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“Okay.”

Just that. Okay. Nate pulled his gloves off, finger by finger, and crossed to the kitchen doorway.

Leo followed him.

Nate’s computer sat on the kitchen table, next to a plate with a barely touched sandwich on it. The screen woke when Nate touched it.

“It’s Thursday, by the way,” Nate said as if that was supposed to mean anything.

Leo said nothing.

Thursday should probably tell him something about how much time he’d lost, but the days of the week had become entirely meaningless to him a long, long time ago.

Nate typed on his laptop. He had a bit of stubble on his chin that hadn’t been there before, although it did suit him.

Leo shoved that observation aside when Nate turned the computer for him to see.

“Same years?” Nate asked. “Seventy to eighty?”

“Yes.”

Nate pulled a chair out and sat where he could reach the trackpad. Leo did not sit. He stood at the end of the table with his hands at his sides and looked at the first column of names, dreading what he might find.

If the name was here…

Please, he thought, though he didn’t know what he was wishing for. Please be here. Please don’t be here. Both. Neither.

“Ready?” Nate asked.

No.

“Yes,” Leo said.

Nate scrolled.

Abbott, Carol M.

Nothing.

Ackerman, Theodore.

Nothing.

Alvarez, Maria E. Anderton, Paul. Ashby Willow.

Nothing, nothing, nothing. Leo read each name twice, waiting for something to catch.

Baker. Ballard. Bell.

The kitchen was silent except for the trackpad’s small clicks. Leo read, and dreaded, and hoped— and it took him until the D’s to notice that Nate was watching him.

“The list is on the screen,” Leo said.

“I’m not interested in the list. I told you I’d see it on your face if you stumbled on your name.”

“It’s not my name I’m looking for.”

Nate’s question showed on his face, but Leo chose not to respond to it. He went back to the names.