“If we can just make it over this, we should be clear of Lake Catherine. No more waters to cross,” Steven said. “If we’re lucky, we’ll make it to Little Woods, find a place to hunker down before it hits. Hopefully the houses are abandoned.”

William nodded. “You know a lot about New Orleans?”

“Spent a lot of time there over the last decade. There are quite a few Researchers there—or at least, were there, until the storms started. It’s actually where I met Neve years ago.…”

“I’m sorry. I don’t even know how to express how sorry I am.”

“Nothing to say. It wasn’t your fault. She, Kevin … they knew the risks. Especially in the hysteria that followed your return all those years ago. We all wore scarlet letters if we outed ourselves publically. Everybody went underground, even deeper than we had before. Your great-grandparents got the true first taste of what the SSA can do. To think, all those years ago, I sent their daughter on the same dangerous path to find you…”

“You sent her?”

“She never told you? Any of it?”

William turned on the wipers. “She insisted that I have as normal a life as possible. I don’t think I could have comprehended what she went through … what Blue went through … until I read it, and saw it for myself. But she deserves to know. All of it.”

“I wanted her to know. I still do. It’s why I’m now determined to stay alive to make sure I at least deliver on that. It is the least I can do for Lynn.”

William shifted in his seat.

“Sorry. Probably makes you uncomfortable to think of someone else in love with your grandmother.”

William tapped the steering wheel. “She certainly loved my grandfather.”

“That she did. It’s important you know that, in the end, she chose a life with him over one with me.”

“You never married?”

Steven smiled sadly. “If you had known your grandmother in those days you would understand that once you met Lynn Roseworth, no one would ever compare. Then to see her, all those years later, be so brave, risk so much for our grandson, and still be so beautiful—”

“OK, I get it.”

“I wanted her to have her father’s letters. And when I learned her mother was alive, I was determined to deliver both to her. I don’t have much time left, after all.”

William looked over quickly. “What?”