He didn’t want to join her in the fight she’d started without him, but she had to talk to her husband. “You think face-to-face will make it easier?”

“No,” she said, fierce. “God, not at all. But when I tell him, Marshall, when I ask him ‘What did you do?’ I need to be looking right into his eyes. It’s the only way I’ll know if his answer is the truth. Ever.”

He understood her then. She wasn’t fighting him. She was only fighting for her marriage as well as her child.

He said, “I texted Trey, too. Sent him some pics of Geoff’s parents.”

“You found them?” She was up and coming toward him then, so fast. “Show me!”

“I copied you on the email.” She scrabbled for her phone, then paced away, staring down at their names, their faces. “Trey didn’t recognize the old woman or the Wilkerson family, and Gabrielle can’t find any Wilkersons in the files. Or at least she hasn’t yet.”

He could see her putting it together.

“I don’t know them either, Marshall.” For the first time since this had begun, she sounded genuinely hopeful. She’d seen what it might mean and was jumping to the exact conclusion he’d feared. “Trey doesn’t recognize them?”

“That’s what he said.” Emphasis on the last word.

She smiled, though, a true wide smile, so beautiful it took his breath. He held his hands up, palms down in a calming gesture. But it was too late.

“It was Spence!” she said. “This is something Spencer caused, behind Trey’s back! Spence was up to his neck in something really awful. Like bribing a judge or who knows what. Could be anything, but if it’s not in the files, then it’s nasty enough that Spencer didn’t leave a paper trail. The mother thinks Trey was in on it. But he wasn’t. He doesn’t know them. If we can prove that Trey didn’t know—”

“That’s a big leap,” Marshall said. “It’s a lot of leaps. Gabrielle could still find—”

“It makes sense, though!”

It did, but her hope in this best possible explanation would close her mind to other possibilities. He could not afford that luxury. The problem was, with Spence gone and Gabrielle’s searches coming up empty, there was only one way to uncover the connection. He’d have to talk to the Wilkersons.

It was the last thing he wanted to do. They would be reeling from their child’s disappearance and the awful pressure of being wrongfully suspected. And for them Geoff was missing. Nothing on the wife’s social media indicated they thought he was dead, but Marshall couldn’t tell them the truth. They would want to know all the details, and he’d be implicating Bree. The whole thing was tricky as hell, but he didn’t see another way. Not in the time they had.

“I have to go to Gadsden,” he told her. “Now.”

“Damn right we do,” she said.

He blinked. “You have to talk to Trey.”

She waved that off. “How far is Gadsden? Two hours? At most? Trey won’t be home until late. I can’t sit here alone all day, waiting for him. I swear to God, I’ll go insane. The girls are with Mom, and I need to be doing something to help Robert. This is it.”

He didn’t know how to tell her no, but he should. “We can’t tell them the truth. We have to be careful and hard on them at the same time. It will be difficult. Not comfortable or kind.”

“I’m coming,” she insisted. “I’ll follow your lead. I know we can’t go in honest. But I’m a good actor. This is something I can do.”

Maybe she could. This was the woman who, with her baby freshly missing, had put on a fancy dress and lipstick and lied and lied and lied. Every word and glance and smile at the gala had been a separate deception. She’d fooled him for quite a while, and he had a damn good track record for spotting liars.

“Okay,” he said.

“We’re going to get Robert back,” she said. She came to him then, eyes blazing with hope and so much boldness. She took him by the arms, and in the set lines of her face there was nothing of her anxious, rules-bound mother. This courage was a thing Betsy had fostered in her. It was like seeing a small piece of his wife, alive in her.

Betsy lived on inside him, too. She had formed him. She was the one who’d told him every day, with only her easy, unblinking faith, that he was nothing like his father. That he was the kind of man a person could count on.

“Yes,” he said, against his better judgment. “We’ll get him back.”

Part II

Sons

12

By the time we got to Gadsden, I had half a hundred texts from Anna-Claire, asking to come by the house. The very idea was a horror to me, and not only because she’d find it empty and realize something so much worse than stomach flu was happening. The place felt gutted, pitted, its newly hollow center filled with danger. I told her in no uncertain terms to stay away, as if I believed that she could catch something, as if terror were contagious. Even if I had been at home to smile and lie to her, I did not want her breathing the air.

She pushed me, relentless. She had a global-studies report due Monday. She needed her laptop, and her copy of I Am Malala, and the soft blue hoodie that helped her think. I told her no again, that this bug was very contagious. She insisted with the invincible certainty of a thirteen-year-old that she would not get sick.

Grandma and Peyton can wait in the car. I’ll bring Lysol and spray it in a cloud all around myself as I runrunrun up to my room. Mom. MOM. It will take one second!

“Dear God, this child,” I said to Marshall. Texting with her about these small, real troubles made me feel disoriented, almost dizzy. I remembered that I used to be a woman who cared deeply about her daughter’s book reports. I could not get there from here. I had no patience for her concerns, so far away and foolish.

Then she got my mother to text me, too. Honey? A-C is really worried. I have a surgical mask she can wear to run in. She needs her Malala. . . .

I told Mom to take them to Little Shop of Stories and buy another copy and any book that Peyton wanted. My treat. As for the laptop, Anna-Claire could go to Google Docs and work from Mom’s old Dell.

But the HOODIE!!!!! my daughter texted.

Okay, I finally texted back. Come get it. But bring your phone to hand me when you arrive because the second you set foot in this house, you’re grounded. Two weeks.