Absolute

19

OWEN

Shame had been a dark cloud of companion over the last few hours. I knew it would continue to darken my time for quite a while longer, still.

Connecting the dots between Miss Sorenson and Mr. Coleman shouldn't have been as hard as it had been. It shouldn't have taken me so long to figure out the connection, but it had, which was why I'd decided to enact my own punishment over it.

None of the boys would understand why I'd need punished, but this was my team and I was supposed to take care of things.

I continued pulling my chin up to the bar, making myself count my progress out loud, even when my lungs protested. When sweat began to gather on my forehead, I decided I'd had enough chin-ups and dropped down, landing in a push-up position.

I did countless pushups, my arms shaking by the time I allowed myself a break and stepped onto the treadmill. I went for two hours, and only stopped to drink some water and make use of the restroom.

I couldn't continue, like I would have liked to. Instead, I needed to get to work.

I took a quick shower, changing into a comfortable pair of slacks and a simple white button up, no neck adornment. I didn't allow myself the luxury of styling my hair before logging onto the computer and into the Academy services.

The first name I tried was Sorenson. Plenty came up, but I tried deeper, searching in Richard Sorenson. I had to hold my tongue when Kota informed me of the father's name, based off some mail he'd encountered. It would be that his name was Dick.

I searched for several hours, only finding a few odds and ends that didn't relate. I switched it up, searching in the Storsen last name with Richard as the first. Even less came up. Jerry Storsen was the next attempt, and I was surprised at the immediate relevant results.

Why would the man have a complete fake name, but still file his house under the true name?

He had several estates, it seemed. He hadn't gotten rid of hardly any of the properties after purchase, and he could afford it because his second, or first if I were being technical, wife was a very wealthy woman.

She didn't work though; she'd inherited most of it from her mother's mother. She'd married wealthy and spread that wealth to what little family there was when she passed. Jerry and Lia Storsen have three children together.

I blinked as I beheld the medical records closer. No, they had four children. One never made it past infancy, her life began and ended in the hospital. It had been a set of twins, the middle child of the Storsen household was one half of a set.

Something about this was wrong.

I searched in Sang's mother's name. Mareena Sorenson had two children as well. And it seemed her younger daughter died in the hospital, same as Lia's child. I printed both certificates of death, noting the hospitals each were in, and moved over to maps.

The hospitals had only been an hour apart.

A bad feeling settled into my gut.

After a little more information, I realized that after the birth of her second child, Mareena spiraled into a dark depression, or so it seemed surfacely. I would need Sean to locate and access her medical records more in depth, but I could see the countless doctor visits and what eventually got turned into therapy sessions.

They abruptly stopped five years after the birth of a second child.

There was something I was missing, I knew. Something that was important to all of this. It was clear that Sang was a ghost, but why would her father take from the family he appeared to favor, and give to the family he was ashamed of?