The laughter inside had finally died down. One upstairs window was still glowing, but the backyard remained dark.
“Not here.”
He replaced the garden stone carefully, though there was nothing beneath it now, and motioned for me to follow him toward the storage room.
Mom was awake.
She sat on the edge of one of the narrow beds wearing the cardigan I had bought her the previous Christmas. A battery-powered lamp rested on a plastic crate between the beds.
When she saw me, she covered her mouth.
“Gabriel.”
That was
