Total pages in book: 113
Estimated words: 108242 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 541(@200wpm)___ 433(@250wpm)___ 361(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 108242 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 541(@200wpm)___ 433(@250wpm)___ 361(@300wpm)
“I wish I could say I’ve spoken to Millie as much, but she rarely answers her phone.”
“She’s lost the man she loves,” my father says, his voice uncharacteristically pensive. “If I lost your mother, I wouldn’t want to talk much to anyone for a long time either.”
I know he loves Mom, but he hasn’t said it often. I stare at him, searching out any other discernable differences between this more subdued man and the ruthless tyrant I’ve known all my life.
“Any more leads on Keene?” Dad asks, his tone soft but dangerous.
I had to share what we knew with my parents and Millie so they could be on high alert in case Gregory tried to get to me through any of my other family members. Millie was quiet when I told her. She didn’t scream or weep. No accusations, which I would have welcomed like a scourge on my back. Just that silence, goodbye, and the click when she hung up. She must hate me. There are so many mornings I wake up and the first thing I think about is my brother being dead because of me, and I hate myself, too.
“No,” I answer my father’s question. “He’s lying low, but he’ll pop up when we least expect it.”
“I want that bastard to get the death penalty.”
“Oh, he’ll get what’s coming to him.” I don’t mention that I don’t intend to hand over the privilege of punishing him to anyone else. They’ll find him criminally insane, which is probably true, and he’ll live a nice, comfortable life in some asylum, or they’ll bungle it some other way. I don’t have time or tolerance for all the ways our system screws up justice.
Dad searches my face, his eyes narrowed and his mouth tight before nodding.
“What’s going on?” I ask, shifting from Gregory, my new least-favorite word and subject. “I didn’t even think you knew about this place. What made you fly all the way out here?”
His stare is a laser. “Several well-placed people have approached me over the last month about you running.”
“Running where?”
“Not where, son. For what. Running for president.”
I laugh outright and lean forward. “And you flew all the way out here to, what? Have a good laugh?”
“You don’t think you could do the job?”
My humor dries up. I hate that he knows how I respond to challenges and knows just which buttons to push. When someone intimates I can’t do something, I immediately want to prove them wrong. That was how I broke my arm in third grade. Owen said I couldn’t fly.
Right again, O.
But that two-second hang time before I crashed was glorious.
“Not interested,” I say instead of what my father wanted to hear.
“You’re telling me the job for the most powerful office in the world is open and you don’t even want to apply?”
“I’m not convinced it’s the most powerful office in the world anymore.”
“Look, you want to do good, want to change the world or whatever, this is how you do it. Can’t you see that?”
“Owen was a rare politician, Dad. Most of them are so hamstrung by party rules and keeping the ones who scratch their backs happy, they can’t do the things people actually elected them to do.”
“Then be different. Change things. The men who want you to run are powerful enough to deliver the nomination.”
“If I did run, I wouldn’t need anyone to deliver anything to me. I’d deliver on my own.”
Something sparks in my father’s eyes. I’ve seen it when he talked about Owen, but it’s been a long time since I’ve seen it in his eyes for me. Pride.
“And I assume you’re talking about guys like Chuck Garrett,” I say.
“Garrett was one of the first who approached me, yes.”
“Why would the head of the DNC want me to run when I’ve told anyone who’d listen I’m independent, not a Democrat?”
“Maybe he’s hoping to change your mind.”
“About the two-party system? In one conversation? Wow, check out the balls on Chuck.”
“If you decide to run, aligning with the Dems might be your best bet, and Chuck is the road to the party. There’s a real chance here, Maxim. I would never want to trade on Owen’s death, but you’re in a unique situation.”
“I think I’ll vomit if you say another word, Dad,” I tell him, my jaw so tight it hurts.
“Listen to me, and not with that soft heart you got from your mama. Listen to me with all the parts you got from me. There is a window, and if we don’t strike now, it will close. Iowa is in ten months. That’s no time in the election cycle. Candidates are preparing for debate season, introducing themselves to the American people, but you don’t need an introduction. People already know you, and that speech you gave at Owen’s funeral has gone viral.”