“Gracias, Mr. Shaw,” Frankie says. “Okay, steaks going on the grill. Suzie, how do you like yours?”

“Not mooing, but not burnt.”

“Medium it is.” Frankie sidesteps Caesar, who is checking something in the fridge, and carries the platter of steaks out the kitchen door into the backyard.

“Susannah.” Uncle Gavin gestures at the couch next to him. “How are you?”

I lower myself onto the couch, wincing slightly at the pull on my stitches. “Good,” I say. “Clean bill of health.”

“Glad to hear it,” he says. “I understand you made a little side trip on the way home from the hospital.”

Damn it, Frankie. “Let’s just say Brandon Cargill shouldn’t be annoying you anytime soon,” I say. “And if he does, just tell me.”

Uncle Gavin fixes those black eyes on me. “So you’re staying.” It’s a question wrapped in a statement.

“For now.”

He nods appreciatively, and we say nothing for a moment. Then I ask, “Did you take care of that business for me?”

Before I got out of the hospital, I called Uncle Gavin and asked him to send whatever he could to Yousef Hassan’s remaining family, a brother and sister-in-law in Dearborn. They adopted Yousef’s children after the deaths of their parents. Uncle Gavin said he would get one last duffel bag of cash to them—two million dollars, all that was left of the Iraq money plus a bit extra, the same amount that would have been Finn’s share. That plus the two million they already had won’t replace their parents, but it’s something.

Uncle Gavin nods again. “Delivered yesterday,” he says. “Signed ‘From Dad,’ like you asked.”

“Thank you. Being orphaned sucks. Hopefully this will help a little. Like it helped me, apparently.”

Abruptly, Uncle Gavin says, “I’m sorry about Tane. You were right. I should have told Frankie and Caesar.”

I open my eyes wide in surprise. “I’m sorry, did you just apologize out loud?”

“You should record it on your smartphone for posterity,” he says. “And you did well, by the way. Not that you need my approval.”

“I don’t,” I say. “But it’s nice to have it.”

He gives me a little smile then, more a twinkle in his eye than anything, but it’s enough. “So what are you going to do next?”

I shrug. “Thought about waiting tables, maybe being a hostess. You know a place that needs either?”

“I might.”

Frankie sticks his head back inside. “Ten minutes on the steaks. Caesar, what are you doing?”

Caesar is examining the contents of a large bowl. “Making sure nobody added anything unnecessary to the potato salad.”

“Unnecessary?”

“My brother-in-law once brought potato salad to a family dinner,” Caesar says. “It had raisins in it.”

I grin. “No wonder you threw him out a window.”

Caesar puts the bowl on the counter. “It was more of a shove.”