“Right, good, but let me read the story.” Christine tried to focus in the jostling car. “‘… was arrested today for the murder of Gail Robinbrecht, a thirty-one-year-old nurse from West Chester, PA. The murder is the third of three murders of nurses in Newport News, Virginia, and Bethesda, Maryland. Nurse Lynn McLeane, a pediatric nurse, was stabbed to death on January 12, and Susan Allen-Bogen, an operating-room nurse, was also stabbed to death using the same MO, on April 13—’”

Marcus clucked. “The guy kills nurses? What’s the matter with people? Nurses are great.”

“Right, but it’s weird that Donor 3319 was a medical student and the victims were nurses.”

“The guy they arrested isn’t a medical student.”

“Right, I know.” Christine was confusing herself. Her face still burned, despite the air-conditioning. She returned her attention to the iPhone screen. “It says, ‘The murders gained national attention as the Nurse Murders.’”

“Does it say the killer is a medical student?”

“No, it doesn’t.” Christine skimmed the last two lines of the story. “‘The police commissioner is gratified that the suspect is in custody and thanks federal and state law enforcement for their hard work.’ Hmmm. It doesn’t say any more about him, like where he went to school. Even his age.”

“There. It’s not him. If he was a medical student, it would say so. That’s a relevant detail.”

“True,” Christine said, but her heart was still racing. She scrolled down to the end of the story and tapped a camera icon for the video. A freeze-frame showing the group of police officers came onto the screen, and she hit PLAY. The video showed the police walking and behind them, a thatch of blond hair bobbing up and down. She couldn’t see the prisoner’s face because the police blocked the view, and sunlight coming through the car window made it hard to see her screen. She hit PAUSE. “Can we pull over so I can see this?”

“Do we have to? We’ll be home in twenty minutes.” Marcus kept driving, his expression opaque behind the sport sunglasses.

“I don’t want to wait. Just pull over, it’ll take a minute. We can watch it together.”

“Fine.” Marcus peeled off the road onto a gravel service road that traveled uphill into the woods, ending in a tall mound of discarded logs and tree limbs, then he put the car in PARK and shifted over toward her in the seat. “Let me see what you’re talking about.”

“Thanks.” Christine hit PLAY, and they both watched the video, which showed the police walking below the frame and then in the next instant, the tall blond prisoner walking with them, his hands behind his back.

“It doesn’t look like him. Our guy’s taller.”

Christine pressed STOP. “You can’t tell how tall he is from this.”

“Yes, you can. Look at him in relation to the cops.”

“But you don’t know how tall the cops are.”

“The cops look like they’re just under six feet, which makes sense. They’re not staties. Staties tend to be taller. Besides, you know I have eagle eyes.”

Christine knew that was true. A lifetime of playing golf had made Marcus almost preternaturally skilled at guessing distances, and he had an engineer’s sense of spatial relationships, which she lacked completely.

“Besides, he looks older than our donor. Our guy should be about twenty-five, I think. That guy looks over thirty.”

“I can’t tell how old the guy is from this picture. Anyway, a twenty-five-year-old doesn’t look a lot different from a thirty-year-old.” Christine squinted at the video image, which was still hard to see in the car.

“Yes they do. Our guy is young. A kid, a med student. This prisoner is not young.”

“But we don’t know when our donor entered med school. We only know that he was accepted.” Christine gestured at the video. “Think about it. He’s tired, not old. He’s been on the run from the police.”

“It doesn’t say that.”

“I’m assuming.” Christine hit PLAY, and the video continued, the cops coming forward and the prisoner coming into view, from the waist up. He had on a rumpled navy Windbreaker and a white T-shirt underneath, but she couldn’t see his face because his head was tilted down. His blond hair caught the sunlight at the crown, showing its darker caramel tones. Christine pressed PAUSE. “That looks like our donor’s hair color, doesn’t it?”

“I don’t know, I don’t remember.”

“I do.” Christine scrutinized the man’s hair, thinking that she remembered his hair color, only because she always spent time noticing variations of blonde, so she could tell her colorist what she wanted. She’d been highlighting her hair for a long time, but she was always looking in magazines to get new color ideas, so she had the blond vocabulary. “His hair color was tawny. Not ashy like you, but a warm golden, like caramel, not cool Scandinavian—”

Marcus rolled his eyes. “Are you trying to make yourself crazy?”

“Let’s keep watching.” Christine hit PLAY and watched the video as a fine spray of the prisoner’s bangs blew off his face. She remembered that she had noted the fineness of their donor’s hair in the photo of him. She remembered she had even talked about it with Lauren.

Best. Hair. Ever, Lauren had said, eyeing the photo in Christine’s phone. Do they charge extra?

It said in the profile that his hair is fine.

Oh, it’s fine, all right. He’s fine, too. Meow mix.

Please don’t lust after my donor.

Christine pressed the memory from her mind, and she and Marcus watched in silence as the video played. In the next few frames, the prisoner was led to the police cruiser and put in the backseat. Marcus stiffened beside her, which told her that he wasn’t completely dismissing her worries, and she held her breath, waiting for the telltale shot of the prisoner looking up, just before he was closed inside the squad car.

“Here!” Christine blurted out, experiencing the same flash of recognition that she had in the teachers’ lounge. She hit PAUSE, freezing the prisoner, who was looking up. His eyes were round and blue. He had that same look about him, an aspect that regarded the world with curiosity and intelligence. She had thought the same thing when she first saw his photo online. She was a visual learner, she knew that about herself. This image, it was fixed in her brain. “I swear, that’s—”