After the Storm (Chapter-28)

Paul was still visibly shaken as the memories of being in the trunk resurfaced. It was good that he was getting memories back but he didn’t have all the pieces together. He looked at the clock and saw the glowing three-forty a.m. and knew he needed to try to get more sleep. He was still asleep when his alarm sounded and that jarred him awake.

He got up and walked toward the kitchen and heard Carissa’s alarm going off on the way. He started coffee going and decided to microwave a couple of quick breakfast sandwiches. Paul handed Carissa an insulated tumbler filled with coffee. He had warmed the breakfast sandwich for her and wrapped them in a paper towel sheet. He told her he had another dream that brought some memories to the surface.

He described the dream, riding in the trunk and when it opened Ester was there with her husband.

Carissa said, “I can’t believe how your dream about your teacher came from that incident. It is so strange how the dream morphed from the trunk ride.”

Carissa finished breakfast and then went to get showered and dressed. She gave Paul a quick hug and then went out to start her SUV to let it warm up.

Paul watched Carissa drive away and then started gathering all the evidence he gave to Adam so he had a copy for Adam’s siblings and uncle. He had to get ready also, so he went for a shower and then got dressed. He decided to take the information next to Adam’s sister Leah. He printed out a copy of all the details he discovered online. He discovered her address, he found out she worked as a receptionist at a local television station. He called to talk to her and asked if they could set up a meeting.

Paul asked Leah to meet him at a fast food parking lot. He invited her to sit in his car and talk. She was nervous about meeting a stranger. Paul tried to make her feel comfortable and he had already told her about him being her dad’s accountant. She invited him to sit in her car. It gave her a home-field advantage and made her feel more secure. Paul introduced himself through the slightly open car window she left on the passenger side.

When she unlocked the car doors, Paul climbed in carrying a brown Kraft envelope and when he was settled in, he opened the envelope and took out the photos. He took his phone and cued the video of the car crash and told her to watch the video and then he would talk about it. She watched for the entire length of the video and Paul heard an occasional “Oh no” and an “Oh my God”. When the video was over with Paul noticed a tear in the corner of one eye.

Leah looked at Paul and said, “My father is dead and never coming back.”

Paul replied, “Yes it looks that way.”

Leah asked, “What happened to you after they put you in the trunk?”

Paul answered, “I am actually not sure, I woke up in a bed in someone’s house in Colorado. I had amnesia and didn’t remember anything. I started having dreams that helped me remember things but it was a long way back until I found this video.”

Leah asked Paul if he had shown this to anyone else in the family and Paul told her about sharing it with Adam.

Paul said, “Adam told me he would take the evidence to the others in the family.”

Leah replied, “I have not seen this before and I haven’t heard anything from Adam for a couple of weeks.”

Paul said, “Maybe he is trying to gather more evidence before coming to the family with what he already had.”

Leah responded, “Maybe, but it seems a bit odd to me.”

Paul asked Leah about showing the information to the rest of the family.

Leah said, “Why don’t I ask my brother Daniel and my uncle David over tomorrow night and you can show them what you have shown me while I am there?”

Paul said, “That sounds like a good idea, it will save me from trying to contact everyone individually. I guess you aren’t asking Adam since he already knows?”

Leah replied, “That and I am bothered by his failure to show the rest of the family something important that he knows.”

Paul told Leah he would have everything ready when she could get the rest of the family together. He told her goodbye and left for home. With the meeting over, Paul decided he needed to put in an appearance at the office to make sure everyone there remembered what he looked like. Paul parked in the parking lot in his reserved space. He sent a text to Carissa as soon as he got into his office and told her about the meeting with Leah.

There were a couple of people that came in for an appointment and Paul met with both of them. His mind wandered to another place. One filled with murder and mayhem. He got a text from Leah, telling him that she had set up the meeting with the rest of her family, minus Adam. She told Paul that Adam had to make a trip to London for business and that could explain why he hadn’t talked to the family. Paul accepted that and decided he could do the work of informing the rest of the family.

Paul told Carissa the meeting with the rest of the family had been set up and asked if she would like to attend with him. His thoughts were she could tell the story of what happened after she found him. Paul sent a text to Leah asking about using a streaming device on her television and a cloud storage drive to retrieve the video in order to display it on her television. She had told her family to be there at seven P.M. and Paul told her he would be there at six-thirty. He also asked about Carissa being allowed to come to explain the things he couldn’t remember.

Carissa told Paul that she would be home by six P.M. and Paul said he would stop by their house and pick her up on the way. He had all of his materials ready and was restless at work. He was uneasy partially because he knew someone in his organization allowed a person or persons to come into his office and take files from his file cabinet and from his computer. He didn’t know if he would ever figure out who it was but in the meantime, he knew he could trust no one.

He sat and waited for the time to arrive for him to go make his presentation to Leah’s family. He watched the clock hands on the big round clock in his office move ever so slowly click by click. It was quiet in his office and he was super focused on the time. He swore he could hear every click of the clock hands as they marked each second of his time sitting and staring at every tick of the hands.

Paul’s office had its share of traffic, with questions being asked and information about missed calls delivered to him from the receptionist who seemed to guard the entrance of the kingdom. Paul answered each question asked but didn’t bother with conversation beyond that. He was nervous, the palms of his hands were sweaty. He didn’t know why, he wasn’t nervous when he delivered the information to Adam or to Leah in a one-on-one setting. Maybe it was the group setting that was causing him stress.

When the time finally arrived for him to go make the presentation he wasn’t as nervous. That seemed crazy to him, he would have thought he should be more nervous, not less. He had questioned himself many times, wondering if he had forgotten something.

Then with a smile, he thought, “Hell yeah I have forgotten something, almost my whole life, but it is coming back.”

Paul called Carissa and told her he was on his way to the house and when he got there she had changed out of her nurse’s scrubs and into what she called street clothes. He thought she looked surprisingly good and told her when he saw her. She walked out with him to his new crossover vehicle.

He said, “Perhaps we can go get some dinner after the presentation is over. I will leave all the information there with them and let them decide what they want to do.”

Leah answered the doorbell and invited both, Paul and Carissa, in. Paul introduced Carissa as the woman who probably saved his life. He went straight to work hooking up the streaming device and logging into his account to get to the cloud drive. The video was there ready to be played.

Leah was amazed and said, “Wow, having this on a bigger screen will help.”

Paul agreed and just said, “We are ready when they get here.”

Leah had made some snacks to serve when everyone was there and poured a few drinks. She offered some to Paul and Carissa but they both told her they were going to dinner after the presentation. Paul kept drying his hands but the sweat always returned. When he heard the doorbell ring he looked at Carissa and said, “It’s show time.”