The limousine took Connor and Joanne downtown to an older area full of closed factories and warehouses.

“Are you going to shoot me in an alley or something for breaking up with you?”

“This is where Angine keeps his secret office.” Her eyes flickered with the passing of each building.

“Nice location.” On the corner a homeless man stopped picking through trash long enough to watch them pass.

“It isn’t where you’d expect for a reason.”

All this cloak and dagger made Connor apprehensive. “I have an interview at six in the morning, and then I have to be on the set, this better not take long.”

Joanne looked up at him through a fringe of dark lashes. “I promise you this might be the most important meeting of your life.”

Connor doubted that, but he didn’t say as much. He couldn’t imagine what that high- powered business mogul turned politician could want with him besides an autograph for his daughter or something.

They pulled up to a really nasty piece of work, a warehouse with its hangar door falling off the hinges, and a spray of graffiti suggesting a whole lot of things that would have made Connor’s mother choke on her oatmeal.

“Classy,” he said.

Joanne rolled her eyes and got out of the door the driver had opened for her. “Just wait. You’ll see.”

He followed her into the dark cavern of the warehouse trying to see anything. He had to hurry to keep up with her. At the back of the building a man in military fatigues stood with an automatic weapon trained on them, which made Connor uneasy as hell. “What is this?”

“Shh.” She turned back to the guard. “The Senator’s expecting us.”

The soldier lowered his weapon and gave Joanne a lecherous once over. “Right this way, Miss Webb.”

He didn’t even so much glance at Connor.

He pushed a button hanging from an electric cord, and from behind an old metal elevator door came the creaking and grinding of gears and cables. He pulled the doors open and gestured them into a freight elevator. This was getting weirder by the second. Connor followed Joanne and watched as the guard disappeared back into the gloom. Crap duty that one had pulled.

Joanne looked totally unfazed in the dim fluorescent light inside the freight elevator. “You’re really pessimistic,” she said.

“So shoot me.”

“Listen. Once we get in there, be polite. He’s kind of intimidating and he likes it that way, but he’s willing to do you a favor.” She grimaced watching him. “Uh oh. I know that look. You’re going to do that opposite of what I say just because I said it, aren’t you?”

Connor shrugged.

“Suit yourself. It’s your funeral.”

The elevator continued to descend. “Where’s this thing going?” he asked after another thirty seconds. “Middle Earth?” As he said it, they came to a jarring halt and the door was pulled open from the outside.

This time there were two guards looking less impressed even than the first.

They led them down a corridor lit by more fluorescents. The walls were made of concrete block. Old school all the way.

One of the guards stepped up to the eye scanner, and a third door opened onto a corridor so different from the one they were in, Connor blinked a few times. The bottom half of the walls were paneled wood waxed to a glossy sheen, and the top half was mirrored, reflecting the amber halogens embedded in the ceiling above them.

“This is more like it,” Connor said.

“It gets even better,” Joanne said. “You didn’t really think he’d meet you behind a dumpster or something, did you?”

The guards left them standing in front of a final door and returned the way they had come. The door in front of them slid open and Connor followed Joanne in.

The room was paneled in wood just like the corridor beyond. The carpet on the floor was deep and sound muffling. On the walls hung paintings Connor was sure must be originals. Monet, Da Vinci, even a Rembrandt. A huge oak desk sat throne-like at the apex of the room where an aquarium made a blue glowing wall full of tropical fish from floor to ceiling and from one end of the room to the other.

Connor was so entranced with the giant fish wall, he didn’t even notice the Senator until he stood up behind the desk.

“It’s the best view I could create down here,” Angine said in a fish belly-cold voice. “Do you like it?”

“Uh, yeah. It’s cool.”

“Thank you for taking the time to come see me.” The Senator indicated the chairs in front of his desk. “Please sit down.”

Connor took his place feeling like a boy called to the principal’s office. The Senator motioned in a general direction and a man entered with a tray. He placed two bottles of Voss down in front of Joanne and Connor and poured a cup of coffee, black naturally, for the Senator.

Connor took a sip of the water trying to think of something to say.

“I’m quite a fan of yours,” the Senator purred.

“Sure. I bet you are.”

“I imagine you’re wondering why I asked you here?” He nodded at Joanne. “Thank you for bringing him. I had a feeling that if anyone could get him here it would be you.”

Joanne smiled a half smile.

“You look nervous, Connor.”

“Um… no… just a little weirded out… the whole warehouse thing, armed guards.”

Angine smiled, sipped at his coffee. “Well, a man in my position can’t afford to take chances.”

“And what is your position exactly?”

Angine appeared amused by Connor’s audacity. He pushed his coffee away with a smutty chuckle. “Let’s just say, I don’t have a boss.”

“Okay,” Connor said. “Let’s just say that.”

Angine’s face fell. “I’ll allow you your disrespect because you are a young American, an entirely disrespectable group, but this is your only warning.”

“Or what?”

Joanne laid a hand on his arm. “Connor, stop it. Senator,” She turned on every watt of her considerable high voltage smile. “Connor’s overtired and he’s had a long day.”

It sounded like she was apologizing for a toddler’s tantrum.

Connor started to get to his feet. “Look, I’ve got things to do. I just wanna know why I’m here.”

“Would you give me that paper weight?” Angine indicated a heavy glass ball not six inches from his elbow.

“Excuse me?”

“I said, would you give me that paper weight?”

“Whatever floats your boat, man.” Connor leaned forward.

“No. Please give it to me without touching it.”

This guy was bat shit for sure. “Excuse me?” he said again.

Angine talked very slowly to him as though he were stupid. “Just concentrate on it and move it toward me.”

“What is this, an audition for X Men?”

“Please humor me. Just try.”

To his complete embarrassment, Connor did try. He closed his eyes and pictured the paper weight moving across the desk toward the Senator. Next to him Joanne giggled and he opened his eyes. The paper weight had, of course, stayed put. Connor pushed back from the desk and stood. “I’ve had enough of this,” he snapped. “I’ve got things to do.” He had no idea how he was going to find his way out of here, but he was leaving.

“Your brother Ty almost drowned when you were thirteen, Connor. Do you remember that?”

“Of course I remember.” There was no way the Senator should have known this. Connor had never even let the media get ahold of that.

“Do you remember what saved him?”

Connor was lured back to the desk, feeling himself wriggling on the hook Angine had caught him with. “I jumped in and saved him.”

Angine kept his eyes trained on him. “No you didn’t… jump in, but you did save him. Do you remember how?”

The truth was Connor had jumped in. At least that was how he remembered it, but suddenly he began to doubt this memory. It was like a role he had played once, a script he had memorized, layered on the truth, hiding it just underneath.

“You lifted him from the water, Connor. Without touching him.”

“I don’t know what kind of sick joke this is but--”

“I’m very sure you do know. You look too pretty to have any intelligence in that trademark, chiseled body of yours, but I know you are an intelligent boy, intelligent and resourceful enough to have hidden the truth even from yourself. I am allowing you to liberate yourself by acknowledging that truth now. I will even offer you another truth that may help you. Your parents are not your real parents.”

“Am I still black?” Connor asked, smirking, but the flat calculation in Angine’s eyes wiped the expression from his face. This guy was serious.

Angine continued as though Connor had never spoken. “Your real parents are dead and the people that raised you are simply guardians. Guardians that knew exactly what you could do.”

Connor sat down heavily in the chair and rubbed his eyes, trying to make all this go away. “You’re a liar.”

“You know that I’m not, Con.” The Senator’s voice was strangely soothing. “In fact, I may be the only person on Earth that has not lied to you.” He came around the desk and sat on the armrest of Connor’s chair, placing a fatherly arm around him. “Everyone wants something from you, the studios, the fans, your adopted parents.”

Connor moved away from the chair quickly, trying to escape that heavy, cold arm. “You must want something from me too,” he snarled. “Or else why would you bring me here?”

“Maybe I do, maybe I don’t. That remains to be seen.  I can promise you, anything I get from you I’ll return tenfold. To begin with, I can get you out of that stupid contract that you hate so much and find you a private place to stay away from the media.”

“And?”

“And I can tell you everything you want to know about yourself and how you can use that to your best advantage. I can guarantee you access to anything you have ever wanted.”

Connor looked over at Joanne who was staring at him with an uncertain expression. She shrugged.

“Okay, Senator. You have a very good pitch. I’m intrigued. I’ll sit here and ask a few questions, and if you answer those questions to my satisfaction maybe we can deal. But first I’d like something to drink stronger than water.”

“Good boy,” Angine said, and raised his hand.