didn't say what he was thinking, but I could see it forming.
"I want to ask you something directly," he said.
"And I need you to answer directly."
"Okay."
"Is there any possibility — any at all — that Danny is not your biological son?"
The room went very quiet.
Marcus shifted in the chair beside me.
I thought about Danny's gap-toothed smile.
His habit of chewing his bottom lip when he concentrated.
The way he fell asleep in the car within four minutes of any drive longer than ten miles, exactly like I did.
"He's mine," I said.
"I believe you," Tom said.
"But if there's any doubt — any — you should know before this goes further.
Because if the other side raises it, it's better that you've already answered it."
"He's mine."
Tom nodded.
He wrote something else.
Then he looked up.
"Here's where you are.
You have grounds.
The messages establish a pattern over fourteen months.
The phone in your home establishes access.
The fact that this man was involved in choosing your son's Christmas gift — that's going to matter in a room.
That's not just an affair.
That's integration into your family without your knowledge or consent."
"What does that mean for Danny?"
"It means you have a strong position on primary custody.
It doesn't guarantee anything — nothing does — but you're not starting from behind." He paused.
"I do need to tell you one more thing."
"What?"
He turned the computer screen fully toward me.
It was a public Facebook profile.
Lauren's.
I hadn't looked at her social media in years — we'd both stopped using it much after Danny was born.
Her last post was from three weeks ago.
A photo.
Her and a man at what looked like a restaurant, her head tilted toward his shoulder.
The caption said: *Grateful for the good ones.*
She'd posted it publicly.
She'd posted it three weeks ago.
While I was planning the Christmas reveal.
While I was rehearsing the words *Merry Christmas, champ* in the bathroom mirror.
Marcus put his hand on my arm.
I didn't move.
"She didn't hide it," I said.
May you like
"No," Tom said.
"She didn't."
