He nodded, looking even more exhausted, and I got the sense that this was not the first time he’d seen his wife in this state. He turned to Marshall. “You know something about Geoff?”

The small flare of hope in his voice made me want out of the room. I believed with all my heart that he would recognize Spencer, be able to pinpoint the exact case that had started all this, but I didn’t want to watch as Marshall made him confess. It would be brutal, and I couldn’t bear it. Not knowing what I knew about his son, and with all my protective layers of character peeled off. I should get out of the way and let Marshall, untethered, press the truth out of him. I kept saying too much anyway, just as he’d feared.

I said, “Where do you keep your Band-Aids and Bactine? We need to disinfect those scratches.”

He blinked at me, owlish and confused behind his glasses, then waved me toward a little hallway off the kitchen. “In the laundry room. There’s a first-aid kit in the cabinets above the dryer.”

I hurried away. Behind me I could hear Marshall beginning our cover story. He was saying we had a suspect, but since we felt that my son’s safety depended on not involving the police, we would appreciate discretion. He didn’t say their son’s safety depended on it as well, but it was implied.

Ruthless, I thought, and yet I was so grateful to him. I was a better actor, but here we had no script, no fourth wall, no audience hungry only to be entertained. This was real. I sped up, and his voice faded as the hallway turned.

There were three doors in a horseshoe at the end. Adam Wilkerson hadn’t specified. I opened the one on the right and found a small office. One of the others must be the laundry, but I wanted to give Marshall time. I flipped on the light, revealing deep cranberry paint and walnut furniture that was old and very good. It didn’t go with what I’d seen in the rest of the house. The back wall was lined with shelves of leather-bound law books.

Like Trey, he had an office bar, built in behind the leather sofa. Blanton’s instead of Pappy. I felt a sharp surge of want. My hands were shaking. My whole insides, too. I walked over, reaching for the bottle.

A vertical row of three small photographs ran down the wall between the window and the bar. The center one, a five-by-seven in a pewter frame, caught my eye. My hand froze. The photo had been taken in front of a white house with tall columns. Azaleas framed a long porch with a blue banner festooned with gold Greek letters hanging from the rail.