Marshall still wore his nicest suit, a dark gray with a subtle stripe that he’d had on at the party. I’d pressed it out for him and loaned him a fresh shirt and tie. It was an older shirt, too tight for Trey but still a bit too large for rangy Marshall.

Marshall’s plan was to stay as close to the truth as possible without giving away who we were. My legal situation was too precarious, he felt, to allow us to be honest. He would say he was a freelance PI, no association with the firm. If they didn’t look closely at his license, they might even assume we were from Alabama, too. He’d say we’d come to them because he was working a missing-child case that was similar to their own.

He’d introduce me as his partner, but he’d told me to talk as little as possible, as if I had the dual role of a PI and a stone statue, mute and pale. I’d thrown on a simple blue dress that was more suited to an afternoon fund-raiser, but it was the most businesslike thing in my closet.

As we went up the walk, I was already having a hard time keeping both our missing children fictional. I pinched the soft flesh between my thumb and index finger, hard. I was a person who did not know Geoff’s face or his fate. There was no Robert in this story. I was not a mother.

I set my face to something neutral, then reached out and touched the bell.

Almost at once we heard slapping, angry footsteps, and then the door was jerked open. Kelly Wilkerson, wearing yoga pants covered in cat hair and a tight white T-shirt with food and coffee stains spattered across her breasts, sized us up in a hot, raking glance. Her blond hair hung in dirty hanks around her face.

“You came!” she said. “My husband said you wouldn’t.”

I felt myself spin into flux. She was expecting someone. Strangers. I exchanged a glance with Marshall; neither of us knew who we’d just become, but in that glance I knew we were both willing to be whoever she expected, if it got us in the door.

“May we come in?” Marshall asked in a neutral tone. Not overly friendly, but not coolly professional either.