But for now he couldn’t leave her side. For now he had work to do. Gabrielle had already sent an answer to his first notes.

M, I did a quick search, but nothing came up in our files on either Adam or Kelly Wilkerson. Not as cocounsels, witnesses, plaintiffs, or defendants. No mention in depos either. I’m going to go through every file Trey and Spence worked on together, one by one, starting with the oldest, but you know our search function is amazing. I’m concerned. —G

He emailed back, saying he was disappointed but to stick with the deep search. As he hit send, his phone buzzed. A text had landed. Trey.

I don’t know any of these people.

Now, that was interesting. He’d taken Gabrielle’s faith in the quick search functions with a grain of salt; he still believed that the Wilkersons were in those files. So either Trey was lying or he really, truly did not recognize them. Which meant . . .

He saw the conclusion Bree would want to jump toward, and it worried him. He went back into the great room.

She was folded up on the sofa, staring at her own cell phone like it was made of snakes.

“I’m not going to tell Trey.” She said it loud, defensive, as if she’d been fighting with Marshall about it for a solid ten minutes before he came into the room. “I did text him, okay? I apologized for being out of touch but told him the little flu I had was awful. He knows about Spence, so he’s already headed home. He got a seat on an eight-o’clock flight. I’m not going to call him when I can tell him at home, in person, tonight.”

He didn’t want to join her in the fight she’d started without him, but she had to talk to her husband. “You think face-to-face will make it easier?”

“No,” she said, fierce. “God, not at all. But when I tell him, Marshall, when I ask him ‘What did you do?’ I need to be looking right into his eyes. It’s the only way I’ll know if his answer is the truth. Ever.”

He understood her then. She wasn’t fighting him. She was only fighting for her marriage as well as her child.

He said, “I texted Trey, too. Sent him some pics of Geoff’s parents.”

“You found them?” She was up and coming toward him then, so fast. “Show me!”

“I copied you on the email.” She scrabbled for her phone, then paced away, staring down at their names, their faces. “Trey didn’t recognize the old woman or the Wilkerson family, and Gabrielle can’t find any Wilkersons in the files. Or at least she hasn’t yet.”

He could see her putting it together.