21

Serena admired the photos of herself with President Ann Kinji – standing in her very own kitchen! She copied the entire 120 pictures of her family with the President onto her laptop. Then she synced it with her iPad. She made desktop pictures for each. How she wished she could post them to Facebook, but she was officially still in hiding. She wondered if her connection to the President could help her get her family’s identity back without penalty – it would be so liberating to shed the Meadows persona. Then she could freely share her prized pictures of herself with the first female president!

The photos had taken only a few minutes to take, her rapid-fire digital camera beep, beep, beeping, taking dozens of pictures of nearly identical poses. Samuel raced for his own camera, and the session began anew. Ten minutes later, the cameras were off. Serena didn’t want President Kinji to regret accepting her invitation to come to her home. Enough already, it was time to serve the president coffee and a snack; and, she anticipated, talk like old girlfriends! Oh, how she’d love to pick the president’s brain. This would be the best coffee chat ever!

Unfortunately, that was when Ann received a call on her special line. She made her goodbyes quickly, after having spent less than fifteen minutes on the Meadow’s property, and was out the door before the coffee could even finish brewing. The Meadows, clinging to their fifteen minutes of fame, stood on their lawn; watching the convoy, and waving until the president’s entourage was completely out of view. Then they all trudged back into the house.

“At least I got pictures,” said Serena. When she got back inside that was the first thing she did: download the pictures, and she couldn’t resist sending a few to Karyn and Dan via e-mail. When she was finished gawking at and preserving her photos, she joined Tom at the kitchen table, where he was not letting the fresh coffee go to waste.

“I keep thinking about poor Clyde,” she said.

“Yeah, me too,” said Tom.

“I wonder how Paul is doing,” said Serena.

“The secret service is probably still watching him, he’s probably fine,” said Tom, without conviction.

“No, they left. President Kinji said that all of her team was heading back,” said Serena.

“If it would make you feel better, we can check on him,” said Tom.

“I think we should do that, yes,” said Serena. “I feel kind of responsible for him since we went along with his plan without double-checking to see if President Kinji really did authorize it.”

“It wasn’t our fault.”

“I had a nagging feeling that they were lying, but I ignored my gut feeling,” said Serena.

“You didn’t kill Clyde. But we’ll find Paul.”

Serena suggested that they leave the kids at home, not wanting a repeat of the disastrous occasions of the past few days. Then they were out the door to find a person who, as recently as just a couple days ago, they had been trying to avoid. They first tried the house Paul had shared with his brother Clyde, but finding no one at home, they went to the computer lab. Serena had a hunch that he might go there to feel close to Clyde.

At the lab, they found only a young boy, around fourteen years old. They knocked on the glass window of the entrance door. He stared at them for a few seconds, dismissed them as non-threatening, and opened the door for them. He didn’t say a word, but looked at them expectantly, a non-verbal invitation to speak.

“I’m Serena Wil—mmm, Meadows,” she said. “This is my husband Tom. I used to be a private detective, but I’ve lost my knack for finding people. I’m looking for Clyde’s brother, a man named Paul.”

Nicholas’ face lit up. “He was just here!”

“Do you know where he was going?” asked Tom.

“Yes! He freaked me out.”

They waited for him to continue, and when he didn’t, Serena said, “Where did he say he was going?”

“He gave me a lot of money, more money than I’ve ever had in my whole life! Look at this pile of money! He threw it down on the table and told me to keep it. I tried to say no, I really did. He told me to keep all of it,” Nicholas’ energy was that of a puppy fetching a ball.

“Why would he do that?” asked Serena. Getting information from this kid was tedious, but she had a feeling that a little patience would be well worth the effort, and boy was it effort.

Nicholas stammered and spoke at an octave that was barely audible. Serena and Tom strained their ears to hear him. “He asked me to find somebody, somebody really famous. I mean, really famous.”

“Who?” Serena struggled against the urge to hurry the boy along, as she suspected it would only make communication even more tedious.

He lowered his voice to barely above a whisper, “The former president, before the Big War.”

“And did you find him?” asked Serena.

“Yes, it was easy. I did a search and found the blog, where a fan page was and she had written about a list of the homes of all the places where he, the former president, before the Big War, had ever lived before, all of the places, and she had the one he lives in now, his current residence, and I told Paul that it was too easy and not to give me money, that I couldn’t take his money, but he insisted and I still have the money. Do you think I can keep the money?” Nicholas asked shyly, hopefully.

“It’s yours now, keep it.”

Nicholas tried gallantly, and unsuccessfully, to suppress the big grin that took over his face.

“Did you give Paul the address?” asked Serena.

“Yes. I have it. I got it in the window behind this one, see?” Nicholas was using one of the touch screen monitors. He used his fingertip to select the hidden window. The former president’s address came up, complete with a map marking the exact location.

Tom plugged the address into his handheld GPS. “Got it, thanks.”

“I better call President Kinji,” said Serena.

“Wow! You’re friends with the President?” said Nicholas.

Serena beamed. “Well, I’m not sure I can go that far, but yes, I know President Ann Kinji.”

She pressed the speed dial pre-set for Ann’s special line, avoiding typing in a long series of numbers. What she got was a recording. “That’s odd. It says that ‘this number is closed to all incoming calls’.”

“Try it again?” said Tom.

She did. “Nope, same thing, ‘this number is closed to all incoming calls’.”

“What do you want to do? I’m willing to go, it’s up by Burnsville.”

“Burnsville? I didn’t know he was in the Minneapolis area,” said Serena.

“Yeah, he was at the ribbon cutting ceremony at the new wing, where the stock exchange is, the financial center, where they buy and sell stocks, it was on the podcast, I saw it,” said Nicholas.

“Why do you think Paul wants to see the former President? Should we call the police? Or the FBI?” asked Serena.

“That’s what I was thinking!” said Nicholas.

“Then again, this isn’t really our case anymore, not that it ever really was. We have only a loose connection to this,” said Serena.

“Right, it’s not like you’re hired. It’s up to you. I’m willing to go if you want to,” said Tom.

“I think we should do it. Patriotic duty, right? Whatever Paul is up to, it can’t be a good thing that he’s gone to see the former president.”

“Up to you,” Tom repeated.

“They never gave you your gun back. What if Paul is uncooperative, or what if he has a gun?”

“We’ll call the police.”

“Good point. I’ll keep trying President Kinji’s phone, but… I don’t feel right doing nothing at all while we wait. We might as well go up there and if we see anything alarming we can call the police.”

Nicholas looked from Tom to Serena and back again. “Can I come?”

“No, but we can give you a ride home if you want,” said Tom.

Nicholas shrugged. “I rode my bike. You guys better hurry, Paul is probably almost there by now.” He stared wistfully beyond them through the lab door window at their car for a long second. Then he raced back to his computer station. “I’m going to watch the podcasts. I’ll probably see you on the news!”