“Sure.” She opened the door wider, and as the gray daylight hit her face, I felt my heart bottom out. On Facebook she’d looked like a grown-up with her sleek hair and perfect makeup, but her soft jawline and the baby-plump skin around her eyes said she was closer to Anna-Claire’s age than my own, barely legal to drink. Before we could step through, suspicion darkened her face, and she said, “Wait. You’re not reporters, are you? My lawyer says you have to tell me if you are, and we’re not talking to the press.”

“We’re not reporters,” Marshall said.

“Okay, then,” she said, pulling us inside a huge, vaulted foyer with a gaudy chandelier. “Adam says hiring a publicist is going to make us look more guilty, but it’s what people do now. Because of Twitter. We’ll be crucified on Twitter if they actually charge us. We have to get our side of the story out, but our stupid lawyer says we aren’t allowed to talk to reporters, not at all, for any reason, and the police keep coming back to question us, and no one’s looking for Geoff. That’s the main thing. They won’t look for Geoff because they think I did something to my own baby. Nobody believes me.”

So I was a publicist. I felt my expression warming as I sank into the role. It helped that I, of all people, knew that the cops had it so very wrong. When I told her, “I believe you,” it rang with truth.

Marshall said, “Is your husband home? We’d like to talk to both of you if we could.”

“He went to the store. He said. To get bread and milk, like if a hurricane was coming.” She snorted and passed a hand over her eyes. She was answering Marshall’s question, but as her hand dropped, her gaze settled on me. Her eyes were bruise-blue and shiny as glass. They didn’t belong in a living being’s face. “That’s some bullshit right there. Is it bad to lie to your publicist? Because I’m pretty sure he’s actually off screwing his wife. Ex-wife. The other wife.” She laughed, an abrupt and ugly sound. “He wouldn’t want that in the press release, huh? But I don’t care. You can put it right in. Say that while the police are circling me like sharks and not looking for my son, my husband is off finding comfort in the big fat bosom of his ex.”