Penina shoots a grateful look at Gabe, and Gabe coaxes Daniel forward with the magic words, “Hey, do you want to see a cool snake?”
“Maybe he had a secret family in another town,” Hillel suggests, eyes sparkling at the idea. “He barely left the house. He wasn’t maintaining a secret family,” Gabe scoffs.
“Because he’d run off! You never know who people really are.” Hillel spreads his arms as though he’d made a salient point. Gabe just stares at him. Sometimes, it’s easy to get caught up in Hillel’s enthusiasm and see this as a grand mystery. But then he remembers that the person they’re investigating is Abba, and he falls back into grim reality.
Diamond Securities has an open office plan, half-wall cubicles and a few supervisor rooms with transparent walls and open doors. Only a third of the cubicles and offices are occupied right now — many of the employees work from home, and there are few people around to watch them curiously.
Hillel has one of those supervisor offices, but today, he’s settled down in a cubicle opposite Penina’s, scrolling pages of Google results while Gabe peers at the screen over his shoulder. Penina has brought along her son today, and Daniel entertains himself by jumping onto an office chair with enough force that it rolls across the room.
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