“May I help you?” she asked.
“I’m here to see Jared Fowler.”
“Can I get your name?”
Hawk shook his head. “I’d rather not.” He winked at her. “It’s a surprise. We’re old college buddies.”
A wide grin spread across her face as she nodded knowingly. “Just give me a second.”
Hawk leaned on the counter, listening in on the conversation. However, he watched carefully the button the woman pressed on her phone receiver. The name “Fowler” was accompanied by the number 314, telling Hawk what he really needed to know.
She hung up the phone and made a pouty face. “Mr. Fowler said he wasn’t expecting anyone and he has some tight deadlines today. He wanted to know if there was anyone else you could speak with.”
Hawk shook his head. “Now, I didn’t go to college with anyone else but him, did I?”
She shrugged. “I suppose not. Maybe you can come back tomorrow?”
“Unfortunately, I’m leaving town tonight,” he said. “I’m flying back to New York, and I don’t really get here all that often. I’m sure he won’t mind if I just pop in for a few minutes.”
Hawk didn’t wait for a response, following a man who was getting on the elevator a short way down the hall behind the receptionist.
“But, sir,” she said. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. I—”
The doors slammed shut, effectively ending her protest. Hawk pushed the button for the third floor and nodded politely at the other passenger, who selected a higher floor.
When the door opened, Hawk exited confidently and began scanning the area for clues to where office number 314 was. Locating the group of offices in that section, he identified Fowler’s and headed straight for it.
Fowler stared intently at spreadsheets stacked neatly on his desk before he stopped and looked up to see who was knocking on his open office door. His eyes narrowed when he noticed Hawk.
“What are you doing here?” Fowler asked. “Coming to my house was one thing, but now my workplace?”
Hawk stepped inside, closed the door behind him, and settled into the chair reserved for clients and guests alongside Fowler.
“I think you know what I’m doing here,” Hawk said.
“I swear to God, I’ll just release that footage right now. All it takes is one phone call.”
“But then you wouldn’t be a man of your word. Blackmailing the president is one thing, but then lying to him? I can’t begin to—”
“I’m not blackmailing the president; I’m simply incentivizing him to tell the truth.”
Hawk leaned back in his chair. “Whatever you need to tell yourself to live with yourself.”
“I haven’t asked for one red cent.”
“You might want to look up the legal definition of blackmail because money doesn’t have to be involved. Besides, we know that your self-proclaimed altruistic motives are bogus.”
“Americans need to know the truth.”
“I know, I know. I’ve heard your spiel, and it’s tiring. And I’ve already explained to you why it would be detrimental to the public. You just need to let it go.”
“My deadline still stands.”
Hawk nodded subtly. “I figured as much, which is why I’m here to offer you a deal.”
“A deal?”
“Yes, a deal. I know who you really are.”
Fowler furrowed his brow. “Who I really am? What is that supposed to mean?”
“Don’t play coy with me. You know what I’m talking about—I know who your father is.”
“My father? You think that’s going to persuade me to change my mind?”
Hawk leaned forward in his chair. “You know, I kept wondering what was your motivation for doing such a thing, much less how did you have the connections to get this footage. I know damn well you weren’t there. But who has those kinds of ties and would be driven to compel the president to reveal the awful last minutes of Michaels’s life? Why, none other than the son of Guy Hirschbeck.”
Fowler glared at Hawk. “So you finally had a competent detective look into my past—congratulations. If you think you suddenly know me now because you know who my father is, you’re sorely mistaken.”
“Look, I get it. I believed I was the bastard son of a high-profile man at one time, too. I didn’t want his last name either. But there was still a part of me who wanted to know more, certainly wanted to know more about his life and what made him tick. I always thought it would help me understand more about who I was.”
“It didn’t, did it?”
Hawk shook his head. “In the end, my case was different. He wasn’t really my father, even though I believed him to be for years.”
“Yet, here you are trying to act like we’re the same, all for the purposes of what? So you can coerce me not to follow through with my promise?”
“Blackmail,” Hawk corrected. “And, yes, I’m trying to make an appeal to you, though it’s not what you think.”
“Please do tell. This ought to be good.”
“I know the truth about your father’s death, about what really happened that night.”
“Are you suggesting that it wasn’t an accident? That maybe someone deliberately ran him off the road?”
“There’s always more to the story. And I’ll be more than willing to share it with you once you turn over that footage and drop your threats.”
Fowler laughed. “You think I care enough about what that dirt bag of a man did to deserve an early exit from planet Earth? He’d already taken an early exit from my life—why would I even care?”
“Because you’re human and you care about knowing the truth.”
“I care about the truth being known regarding things that affect millions of people. My father? I couldn’t care less.”
“I find that hard to believe.”
“Oh, do you? Well, Guy Hirschbeck was an absent father, a master manipulator, an oppressive authoritarian, and petty politician. Do I need to continue to demonstrate just how little I care about how he died or why? To be quite blunt, I’m glad he’s gone. Whoever did this, did us a favor.
