But she surprised me. “Naw. I think that was in the back of my mind when I gave you six, but it won’t work. How would I know for sure when it was finished? You’d lie, try to fool me. You’d send me pictures of your husband playing possum with his face all powdered to look pale, maybe even bring an ambulance to your house for show, wheel out a body in a bag. I wouldn’t blame you. Even if I could be sure, so much suspicion would come at you, your husband and Mr. Shaw dying the same way, and you right there both times. You’d end up in prison, and then who would raise your kids?”

Her concern for me sounded sincere. I believed it was sincere, and yet I also believed she would kill my child. Both these truths were alive inside her. Gabrielle crept a little closer. I could see that her lawyer’s brain was still online, working behind her puffy eyes.

“I don’t understand what you want, then,” I said.

“I’ve been spooling this out in different directions all night, seeing how it might work. It’s like that riddle about the river, where you have to get a fox and a goose and a bag of corn acrost without any one of them eating the other. I’ve put the puzzle pieces every which-a-way. And I only see one path. It’s this: You bring your husband to me.”

“Bring you Trey? Trey is in Chicago.” I couldn’t imagine bringing her my husband like he was a dove or a goat, a necessary blood sacrifice. Except I was imagining it, I realized. I would trade anything for Robert, except one of my girls. And at that thought, a third path lit up. One I could walk down. I blurted out, “What about me? I’ll trade you me. Trey loves me. If I died—”

“Aw, now stop.” She clucked her tongue at me. “You’re a true mother. I seen it in you from the start, and I thought you might offer. It’s because of that, me seeing that in you, that I’m making you this deal at all. Because I feel for you. But a man can always get another wife. Especially a rich man. They’d line up three deep to heal his sorrows, pretty as you and younger to boot. The only things your husband can give me to make things fair are his life or his son. The others who wronged my family didn’t get to choose, but I’ll give that choice now, to you. You decide. Which one.”

Marshall jerked his head in a quick nod, but I didn’t need his affirmation. I was already talking.

“Trey,” I said. “I want Robert back.”