"Abraham is usually the chef around here, though I have been known to help him out from time to time." Henry started rolling up his sleeves as he entered the kitchen, Jo and Tommy trailing behind him. They'd spent the day in the apartment, with Henry ducking downstairs in the morning for a few hours to keep the shop's Saturday hours and Jo going out for a few hours in the afternoon to run some errands. She'd let Tommy curl up with her laptop and watch movies all day after discovering that Abe had Wi-Fi running in the apartment despite Henry's protests to the contrary.

Now it was time to consider plans for dinner, and Henry had insisted on the three of them cooking. "I'm certain that between the three of us we can manage to produce something edible. What sounds good? Chicken cacciatore, beef stroganoff, braised lamb shanks? I can telephone the grocer and have him send over any ingredients we don't have in stock."

"Why don't we keep it simple?" Jo suggested. More times than she could count, she'd listened to Hanson rant about how all his boys wanted to eat was "Chicken nuggets and macaroni and cheese. If we're lucky, they'll sometimes allow a carrot near their plates." He always concluded by demanding to know "What the hell kids ate before chicken nuggets and mac and cheese were invented, anyway? Their boogers?" After Henry's amazing display of father-sense the previous night, she was astounded to learn that he was so oblivious to the strictures of a child's diet. Braised lamb shanks? That didn't even sound good to her.

She started poking around the kitchen to see what supplies Henry kept on hand. Her own fridge held a couple containers of yogurt, a bottle of ketchup, and the container of creamer she used in her coffee. Sometimes there were leftovers from the deli she purchased most of her dinners from. One person who didn't spend a lot of time at home didn't need much. Henry's fridge, on the other hand, was packed. Assuming Henry did have a grocer in town who took phone orders and provided delivery service, she saw no room to put anything. The freezer wasn't just full; its contents were also labeled. He had to have stocked up and organized in preparation for her stay, which struck her as both thoughtful and a little desperate, like he was worried about what she'd think of him on his home turf.

"Do you have pasta? We could do spaghetti and meatballs," Jo asked as her eye fell on a package of ground beef. It wasn't on the Hanson-approved menu, but it seemed common enough to have a chance of pleasing everyone here.

"We keep linguini, angel hair, and fettuccini in stock," Henry answered, without consulting his inventory. "Will any of those suffice?"

"Angel hair will work." To Tommy, Jo explained, "It's like extra thin spaghetti. Does that sound good to you?"

"Yeah, sure," he drawled, sounding like he still needed convincing on that point. He peered slowly around the kitchen. It wasn't meant for three people to move around in at the same time; three people who didn't know each other's cooking routines were likely to end up getting in each others' way more often than not. "Unless it's too much work. I can eat anything." He shrugged, ducking his head. "I'm not really picky about food."

No, he wouldn't be. Living on the street would've taught him to eat anything he could get his hands on. The amount of food surrounding them right now had to torturous for the little boy who had learned the hard way that he couldn't assume he'd ever have enough to eat.

"Come on," Jo said, pulling him fully into the room and pushing him toward the counter. Nothing she did now could erase the time he'd spent hungry, and nothing she said could convince him that he'd never be hungry again. The best she could offer was the assurance that right now none of the food here would be withheld. "There's nothing to be afraid of. Anything you want to eat while you're here is yours. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks...you name it. You can help. Why don't you get out the things we'll need?" She pointed at the cabinet where the pots and pans were, pleased with herself for remembering that one. "There's a big saucepan in that one. We don't have much else we can do without leaving the apartment, so let's make a mess."

Henry winced at the word 'mess,' but fortunately didn't argue. "Cooking is an essential skill. I have never in my life regretted being able to prepare my own food." That was a ringing endorsement, if Jo had ever heard one. "I may even have a secret or two worth passing on."

Jo turned away before Tommy could see her expression. She almost missed his own muttered, "I doubt that."

They got bowls and pans out and started the meat defrosting in the sink, and then Henry got serious. He directed Jo to fill the kettle and set it on the stove to boil, with the declaration that there was no better aid to digestion than a cup of tea.

With that done, and Jo now out of the way, Henry took over the task of locating the ingredients for their meal. "The secret to a good marinara is fresh vegetables," he informed them. "Ideally, we would harvest the vegetables ourselves from our garden. As it's difficult to maintain one of those in the allotted space of a city apartment, we shall have to make do with those the grocery provided." He began pulling vegetables from the drawer and handing them to Jo, who spread them on the table. To Tommy, he said, "It may interest you to know that when Europeans first discovered tomatoes, they assumed the fruit was poisonous."

"I know," Tommy grumbled, catching one of the named items before it rolled off the table. He plunked the tomato back on the table and crossed his arms. "It's because tomato plants are related to nightshade plants. They were being safe because nightshade is very, very poisonous and if you eat the berries, you'll die." By the end, he was bobbing his head back and forth like he was reciting a warning he'd grown tired of hearing.

Henry straightened up, unused to being beaten to his trivia. "That's…correct. Symptoms of Nightshade poisoning include diarrhea, hallucinations, and paralysis. It's an unpleasant way to die."

"I know," Tommy whined.

Henry threw a look at Jo. "Is this what they're teaching in school these days? I wouldn't have thought there's much call to provide instruction about the vagaries of the nightshade family."

Jo winced at the reference to school; Tommy wouldn't have gone much. "I learned about tomatoes from a Fruit Roll-Up Wrapper," she said. "I think it's pretty much common knowledge. The poisoning stuff is news to me, though." But wouldn't be to someone raised on a farm. Jo's eyes narrowed speculatively. Something about this conversation wasn't as straightforward as it appeared. If only she could put her finger on what it was.

"Interestingly, Europeans did not make the same mistake with the bell pepper, which is also a member of the nightshade family. Now garlic—" Henry dove back into the depths of the fridge, opening and closing the drawers with fervor—"Garlic's medicinal properties are, to be blunt, legendary. I know Abe had garlic in here. Where did he put it?"

"We're going to need a cutting board," Jo interrupted. No doubt Henry knew every detail of garlic's medicinal uses, but they'd never get the sauce simmering if they had to listen to them all first. "Henry? Cutting board?"

Henry interrupted his muttering long enough to wave a hand at a cabinet and say "top shelf" before resuming his search.

"I'll get it!" Before Jo could stop him, Tommy jumped up on the counter.

In between one breath and the next, she saw the accident unfold with the inevitability of an instant replay. Tommy's shoe caught on the handle of a lower cabinet and his knee slipped off the granite. He lost his balance and started to tumble backward. While scrabbling for purchase, he grabbed the handle of the kettle.

The water was just beginning to boil. Its rumble had risen up under Henry's chatter and had made a couple false starts at blowing the kettle's whistle. Tommy's grasp pulled the kettle over. His hand came down on the now vacated burner and the hiss of sizzling flesh filled the gap of the silenced water.

He yelled out and hit the floor with a loud thump. The kettle crashed to the floor on top of him, its lid popping off. Hot water splashed over his legs, eliciting another yell of pain.

For a moment, the three were frozen in shock: Henry with his mouth open in a warning he had no time to deliver, Jo with the utensil drawer half open as she started a search for the tools they'd need, and Tommy on the floor with one leg of his jeans soaked, his injured hand held in front of him, and his desperate blue eyes locked on Jo.

Before she could get to him, before she could see anything, he tucked his hand close, then dove past her and raced out of the kitchen. Jo rocked back. She'd seen that expression before: the wide-eyed terror, the silent pleading for the viewer to unsee what she was seeing. Richie had appealed to her exactly the same way when he'd skinned his arm.

"I'm going to attend to him," Henry said. He slipped out after Tommy before she could stop him.

From elsewhere in the apartment, she heard the bathroom door slam shut and a shouted "Go away" from Tommy.

"I am a doctor," Henry answered. He had his professional voice on, the one he used to make everyone bow to his expertise. "Let me take a look. You might need medical attention. Burns are not an injury to be trifled with."

Tommy wasn't having it. "I said go away! I'm fine." His plea sounded distant through the barrier of doors, yet it powered straight to Jo. He was hiding something; that's how people sounded when they were trying to feign innocence and knew they weren't.

"Tommy, open the door this very instant," Henry ordered. "I only want to help. The sooner we get those burns treated, the better." He pounded on the door then rattled the handle.

"What burns?" The door swung open and Jo heard the sudden silence of Henry and Tommy staring each other down. "Do I look like I need your help? I'm going to get changed, if that's all right with you." He stomped away, leaving Henry hemming and hawing in his wake.

Jo's eye landed on the puddle of water spreading out from the toppled kettle. Steam rose in thin lines that left a smear of condensation on the bottom half of the nearby cabinets. She smelled the hot tang of a burner left on with nothing to warm and, lingering underneath, the acrid scent of burned meat.

It couldn't be.

Could it?

Had she really missed such an important detail?

Jo lowered herself onto a kitchen chair, her mind churning frantically through the details of the case, rearranging around this new possibility. If Tommy was Immortal...it would explain a lot. Not everything. Unless it did. As much as she'd learned about those Immortals, she still didn't know enough to be certain, and this wasn't a topic on which she could afford to be less than certain.

Tommy had been hurt. That, she couldn't doubt.

But he'd also been scared, like a child who'd been abused and who'd learned the hard way that mistakes only resulted in greater punishment. Tommy refused to talk about his parents or how he'd come to be on the streets. He's distrustful of everyone, Rhonda had said. It was possible that's all his reaction was about.

She couldn't go around accusing people of being Immortal, or immortal, without incontrovertible proof—no matter if she'd never be able to share that proof with anyone official.

Jo'd learned a lot about successful detective work over the years. At the top of the list was a lesson a lot of new detectives struggled with in their eagerness to make a name for themselves: Use your resources.

"OK," she answered to the empty room. "I'm going to step outside and make a phone call."

She couldn't yet swear to what she suspected, but she knew the people she could ask to help her.