I did not know, that night, that Flynn had already quietly asked his physician to take swabs — from himself, and from my sleeping son — and send them for an expedited paternity test.

I would not learn that for another day.

And I certainly did not know the thing that was, at that very moment, being set into motion in the dark, three floors down and a world away, by a woman I had trusted even less than I should have and hated more than I yet understood.

Because someone in that family had been watching Flynn for years.

And that someone had just learned that a DNA test was on its way to a laboratory.

And that someone could not, under any circumstances, allow the truth it would tell to ever see the light.