Sara could only keep shaking her head. She didn’t trust herself to speak.

One of the last things that Sara and Jeffrey had planned together was adopting a baby. Sara couldn’t have children of her own. It had taken years for her and Jeffrey to be in the same place about adoption, to decide that they were ready to raise a child together.

Then Jeffrey had died, and Sara had come completely undone. The adoption agency returned their application. At the time, Sara barely registered the rejection. She’d been incapable of taking care of herself, let alone a baby.

“Sara?” Faith asked. “Will you please say something?”

Acid filled Sara’s mouth.

It wasn’t fair.

That’s what Sara wanted to say. To scream at the top of her lungs.

It just wasn’t fair.

Lena wasn’t strong. She would bend, not break. She would recover from this tragedy the same easy way she recovered from every other tragedy before.

Even if she lost Jared, Lena would always know what it felt like to have his child growing inside of her. She could always hold her baby’s hand and think of holding Jared’s. She could see her child laugh and learn and grow and play sports and do school projects and graduate from college and Lena would always, always remember her husband. She would see Jared in her grandchildren and great-grandchildren. On her deathbed, she would find peace in the knowledge that they had made something beautiful together. That even in death, they would both go on living.

“Sara,” Faith said. “What’s happening here?”

Sara wiped her eyes, angry that she was back in the same dark place she’d started at this morning. “Why does everything come so damn easy to her?” She struggled to speak. Her throat clenched around every word that wanted to come out of her mouth. “Everything just opens up, and she always walks through unscathed and—” Sara had to stop for breath. “It’s just so easy for her. She always has it so goddamn easy.”

Faith indicated the door. “Come on.”

Sara couldn’t move.

“Let’s go.” Faith took Sara by the arm and led her out of the room. Sara thought they were leaving the house, but Faith stopped at the kitchen table. She held up the envelope she’d opened before.

Sara didn’t take it. “I don’t care about her Pap smear.”

“Look who it’s from.”

Sara scanned the return address. Macon Medical Center.

Driscoll Benedict, OB-GYN. “So?”

Faith opened the envelope, unfolded the doctor’s invoice. She held it up for Sara to see. The treatment date was ten days ago. The amount was zeroed out with the advisory that the hospital would bill Lena separately for her emergency room visit.

Across the bottom, someone had written, “God bless you both. You are in our prayers.”

Sara took the invoice from Faith. Her knees felt weak. She sat down at the table. Even without the note of condolence, she recognized the medical billing code.

Lena had lost the baby.

9.

Will rode his motorcycle down a neglected state highway, his head rotating like a gun turret. While there was the occasional eighteen-wheeler on the back roads, it was the deer he was most worried about. Less than ten minutes ago, Will had seen a buck dart right out in front of him. The creature was magnificent. There was no other word for it. Muscles rippled along his chest and back. His spindly legs were like a ballerina’s. His antlers were branched like a tree. The animal hadn’t even bothered to look Will’s way, which was good because Will would’ve been humiliated if any living creature had seen the look of sheer terror on his face. He did not need a mathematician to calculate the odds of survival when a speeding motorcycle slammed into a speeding deer. The coroner would’ve spent the rest of his days picking pieces of Will out of the buck’s rib cage.

He supposed there were all sorts of wild animals living close to Atlanta, but the possibility seemed remote when you stood amidst the skyscrapers, watching buses and cars and trains zoom by.

One of the most startling things Will had found in Macon was not the wildlife, but the divide between rich and poor. In Atlanta, Will’s modest house was only a few blocks from Sara’s penthouse apartment, which in turn was not far from a methadone clinic.

Macon didn’t really have a literal wrong side of the tracks, but a meandering avenue skirting the city limits seemed to be the point at which the carpet ran out. Old mansions gave way to cottages, which gave onto clapboard houses and derelict trailer parks and, eventually, unpainted shacks. Working cases around the state, Will had seen his share of poverty, but there was something particularly depressing about fresh laundry hanging outside a structure that looked as if it didn’t even have running water.

Will slowed the bike. He squinted up the road, checking for loose deer. Closer proximity revealed a yellow Volkswagen Bug—not the new kind that looked like something George Jetson would drive, but the older model that emitted a sound like a child blowing a raspberry. There were bumper stickers all over the back. The blinkers were flashing in lieu of brake lights. Will downshifted another gear. The Bug swung into the oncoming traffic lane, doing a sharp U-turn toward a row of mailboxes on a strip of dirt. A hand went out, a mailbox was checked, then the Bug swung another heavy U-turn that would’ve provided a nice ramp for Will’s bike if he hadn’t been paying attention.

He shifted the gear down another notch and pulled over opposite the mailboxes. He checked the time on his cell phone. Will had given himself almost an hour to make what was supposed to be a twenty-minute journey. He wasn’t good with directions, and a phone that told you to go left or right was not exactly helpful to the average dyslexic. Also, he felt mired in a quicksand of guilt. Sara wasn’t happy with him being undercover. She sure as hell wouldn’t be happy with the prospect of Will going on a date. Not that he was technically dating Cayla Martin, but the fact that the nurse seemed to think so gave the exercise an air of uncomfortable legitimacy.

After talking with Faith, Will had decided that it was time to confront the Big Whitey of it all. He’d spent nearly an hour looking for Tony Dell. Cayla Martin seemed like a good fallback plan. The nurse was much easier—in more ways than one. Will was eating his lunch in the cafeteria when a furtive hand slid a note under his tray. The move was practiced. No one seemed to notice. Will wanted to believe he rose to the occasion, discreetly tucking the note into his pocket like Aldrich Ames. Though Will was pretty sure the master spy hadn’t read his missives while hiding in a toilet stall.

7 p.m.—Left off exit 12, right on dirt road. Only house with lights on. Don’t be late!!

Cayla had put a smiley face under the exclamation points, which served to heighten Will’s guilt. He left smiley faces for Sara sometimes. He texted them to her. She texted them back. Once, when they were fooling around, she kissed them all over his stomach.

Will let out a long, pained sigh as he got off the bike.

He pulled up the telephone keypad on his iPhone. He dialed in the twelve-digit code to access the secret apps. The screen flashed up quickly, so he had his finger ready to select the number-cloaking program. The app opened. He dialed in a ten-digit number.

The edge of the phone bumped his helmet. Will undid the strap and hooked it on the handlebars. Four unusually long rings passed before Sara answered. In the background, Will heard a piano playing and the soft murmur of conversation.