It doesn’t last long. We’re both wired now with accomplishing our goal. Off my list. Off his back, I think.

Thankfully, he doesn’t say much when we have sex. No “baby” this, “I’m giving it, take it, I’m coming” that.

When it’s over, Connor slides off me and puts a pillow under my thighs to keep the dream alive.

I’m quiet.

“You all right?”

I don’t answer right away, and when I finally do, I ramble. “I’m not sure. I think so. I hope so. My mind’s just elsewhere.”

We’ve stopped making predictions on whether or not this level of effort will result in a baby. One time I felt a peculiar tingling in my pelvis, and I was sure that conception was happening at that very moment. But no. Nothing. I loathe the idea of coming up empty handed, that the trying has become tiresome. We’ve both been checked by a fertility doctor. I’m not perfect, but there is no reason why I can’t get pregnant.

Connor’s sperm could make it across the English Channel.

He’s younger. He’s got a felony. He’s a waiter. And he’s as fertile as a rabbit. I’m everything my husband isn’t. I love him, but I also feel a biting envy. In the balance of power, he wins when he shouldn’t.

“I’ll get cleaned up and dressed while you gestate awhile,” he says with a grin, getting out of bed, fetching some clothes, and disappearing down the hall.

I lay there, legs held slightly upward, scrolling through the cracked screen of my iPhone. I check messages but don’t answer any. I’m here on vacation. I want to live distraction-free and keep my singular focus. I’ve made a list, and I need to get everything done.

I hear my husband turn on the TV. He’s settling in while I, as he says, gestate. I turn to examine the blood smears on the pillow next to me. It appears more than just the residual of a reopened kitchen injury.

In fact, I know damn well it is.

A little later, the detectives and the missing woman come to mind. How could it not? It’s all over the news—traditional and social media.

“We need to go make a statement,” I say.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

LEE

“Abduction in broad daylight.” Montrose drives us back to the sheriff’s office in Shelton, the late afternoon sun turning the highway into hard edges of shadow and light. My partner can take a common statement and turn it into the bull’s-eye on a dartboard.

“Happens,” I say.

Montrose always makes a point of being in the driver’s seat. I let him—not because he’s a man but because holding the steering wheel steadies the tremors in his hands. Parkinson’s, I think, but I’m not a doctor. Our eyes met one time when he was trying to pull money from his wallet and struggled a little. We never said a word about it, though I could see the mix of desperation and humiliation in his eyes. And the plea: Don’t say anything. Don’t tell anyone.