“We don’t have room to complain,” Steve says quickly. “Not every consultant would have worked with us after two nations said no. We knew she was the best. We were lucky to have her. I didn’t react well to our rejection and I vented to Danielle. She was right to step away from us. That I apparently scared her or upset her, I’m genuinely sorry for.”

Are they telling the truth? Iris wonders. “And you bought a house near her because…?”

“Are you suggesting we bought a house because we wanted to annoy her if she didn’t take us back on?” Carrie says. “Wow, just wow.”

“We wanted to be in the Lakehaven school system, and we didn’t want to wait until prices went up even more,” Steve says. “This happened to be the house we found. You can understand that.”

Slowly Iris nods. Time to play another card. “Is there anything I can do to be of help? About being an adoptive parent? There are groups, resources. And Danielle’s not here to tell you.” She cuts off her words.

“We don’t need parenting tips,” Carrie says. “We lost our kids. Our son, John, and our daughter, Addie. In a car accident in Dallas, when they were fifteen and seventeen.”

Iris feels a tremble rise up her legs. “I’m very sorry. I’m so sorry.” What was she doing here, preying on these people?

“We wanted to give our love to a child. What was left of it,” Carrie says, and Iris thinks, She’s a walking ghost. She’s hoping a child will bring her back to life.

She cannot imagine what these people have gone through. “Yes. I understand.”

“Can you? You still have your teenagers. A boy and a girl. Just like we did.”

Iris knows no words are adequate. And no words will help ease this woman’s pain. “I’m truly sorry for your loss.”

“Thank you. I mean, we’ll have a child soon. And that child will be safe. We won’t lose a child again,” Steve Butler says, and now she can see something in his gaze, pain so dark and unknowable, something she doesn’t want to look at. He wipes at his mouth and then she sees it.

Bruises on his knuckles.

A mottling of purple, above and beneath the bone, like someone has struck a pipe against his hand.

She stares at Steve Butler. Wouldn’t it be a good cover story to be one of the first to find the body, while jogging with a coworker who’s an established presence in the neighborhood? And then have your wife claim to have seen a mysterious man come from the direction of your home to Danielle’s? She wonders whose idea it was for the two of them to run that morning.

She thinks of the bruise on Danielle’s tender throat, the broken windpipe, the bright blood on her mouth.