“The police sent me home, but not even for my parents could I magically become a real boy. It distressed them. So on the morning of my eighteenth birthday, when I came into the stock Rita had left for me, I took off. Being Joshua Ferris didn’t feel right. So I took another name. Then another, and another. I became something of an expert on inventing new identities. It soothed me.”

Sandra rubbed the back of his hand. “Joshua—”

“Jason, please. If I had wanted to be Joshua, I would’ve stayed in Georgia. I moved here, we both moved here, for a reason.”

“But that’s what I don’t understand,” she blurted out. “By your own words, you and I have so much in common. So why didn’t you tell me these things before? Especially once you knew about my mother. Surely you could’ve shared then.”

He hesitated. “Because I don’t just retrieve pornographic photos off the web. I, uh … Well, let’s just say I tried therapy, but it didn’t work for me. Then, one night, I got onto my parents’ computer and I started visiting the chat rooms. I … made the rounds, found the kind of guys who liked to prey on a kid like me. And I developed a system: I entice them to hand over their credit card numbers and other personal information in return for my old pornographic photos. Then I nail them to the wall. I liquidate their accounts, max out their credit cards, open home equity lines of credit in their names, transferring all of their assets to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. I wrap them up and drain them. Like a spider. I have become, I suppose, just as good a predator as the one who once trapped me.

“It’s all highly illegal,” he finished. “And it’s the only thing that keeps me sane.”

“That’s what you’re doing at night? Why you spend all your time on the Internet?”

Jason shrugged. “I don’t sleep well. Probably never will. Might as well do something useful with the time.”

“What about your family?”

“My family wanted Joshua, and Joshua doesn’t exist anymore. On the other hand, Jason Jones has a beautiful wife and a gorgeous little girl. He couldn’t ask for a better family.”

“I don’t understand,” she said. “Why did you marry me? If you just wanted a child, surely there are easier ways than saddling yourself with a wife—”