I nodded. It was hard to keep my gaze on his face. I wanted to keep looking at his shoulders, his arms, these weapons being sent into the world on my behalf. “I’ll tell you anything he says that could help. He’ll be home soon. I need to go in.” I did, but I had to ask him, one more time, “Can you really find her?”

He glanced over, and I could see his conflict written on his face. He wanted to reassure me, but he didn’t want to lie. “Yeah, I can find her. Gabrielle will be looking, too, online.” God, I loved his certainty. But then he added, “The trick is getting it done before tomorrow morning. And we’re assuming that Lexie Pine’s mother intends to keep her deal with you and show up at Funtime.”

“She will.” Now I was the one who sounded certain. The mother and I had connected; I’d felt truth in her proposal. She would trade Robert for Trey. I also believed she’d trade Robert for her own child, though Lexie was a middle-aged woman now, and an angry and damaged addict. She would trade because Lexie was still her baby. Any mother would.

“Okay, then. Good luck.” He meant with Trey.

“Good luck,” I echoed. Sweet God, this thread we were following to get to Robert felt as fine as gossamer. If any of us went wrong, in any tiny thing, for even a moment, it would break. We would lose. We’d lose my son. I couldn’t think like that, though. I had to keep pushing forward.

I unbuckled my seat belt, but I was still loath to leave him. Marshall loved the law, but he was in this with me, law be damned. I was swamped in gratefulness. On impulse I leaned across and grabbed him in an awkward, sideways hug. He stiffened, surprised, but then he hugged me back.

He felt as sure and solid as an edifice. I didn’t want to let go. But we had separate work to do now. I got out and hurried up the walk, inside. I didn’t want to watch him drive away.

Exactly seven more minutes passed. I watched them happen, one by one. The little winding clock hung by the mantel had never ticked so loud or so slowly, and then I heard the garage door rising. Trey was home.

I wasn’t sure what I would do when I saw him. I owed him a story. He owed me one, too, much older.

I was afraid of who he would find when he came through the door. Some version of Betsy, furious and bold enough to say so? A stranger, locked down and cold? But I heard his dear, familiar voice call out my name, and I remembered who I was. I remembered how well I knew him; I loved my husband. I was the outermost ring around our family bull’s-eye, and I would be gentle and only myself as he walked blindly in to find his son gone and the hardest conversation of our marriage locked and loaded, waiting for him. Even before my mind could make this feeling into words, I was up and running for the side door, and then I was in his arms. The smell of him was safety, it was comfort.

“Hi, sweetheart,” he said, smiling down at me, though his eyes looked sad and very tired. I could see how deeply Spencer’s death had shaken him. Well, Spence had been family. Problematic family, and not much liked at times, but loved and soaked in history. He was already grieving, and I was here to grieve him more.

“Trey,” I said, and my grave tone was enough to make his smile falter. “It’s worse than you think. Spence was only the start. I have a lot to tell you.”

I felt how still he became, his whole body pausing, even his breath. He didn’t panic or clot the air up with a thousand questions, though. Trey, in a crisis, got quiet and decisive. He said, “Okay. Tell me.”

I led him to the great-room couch and sat him down, and I started at the beginning. It was easier than I’d thought. I’d had practice, telling this story to Marshall and Gabrielle. He didn’t interrupt me until I got to the part where Robert went missing, and then he started asking, “What? What?” Once he was past the shock, he got even quieter, reaching to grip my hands. His were shaking. I told him about my long conversation with the mother. The party, the pills. He was thinking, hard, but I saw no realizations or dawning understanding cross his face. Perhaps he was stuck on the idea of a lawsuit, just as we’d been.

In the light of Robert’s disappearance, Spence’s death became smaller than it would have at any other time. When I got to the Wilkersons, our trip to Gadsden, he spoke again.

“Adam Wilkerson. I’ve heard that name?” He looked down, thinking. And then he had it. “Marshall asked me about him. Earlier today. But I don’t know him, Bree.” There were no tells, no twitches. His gaze on mine was anguished and sincere.

“You do,” I said. “But it was a long time ago.” I’d kept the small framed photo I’d ripped off Adam’s wall. I pulled it out of my purse and showed it to him. He stared down, uncomprehending. Then he blinked and raised his eyes to mine.

“That’s senior year, I think?” he said. “I’m with Spence and Justin Weller, the president. But . . .”

I pointed at Adam Wilkerson. He looked, and then his eyebrows came together, and he shrugged. “That’s Ansel.” As soon as he said the name out loud, his furrowed brow cleared. “Ansel Adams. We called him Ansel because his name was Adam and because he was a pretentious little shit with an old Nikon. Like a shutter stop kind of thing. He was always taking pictures. Even turned his dorm into a darkroom. He only got a bid because he was a legacy.”

Then understanding hit him, and his eyes met mine, horrified. He’d made the connection between Ansel/Adam and his own past and what was happening now. He knew. I could see it. He understood the trade the mother had offered me, exactly as Adam had when he saw the pictures of Spence and Trey. I could feel my largest question hanging in the silence between us.

What did you do?

Its words and shapes kept forming in my mouth, and they tasted so accusing. I clamped my lips shut tight against them. I would not ask him in that tone. I didn’t have to ask at all. He would tell me. I knew he would, because I knew him. And how many blaming questions was he holding back? Before he told me how he and Spence and Adam were connected, I wanted him to know I was carrying my share.

I said, “I looked away. I was watching the rehearsal. I should have—”

He cut me off, near instantly. “This is not your fault. No person sits inside a fortress staring at their kids. You were at the school. Where you felt safe. Where you and the kids damn well should have been safe.” He was defending me in the brooks-no-bullshit lawyer’s voice I usually heard only when he was practicing a closing argument. A tiny piece of me, very tiny, wondered if this was a performance, too, covering how much he blamed me at his core. Then his professional voice cracked, and a raw and naked pain leaked through. “You didn’t do a damn thing wrong, Bree. Even with Spence, you didn’t do wrong, and I don’t care what the law says. His death is on the woman who took our child and lied to you and tricked you. Any mother would do what you did.”