They’re cut off by Hillel’s phone, buzzing on the central console. Penina’s name pops up, and Hillel puts the call straight to the car’s speakers. “Hello?”

“I’ve got the address for Bearwood Protection Services.” Penina is all business, but her confidence still reassures Gabe. Gabe has never felt very confident, even less so right now, and Penina and Hillel are anchors keeping him from drifting away.

“Have Gabe put this into your GPS,” she directs, and Gabe punches in the address. “And write this one down. Apex Solutions. Now defunct, but it was an offshoot of Lenape Accounting in Bearwood.”

Gabe writes down the address. “You think Avigdor ran it?”

“I think it’s the only link you’ve got to the original Avigdor. It’s been gone since 1985, which is when Avigdor moved back to Lenape Falls.”

“We need a timeline,” Gabe says ruefully.

Penina scoffs. “You think I haven’t already put one together? 1959: Avigdor Cohen and Moish Garfinkel are born. They move to Bearwood in… high school, probably. 1985: Avigdor moves back to Lenape Falls. 1987: Moish marries Raizy in Bearwood. 1990: Rivi is born. 1993—”

“Our hero is born.” Hillel grins, speeding around a slow car on the freeway.

“1993, Raizy passes away,” Penina corrects him, but Gabe knows she’s rolling her eyes at them. “1994: Avigdor dies. Moish moves back to Lenape Falls. How am I doing?”

“Impressive as always.”

“Don’t mock me. I’m in programming. We love a good list.”

“I meant it!” He’s smiling until he spots Hillel eyeing him speculatively. He quickly rearranges his face into a neutral expression. “We’ll keep you updated.”

“Right.” Penina hangs up without a farewell, which is for the best. He isn’t Rivi. They aren’t friends. They’re just working on understanding the same… situation.

“That woman can find anything.” Hillel shakes his head. “I hope Martin knows what he’s got. She works half as hard as my team with double the results.”

“Sounds like Penina.” They say that when you’re dating, you look for someone like your mother. Gabe, without any memories of a mother, had looked to his hyper-competent, strong older sister as a model for all shidduchim.

He brushes aside the thought. He’d made a mess of that, and Penina has expressed no interest in anything but closure. Then again, nothing was on the table before, when they’d thought he was a Kohein. Now…

Now, he’s going to figure out who he is and then go back to Brazil where he belongs.

“Let’s find this security firm,” he says aloud, and Hillel makes a sharp lane change to catch an exit and barrels ahead. “Not security like your job, right?”

“In the 90s? Not impossible, but unlikely. Cybersecurity wasn’t the behemoth that it is today. Probably just a place that hired out security guards, no education needed.”

“My father was definitely educated. He used to tear apart my assignments like an English professor.”

“We don’t know how long he worked in this place. Maybe it was short-term. The badge didn’t even have a picture on it.” The GPS announces that they’ve arrived, and Hillel pulls over in front of a big Amazon warehouse. “It’s clearly not around anymore.”

“Right.” It’s not a surprise, but Gabe is still vaguely disappointed. “It would have been far-fetched to expect them to still be in business.”

He steps out of the car, leans against it, and gazes at the warehouse. It’s been recently built, and nothing remains of Abba’s old workplace. Had Abba walked under those trees? Stepped on this same sidewalk each day after Ima’s death, determined to earn enough to support two tiny children?

The paths that people walk can tell an anthropologist plenty about them: their environment, their family, their motivations. But there is nothing in this weathered concrete or the smooth gray building in front of him that retains its history, nothing that brings him closer to Abba. Moish Garfinkel has no legacy here, and the thought makes Gabe indescribably sad.

He stands there for a moment, collects himself, and then ducks back into the car. “Apex Solutions now.”

“Already punched in,” Hillel drives as soon as Gabe’s door shuts, swinging around in a tight U-turn to speed through the town. Bearwood is smaller than Lenape Falls, and it doesn’t take long before they reach a nondescript office building.

“Penina said Suite 204.” Gabe glances at his note. “Think anyone’s there on a Sunday?”

“Only one way to find out.” This time, they both emerge from the car. Gabe yanks open a door that sticks with age to enter a musty building.

Someone has painted over old wallpaper in an attempt to make it look newer, but it’s backfired where the wallpaper has peeled away. There is an ancient sign on an inner door reading RESTR OM KEY AVA LA LE IN  FFICE and a directory with only a few offices occupied.

Suite 204 is on the list, proclaimed to be BEARWOOD FINANCIAL SOLUTIONS. “Still an accounting place,” Hillel says thoughtfully. “Maybe it’s worth dropping in.”

There is no security in the building. The restroom might be locked, but Suite 204’s door doesn’t even fully close, and Gabe pushes it open tentatively. Inside, the accounting firm is just two desks facing each other and one conference room behind the main room.

An elderly woman sits at one desk, chattering on the phone in a heavy Jersey accent. “You think they tell me anything? I get my news from the grandkids. And they only call for birthday checks.” She pauses filing her nails to blink at Gabe and Hillel. “The plastic surgeon is Suite 104, sweeties.”

Hillel looks vaguely offended. Gabe says, “Actually, we were looking for the accountants.”

“It’s Sunday.” The woman hangs up reluctantly. “I’m just the secretary. I can set up a meeting—”

“That’s all right.” Gabe puts on a smile, the kind that signals please don’t spear me through the gut to hostile tribal leaders. “We’d love to talk to you.”

“Oh, aren’t you a doll.” The woman pats her hair. “We used to have a lot of nice Jewish boys out here, back in the day. Everyone’s a doctor or an accountant, right? I bet you’re a doctor,” she says, winking at Gabe.

“I do have a doctorate,” Gabe concedes.

“You see? Good boys, good boys. I liked the religious ones. So polite, and they never get up to much trouble. Shame there aren’t many left here, but I do have one neighbor, Fanny, who goes to the synagogue out on—”

“Have you been working here long?” Gabe asks, cutting her short before she launches into a new segue.

The woman bobs her head. “Honey, I’ve been here forty years. Six accounting firms and one dentist. Not a Jewish one, can you believe it?”

Forty years. Gabe can feel Hillel’s excitement increasing with his own. “Forty years,” he repeats. “You were here when this was… did you work at Apex Solutions?”

The woman wrinkles her nose. “Was that the one with the aquarium? That thing stank — no, that was later. Apex was the one with that charmer. Always smiling. Not much for management, but he did enjoy the finer things in life. I remember those spreads at company meetings.” She sighs happily. “No business sense, of course. No wonder he ran it to the ground. What was his name?”

“Avigdor Cohen?” Hillel suggests, and the woman nods vigorously in recognition.

“Yes! What a boy. Young, a little flighty. Very spoiled by his parents. But the office adored him.”

Gabe tugs a picture from his pocket with trembling fingers. He’d pulled it from the bris photos on Friday. It’s Abba beside a gap-toothed, beaming toddler Rivi. Abba looks tired, lost and worn out. “Did you ever see this man around?”

The woman peers at the photo. “Looks a little like Mr. Cohen,” she says thoughtfully. “Oh! The brother, wasn’t it?”

“Brother?”

“They weren’t really related, I don’t think. But they looked so similar. And he was always coming by, little Morris. No, Moses.”

“Moish,” Gabe offers, his skin prickling and his heart beating rapidly. The woman nods enthusiastically.

“That was the one! Quiet boy. Very intellectual. Mr. Cohen was the life of the party, and you could see the other boy adored him. He’d follow him around like a shadow. I would have followed Mr. Cohen around like that, too, if it meant more company lunches in the conference room.” The woman winks again, exaggerated and friendly. “Of course, nothing compared to Mr. Gruber at Summit Taxes. He used to order food deliveries and forget them at work. I fed my kids on his meals for years.”

Hillel responds, laughing with the woman, but Gabe can’t join in, can’t turn to listen to them. His head pounds, and he feels… not sick, but inflamed, like something scabbed over has been suddenly scraped raw and is stinging again.

Abba had been here, in this room. Abba had been quiet, intellectual, had followed Avigdor around like a shadow.

And then, one day, the shadow had become the man.

He stares down at the picture in his hand, the hooded eyes of a grieving husband. Abba looks like him, Gabe has always known that. He’s a bit older than Gabe in this picture, but it’s uncanny, like looking into a mirror, except for the expression on Abba’s face. Abba had known sorrow, had known loss and pain. First Ima, then Avigdor?

Why assume the identity of your best friend?

“I half thought that he killed Avigdor,” Hillel says as they cruise down the highway, empty except for a black sedan behind them. For dinner, they stopped at the last kosher bagel store in Bearwood, and Gabe had let Hillel fill the silence with conversation. Only once they’re driving out of Bearwood does he raise the question of why Abba had done it, and he recoils at Hillel’s flippant revelation. “I mean, there was some kind of foul play. But it sounds like a crime of circumstance instead.”

“Right. He knew Avigdor.” Knew his family, had brought Gabe and Rivi to visit Avigdor’s mother up until she died after Gabe turned six. She’d never been very lucid, but she was always happy to see them. Had she thought they were her own grandchildren? Or had she known the truth and favored them like a niece and nephew? “They were friends all the way back in yeshivah. That had to mean….”

Gabe’s voice trails off. The black sedan still keeps pace with them, even though there are empty lanes on the highway beside them. “Hillel, can you slow down?”

Hillel slows. The other car slows, too.

“Take the next exit.” A chill runs through Gabe, the same certainty he’d felt on Thursday at Abba’s house. “Don’t switch lanes until the last minute.”

Hillel laughs. “You know I’m a pro at that.” But his eyes are just as wary as Gabe’s, just as fixed on the rearview mirror.

When the next exit comes, Hillel jerks to the side — and so does the other car, following them onto a dark country road. “There’s nowhere to lose him here,” Hillel says in a low voice, abruptly very serious. “One lane. Nothing but the woods on either side.”

Gabe twists around, squints at the car through the rear windshield. But he can’t make out a face, just a dark figure in the driver’s seat.

There’s a fork in the road — their street meeting another to continue onward — and Hillel twists the car into a haphazard sharp turn, whirling the car around to the other road. It’s a one-way in the wrong direction, but Gabe doesn’t speak, only watches in frozen silence as the car turns down their road, too.

It’s slower, and Hillel has the upper hand. He races down the street until the next turn, blows through a red light to another turn, and when they return to the highway, they’re alone.

They don’t speak for a few minutes, Gabe frozen and Hillel’s eyes narrowed on the road. Finally, Hillel lets out a whoosh of breath and says, “Who was that?”

“I don’t know. But it’s becoming a pattern.” Gabe unclenches his fingers from where they’ve crumpled the bris photo.

Abba stares up at Gabe from it, his face distorted and unreadable.

To be continued…

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 920)