“We’re working on it,” Greg said. “But right now we’ve got Page’s own statement that he was the last one to see the boy alive, and we’ve got the boy’s mother and sister making a positive ID on the clothing.” He shoved his hands into the pockets of his suit pants, which made his shoulders scrunch up toward his ears, made him appear self-conscious and unsure of his standing with Darren. “We weren’t aiming to make it come out this way. We weren’t, D.”

“Come on,” Darren said. “I know you better than that.”

Greg grew silent for a moment. “Look, about last night—”

Darren stopped him before he had to hear his wife’s name come out of Greg’s mouth. And, anyway, the thought of Lisa gave him an idea.

“Chafee, Humboldt, and Greene.”

“Never heard of them,” Lisa said.

“They’re out of Alexandria, Virginia, no other offices that I could find.”

His wife sighed. He’d caught her in the hallway of the civil courthouse in Houston and nearly everything around her echoed through the phone. The click of high heels, the ding of an arriving elevator, the voices of court staff and attorneys, and the weight of Lisa’s annoyance about this phone call. But some part of Darren couldn’t help noting that she was exactly where she’d said she would be this morning, that maybe her abrupt departure last night hadn’t been a lie.

“What is this about, Darren?”

“It has to do with this case,” he said. “Kind of.”

“I have to be back in court in like ten minutes.”

“I just want to know what kind of business they’re in, the firm’s bread and butter. I had a hard time finding anything concrete online. And away from my Lexis account, I’m kind of stuck trying to understand what they do.”

“So I’m your secretary now?” There was something playful in her tone, a reach toward a repair of whatever had been broken and weird between them last night. “Give me a second,” she said, and he pictured her sitting down on a bench in the hallway. “Actually, let me look into it, and I’ll call you right back.”