Angels Mark (The Serena Wilcox Mysteries Dystopian Thriller Trilogy) by Natalie Buske Thomas Page A

conversation as soon as the hostess left them alone.
    “I recognize you, from about a year ago. You were at a Perkins, not too far from here. It was near Christmas. You were wearing a name tag that said Bryce, you were my server.” Serena said this calmly, as smoothly as if she was talking about the weather.
    Bryce-Otto looked surprised, but quickly recovered. “I didn’t expect you to remember me. Yes, I was waiting tables there.”
    Tom said, “Why were you following us?”
    “I was watching you before you torched your own house. Why did you do that, by the way?”
    Tom and Serena didn’t bother to disguise their horror. They didn’t know what to say. What could they say?
    Bryce-Otto laughed and clapped Tom on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, man. I’m not after you or anything.”
    “What is this about?” Serena asked. She looked at her three kids- all three were noticeably frightened. None of them had spoken a word since they overheard that someone was following them.
    “How did you know something was about to happen? We assume you faked your death because you thought someone would come after you? Why did you think that? What did you know, and how did you know it?” Otto-Bryce was suddenly serious now; his Homecoming King vibe had disappeared. In its place was an expression that transformed his features into a person who seemed both cunning and powerful.
    “Who are you, really?” Serena asked.
    “I work for someone important, let’s leave it at that. Now, you obviously feel nervous right about now. You know- that I know- that you lit your house on fire and skipped out, created a new identity for yourselves and are hiding under Paul’s mega-church, which is a fraud, by the way. He’s a con man.”
    “We thought so,” Tom said.
    “They helped us hide. We haven’t been to any of their meetings since that first month,” Serena said defensively.
    “We want you to go back.”
    “To the meetings?” asked Tom.
    “Yes. We’re watching Paul and his fugly brother Clyde. We need eyes and ears on him.” Bryce-Otto halted his interrogation while their server took down their order. Serena ordered a deep dish Chicago style pizza, planning to eat very little of it. The last thing her stomach needed right now was pizza.
    After the server had left, Bryce-Otto continued, “Let’s go back to what you were doing when you torched your house. I was watching you then, you’d triggered off a few alarm bells in my organization.”
    “What organization is that?” asked Tom, knowing he was unlikely to get an honest answer.
    “I’m not at liberty to say. But we were watching, looking for anyone showing signs of prior knowledge of the bombings. And you obviously knew something.”
    “And so did you. You couldn’t do anything to stop it?” Serena countered.
    “You didn’t report anything. You lit your house on fire and ran.” Bryce-Otto squinted up his eyes and fixed them into a stare that was intended to intimidate Serena, but failed to do so.
    “What could I say that anyone would believe? I was watching the news; I had a really bad feeling. I had a vivid nightmare that I felt was prophetic, but I’m no psychic, at least not proven to be. I had a couple dreams that relatives died, and then they did, but, they were sick at the time so it was kind of a logical conclusion. I dreamed that the United States was going to be hit with nuclear bombs, and I believed the dream was real. We took a leap of faith that my dream was a real warning, and we did what we could to keep our family safe.”
    “And your husband went along with this? You burned down your own house based on a dream? And safe from what?  You were already in a safe area of the country. Why move? Why hide?” Bryce-Otto shook his head. “I don’t believe you. You knew something. What did you know, and how did you know it?”
    “Safe from the government,” said Tom.
    “I had a bad feeling that the government was going to fall apart after the nuclear