How smoothly Gabriel was able to get to know him and talk to him and ask him questions. I was too nervous to even say much. I would be forever grateful Gabriel came with me for this.

  When I’d finished, I picked up my own plate, and as the dog had finished her breakfast, I took hers to the sink as well.

  At this, Grandfather beamed. “Yes, it’s a little nice to have some company for a bit.”

  “Will you be okay for a couple of hours while we go to town?” Gabriel asked. “Those robbers... will they be back?”

  Grandfather shrugged. “Who knows. But I’ll be here. I keep the gun out by the door. Just in case.” He put a finger to his lips. “Don’t tell anyone, though. I’m technically not supposed to have one. Anyone asks, I don’t have anything here.”

  There was the slightest falter in Gabriel’s smile, but he held his composure. “Sure. You need to protect yourself here.”

  Why would he not be allowed to have one? His son even asked where he got it...

  Grandfather Brian followed us to the living room and then the front porch. Chica bounced off the porch, taking off after some birds across the frost-covered grass. She ran around the house and out of sight.

  “Don’t you worry about your dog?” Gabriel asked. “She’s out here without a lead or anything.”

  “Naw,” Grandfather said with a dismissive hand wave. “She never goes to the road. There’s so much land, she knows where home is. If anything, I worry she’ll one day actually catch up to one of the deer that come through the field in the back. She runs them off, but what will she ever do if she actually catches one? Likely get kicked in the head a few times.” He chuckled at this. After, he looked over at the blue sedan we had parked. “That your car?”

  Gabriel showed him the keys. “It’s not much. But it runs.”

  “That’s all you need.” He pointed to the side of the property, where now in the light of morning, we could see a very old workshop that acted as a garage. Inside the central bay opening, was a large brown car, some seventies Lincoln, with a lot of rust.

  “That still runs,” he said. “No plate. I don’t use it unless there’s a winter storm and I have to get to town.”

  Again, Gabriel’s smile faltered a bit. I felt mine slide as well every time we heard something that seemed a little dangerous come from him. “Sure, for emergencies. Probably good to have all the way out here. Maybe we should double-check it still works every once in a while. Rotate the tires or something.”

  We said goodbye and got into the car. There was no traffic, and we used the map to navigate into town.

  As soon as we were away from the property, as if he could still hear us even inside the car until that moment, Gabriel blew a large raspberry and then sighed. “Oh my God, Sang. Sang...”

  “He’s not exactly what I expected,” I said softly. We had taken our ear pieces out as the batteries died after a few hours in those pieces. I had them in my pocket, turning them in my hand. “It’s a lot to process.”

  He stopped whatever he was going to say and looked at me. “There are so many questions.”

  “I don’t know how to ask them.”

  “Honestly, don’t,” he said. “You’re doing fine, saying as little as possible. Likely your voice is a lot like your mother’s as well, so it’s better not to say anything at all, really. If you want me to ask anything, let me know. I’ll figure out how. I just don’t want you saying so much he starts making some connection.”

  “I don’t know what to think,” I said. “I have an uncle. And my grandmother...” I pressed my fingertips to my temples. It was the first time I had to really vent all my nervousness and how strange it all felt. I couldn’t imagine what Gabriel was going through before meeting his uncle, and he’d at least known Steve existed. “It’s all too real now. And the farm has been in the family for so long. There’s so much history.”

  Gabriel focused on driving, but made adjustments to the rearview mirror, the radio, the air conditioning, testing various buttons around the car. “Surprise, right? It’s like I’m learning I have another aunt. And who knows what family I’ll find when I figure out where my mom’s family is. I might have more cousins. I wonder if my grandparents on that side are still alive.”

  Somehow, maybe it was fate—and I couldn’t imagine it being anything else—we had made this journey together, we were going through it together. It was strange to me. Surreal. We were a million miles away from home, meeting people who were family but foreign to us.

  What more would we learn about ourselves here?

  Would a week or two be enough time? Catching up to a lifetime of history might take time.

  “Should we stay longer?” I asked him. “There seems to be a lot to do.”

  “We can stay as long as we need,” he said. “Or we can come back. No rule says we can’t come back, right?”

  I grimaced, gazing out at the frost-covered fields that changed from crops to lush green hills for animals. There were horses in the distance, standing closer together and sniffing at the ground.

  How long would it take for my heart to settle down? Every moment here now, it felt like another world. We were so far from Charleston. Kentucky was so different from anywhere I had been, and it was strange to think that I was from here. The Sorensons lived here.

  I longed to be back home to feel some sense of normal again, but I knew pulling out now... I just couldn’t.

  I was torn between two worlds.

  She Mattered More Than He Ever Knew

  Gabriel

  They met up with the others at the RV first. Dr. Green, Luke and Nathan were already dressed in thick coats for the cold air despite being inside.

  Gabriel had acclimated and wore just a few layers: a tank shirt, a long-sleeve shirt, and a thicker jacket. The jeans he wore left his legs cold and he wondered what to do about that. His thick socks and boots at least kept his feet mildly warmer. He wished he had more options than the nearly all black and gray he’d found, but being closer to the end of the winter season, there hadn’t been many other options in the stores.

  The others overlayered on clothes, and Luke carried a blanket around his shoulders.

  “Enjoy a nice night in a house? With heaters?” Luke said, shivering.

  “Are you guys sick?” Sang asked them, a wary look of concern etching her face. She reached out and touched Luke’s forehead. “Are you running a fever?”

  “We might end up sick,” Luke said. “It’s too cold.”

  “You don’t get sick from being cold,” Dr. Green said. He’d planted himself on the heater vent inside the RV. Apparently, they took to taking turns sitting on the good vent. “Cold might leave you more vulnerable to catching colds but you need—”

  “Nope, don’t care,” Luke said quickly. “I feel awful. I’m cold. My fingers hurt—”

  “We know,” Nathan said quickly, cutting him off. He gritted his teeth as he spoke.

  Gabriel and I shared a concerned expression. They were being very short with each other today. “Is the heater broken?” Gabriel asked. “It shouldn’t be that cold in here.”

  “I can’t figure out how to get it to work better,” Nathan said. He waved to a panel on the wall. “It’s on heat. There’s heat coming from the vent. Some spots are warm, but it’s still freezing. I think I was seeing my own breath last night.”

  Gabriel went to the panel to check it.

  “If we don’t figure it out,” Dr. Green said, “we’ll have to find a hotel in town. We were hoping to talk to a neighbor today about repositioning it into one of their fields, or taking a risk to park it on the side of the road not far from the farm.”

  “I think I’d rather sleep in the Tahoe,” Luke said. “It’s probably warmer.”

  “Kind of defeats the point of having this big RV,” Gabriel said. He tried a few switches and then scratched his head. “Have you called North?”

  “He should be up here tomorrow,” Nathan said. “But right now, he’s got a new phone, too. We shouldn’t really call him unless we’re actually dying.”

  “So one more night in this ice box,” Luke said. “One more... unless we just go for the hotel.”

  “It’s a risk,” Dr. Green said. “They want ID to stay there. I mean we have fake ones, sure, but... always a risk when there’s security cameras and such. We already had to ditch Sang’s phone since she used it to call North once.”

  “Sorry,” she mumbled.

  “Not sorry,” Gabriel said absently without looking up from the panel. Despite taking a look, there was nothing much he could do. He’d have to do an internet search to see if there was something he wasn’t seeing that would make the heat work right. If he was going to do that, he probably should utilize the library.

  “Okay, so,” Nathan said, clapping his hands together and then vigorously rubbing them to warm them. “Let’s make a plan and get out of here. We could use some indoor heat time. Where are we going?”

  Gabriel pulled himself away from the panel to hold up a finger at himself. “Going to my uncle’s. I need to get the address to my mom’s family, if he happens to know. And to ask a bit more about other stuff.” He looked to Sang. “You want to...”

  “I’m sorry,” Dr. Green said, cutting him off. “Sang, we should find your other family. You and Luke will need to go to the addresses we do have and figure out what we need to do there. It’ll take too long if we don’t split this team up that way. And it sounds like your grandfather back at the farmhouse might require the most time.”

  Luke rolled his head back and began whining a little. “Nooo. I hate babysitting duty.”

  Dr. Green flashed him a ‘don’t you dare start with me’ eyeball. “You’ll be in the car. With the heat.”

  Luke lifted his head back up in a snap, and then stopped short to rub his neck. “Ow, cramp. But yes, heat. I love heat duty. I mean babysitting...”

  Nathan rolled his eyes at Luke but then redirected his attention to Sang. “How long should we be away from your grandfather?”

  “I don’t want to be too long,” she said. “I don’t actually like leaving him alone now. I know it’s during the day, but... we also should find out what happened during the robbery. Maybe we can find out who they were. We’d be much better off if we knew that.”

  “They’d be dumb to try it twice,” Gabriel said. “And they might be dead if they tried. He’s loaded with guns in the house.”

  Dr. Green frowned. “We looked up his record after we heard. He’s not supposed to have them but we don’t know why. That’s a big issue. It could be there’s a felony charge, but I don’t see one on his record, so I don’t know where that information came from. I don’t know where he got the new ones either.”

  Sang’s mouth had opened in surprise. “There’s no record?”

  Dr. Green shook his head. “Nothing official. And nothing about the robbery either. Not from what Victor can see from research.”

  Gabriel squinted at him. “We weren’t supposed to use the phones.”

  “We need to know!” Dr. Green’s voice became slightly higher pitched. “I mean at this point, we’ve got more questions about your general safety and well-being with you actually staying there.”

  “If he didn’t have a gun before the robbery for whatever reason,” Nathan said, “it makes sense if he went out of his way to purchase more now, but didn’t he say they took guns from him? I kind of don’t blame him for having them now, even if he is unstable. But he had them before they showed up.”

  Sang looked down at the ground, possibly at her own shoes. Gabriel studied her as sadness and concern entered every corner of her face.

  An echo of what Mr. Blackbourne said before, a fear about her wishing to stay.

  The old man was isolated and alone, and a bit old fashioned, but he wasn’t... terrible. He had his moments of craziness. It was just that there were so many questions, and he seemed unstable at times. He was kind to them so far. But they really needed to know what happened, and it was highly suspicious that there was no news or official information they could find about it.

  He suspected there was a reason his London was worried, despite being argumentative with his father. And then his wife... who lived in town, still married to him but couldn’t live with him.

  Maybe she would provide some more answers.

  “We need to hurry then,” Gabriel said eventually. “We should consider putting in cameras and keep someone close by... but that means leaving a man there alone, plus someone to see about how to fix the RV and maybe look into more of the Sorenson history. There has to be something in newspapers somewhere. Or at least someone locally who knows.”

  “I’ll go to the Sorenson farm,” Nathan said. “There’s woods near his house. I can use it as cover and hang out.”

  “It’ll be cold,” Dr. Green said. “And you said not to go alone anywhere.”

  “I’ll need a phone, but I should be okay,” he said. “If I need to, I can keep someone on the line with me, but I agree with Sang. Someone needs to stick close. We can’t all go to town, but we need everyone else on the hunt for information. That leaves Luke and Sang to go check out the other Sorenson household. And you and Gabriel need to go find what you need. And then get back. I won’t show myself unless someone shows up at his house. I’ll pretend I was hiking if he asks.”

  Dr. Green twisted his lips, and then his shoulders a little, weighing the options. “Owen would hate this plan, but we don’t have enough of our team here. We’d waste a few hours calling in someone from the Academy to join you.” He sighed. “Maybe for one day. We’ll figure something else out tomorrow when the others get here. We should find a way to keep people there during the day that he won’t get suspicious about. And eventually we should introduce him to local Academy members so he will be covered when we go home.”

  Gabriel checked in with Sang, but she continued to look at her feet, even though she said, “Sounds good.”

  She wasn’t saying what she’d said in the car, that they might have to stay a little longer. Maybe it was too early to make that suggestion.

  Dr. Green couldn’t stay forever. He had to get back. The others probably needed to leave, too.

  Gabriel entertained the idea of staying. Their family was their responsibility. They’d lose fewer favors for incidents with their family if they could stick nearby and handle issues themselves.

  Though Sang remaining here left her at risk of being discovered as a Sorenson.

  And if that happened, this whole plan might change.

  He could easily picture her grandfather asking her to stay. She might feel obligated to.

  Mr. Blackbourne had been right to worry. It would always be her choice of course, but who were they to ask her to do things any differently?

  ♥♥♥

  Within an hour, Dr. Green and Gabriel were on their way to Uncle Steve’s house.

  “Wait until you meet him,” Gabriel said, excited. It was too bad Sang couldn’t come with him, but he told Dr. Green to introduce himself as the friend he’d come to visit, who wanted to meet his uncle. “Nice guy. Katie is nice.”

  “You’ve mentioned,” Dr. Green said, although with a wide smile on his face. “Don’t worry, I’ll like them if you like them.”

  Gabriel wasn’t worried. He wondered how he’d explain to his uncle about all of his friends. He imagined if they kept in touch, if he visited in South Carolina at all, he’d meet them eventually. He’d have to be careful about what he said around his uncle, of course. Between Sang, the Academy and a few other things... but a visit once in a while? He’d learn about Luke and Nathan and everyone else eventually.

  Or maybe he’d get invited to Thanksgiving! Or Christmas? He’d always been around Pam or his friends during the holidays. Not a big family. With kids. Getting to play Santa a little with his new step cousins, and maybe his actual cousins... He’d sent gifts before, but now he might actually get to see them open them. And get to know their likes and interests.

  Gabriel directed Dr. Green to the right house, and he parked the blue sedan behind Uncle Steve’s car out front.

  As soon as they got out, Dr. Green paused, looking at the car in the street, and then the other cars in the drive, and the state of the house. “Doesn’t look too bad. Nice little set up here. Your uncle is quite the collector.”

  “Maybe we can help him fix up his cars?” Gabriel asked. “Do you think North—”

  Dr. Green held up a hand to cut him off. “Just wait. Sometimes projects like this, it’s what people do as a hobby, you know? Don’t take his hobby from him.”

  He was right, of course. Maybe Uncle Steve wanted to work on projects, like his father’s car, in his own time.

  Dr. Green followed Gabriel to the door. Gabriel knocked a few times and waited.

  “Remember,” Dr. Green said, “we’re just here for the address.”

  “And I wanted to ask when he visited—” He stopped when Katie answered the door. She looked at Dr. Green once with a little wariness and then smiled at Gabriel. “Hello, you!” she said with delight.

  “Hey, Katie,” he said. “Sorry to bother you. I just stopped by to ask Uncle something.”

  “He’s not here right now,” she said. “He walks to town sometimes instead of taking the car. Saves on gas and leaves it to me to take the kids if I need to.”

  “I forgot to ask where he worked,” Gabriel said. He was here yesterday and it was... what day was it? He hadn’t even thought of it.

  Her smile faltered a little and she caught herself and laughed. “I wish. He says he gets leads for this or that job, but he...” She wobbled her head back and forth and paused for a minute, as if to catch herself from talking too much about her husband. “Do you want to come in?”

  “I just wanted to ask if he had an address for my mother’s parents. They should live around here but I don’t know where.”

  She pressed her fingers against her mouth and then touched her cheek, trying to think. At the same time, the little boy appeared in the hallway behind her. He came to her, brightened when he saw Gabriel and was about to say something, until he saw Dr. Green and then he dipped his face into his mother’s side as if to hide himself. She lowered an arm around him, encouraging his head into her body, as if this would also help him hide from the new person.