“I don’t know them either, Marshall.” For the first time since this had begun, she sounded genuinely hopeful. She’d seen what it might mean and was jumping to the exact conclusion he’d feared. “Trey doesn’t recognize them?”

“That’s what he said.” Emphasis on the last word.

She smiled, though, a true wide smile, so beautiful it took his breath. He held his hands up, palms down in a calming gesture. But it was too late.

“It was Spence!” she said. “This is something Spencer caused, behind Trey’s back! Spence was up to his neck in something really awful. Like bribing a judge or who knows what. Could be anything, but if it’s not in the files, then it’s nasty enough that Spencer didn’t leave a paper trail. The mother thinks Trey was in on it. But he wasn’t. He doesn’t know them. If we can prove that Trey didn’t know—”

“That’s a big leap,” Marshall said. “It’s a lot of leaps. Gabrielle could still find—”

“It makes sense, though!”

It did, but her hope in this best possible explanation would close her mind to other possibilities. He could not afford that luxury. The problem was, with Spence gone and Gabrielle’s searches coming up empty, there was only one way to uncover the connection. He’d have to talk to the Wilkersons.

It was the last thing he wanted to do. They would be reeling from their child’s disappearance and the awful pressure of being wrongfully suspected. And for them Geoff was missing. Nothing on the wife’s social media indicated they thought he was dead, but Marshall couldn’t tell them the truth. They would want to know all the details, and he’d be implicating Bree. The whole thing was tricky as hell, but he didn’t see another way. Not in the time they had.

“I have to go to Gadsden,” he told her. “Now.”

“Damn right we do,” she said.

He blinked. “You have to talk to Trey.”

She waved that off. “How far is Gadsden? Two hours? At most? Trey won’t be home until late. I can’t sit here alone all day, waiting for him. I swear to God, I’ll go insane. The girls are with Mom, and I need to be doing something to help Robert. This is it.”

He didn’t know how to tell her no, but he should. “We can’t tell them the truth. We have to be careful and hard on them at the same time. It will be difficult. Not comfortable or kind.”

“I’m coming,” she insisted. “I’ll follow your lead. I know we can’t go in honest. But I’m a good actor. This is something I can do.”