“Not him,” Marcus interrupted, his tone dead certain. “That’s not him.”

“What makes you say that? I think I recognize him. I think it is him. It looks like him.”

“No, it doesn’t.” Marcus frowned.

“How is it different?” Christine looked over, her heart in her throat, begging him to say words that would convince her. He had to convince her. She couldn’t be right. She had to be wrong.

“Our guy had like a wider face, here, across his cheekbones.” Marcus drew a line under his eyes, with his fingers. “I remember thinking, pick him. My dad has broad cheekbones like that and I have my dad’s cheekbones, the Nilsson cheekbones. Remember when you first met me, you said something about my cheekbones? I remember thinking, what is it with women and cheekbones?”

“What’s your point?”

“I’m saying, look at the cheekbones of this guy in the video. They’re not as broad as my dad’s. My dad’s a heavy-boned Swede, and I have the same cheekbones. That’s what I liked about our donor, one of the things. There was Swedish in his background, the bio said it. You can check it.” Marcus waved airily at the video. “He’s not our guy.”

“But what about the eyes?” Christine pointed, unconvinced. “They’re big and round, like our donor’s.”

“A lot of people have big, round eyes. I do.”

“But don’t they look like the ones in the donor photo to you?”

“No, not at all.” Marcus tapped her phone screen with his index finger, and the video ended, showing the prisoner shut inside the police cruiser. “Now can we go home?”

“Hold on a second.” Christine tapped her phone, navigated out of Safari, and found her photos, then started swiping backwards through the pictures of her cat, dog, and garden.

“What now? What are you doing?”

“Finding his picture.”

“You have a picture of our donor in your phone?” Marcus peered over his sunglasses in surprise. “Why?”

Christine kept swiping. “I wanted to show Lauren.”

“You could have showed her online. They sent it to us by email.”

“Maybe, but I had it in my phone. I saved it.” Christine felt vaguely busted. “I save pictures of everything, you know that. Everybody does.”

“Okay, whatever.”

“Wait. Look.” Christine swiped back through the photos of the nurses and techs at Families First, girl selfies with everybody hugging or making duck faces, and then she finally reached the picture of their donor as a little boy. She tried to look at it with new eyes, but she couldn’t fight the feeling that he looked like the man in the video.

“Pssh.” Marcus shook his head. “It’s a little blond boy.”

“You don’t think that looks like the guy in the video?”

“No, and I don’t think it’s him.”

Christine swiped to the next picture, which was their donor as an adult, and her heart stopped. She didn’t know if she could say it out loud, but her brain was telling her something. She recognized that face.

“Nope.” Marcus moved away and put the car in gear. “Granted, it looks a little like him, but it’s obviously not him.”

“How is it obvious?”

“I’m telling you, our guy has a wider face than the guy in the video.” Marcus hit the gas, steering the car onto the main road. “The coloring is similar, I’ll give you that, but blond people have basically the same coloring. Blond hair, blue eyes, light skin. My dad always said we glowed in the dark.”

“But what about the way he looks around the eyes, his aspect?”

“What about his aspect?” Marcus drove without glancing over.

“It’s his attitude, the way he looks out at the world.”

“I know what a person’s aspect means. I just don’t see what you see in his aspect. In any event, what difference does aspect make?”

“I feel like the guy in the video has the same aspect as our guy. Alert. Engaged. Intellectually curious.” Christine’s stomach clenched. Trees whizzed by, and cars were coming in the opposite direction. She thought Marcus was driving too fast but didn’t say anything.

“So he looks curiously and intelligently at the world.” Marcus snorted. “It’s not our guy.”

“I feel like it might be.” Christine began to feel sick to her stomach, but she prayed it was only her hormones. Her first two months had been rocky, and she threw up every morning. The only time she felt good was after she had thrown up, which was a sorry state of affairs.

“Worry, worry, worry. You worry too much. Don’t worry.”

“It’s worrisome.”

“Tell you what, honey. When we get home, look at the video on the laptop. You’ll be able to see it better on a bigger screen. If you want, call Lauren.” Marcus looked over, but Christine couldn’t see his eyes behind his wraparound sunglasses. All she saw was a reflection of her own frown, distorted in their dark curve.

“What if she agrees with me?”

“If Lauren agrees with you, then you’re both nuts.”

Chapter Three

Christine followed Marcus inside the house, slid her laptop from her quilted tote, left her purse on the chair, and kicked off her flats. Her nausea had abated slightly, and the cool of the house came as a relief. They kept the central air on during the day since she’d gotten pregnant, and it was worth the money. Marcus went ahead of her into the kitchen, and she padded after him across the hardwood floor, patting their dog Murphy on the head when he came to greet them, wagging his thick comma of a tail. Murphy was a chubby yellow Lab, still hyperactive at six years old, so they’d finally given up waiting for him to mellow. His nature was gentle enough to ignore their cranky orange tabby Marmalade, nicknamed Lady, which they had rescued back in the days when they were practicing for the kids they couldn’t have.

“You want some ice water?” Marcus asked, from the refrigerator. He took out the Brita pitcher with his right hand and with his left, scratched Murphy behind the ears.

“Yes, thanks.” Christine made a beeline for her makeshift home office, a large pantry off the kitchen that had a granite counter, a built-in desk and old-school cubbyholes to sort bills, junk mail, and the endless memos that came home from school, handed out in hardcopy despite the district’s green initiative. She set her laptop on the counter, fired it up, logged on CNN’s website, and navigated to the video again, then hit PLAY. The same voiceover started, but she muted it to concentrate on the visual, watching as the police escort filled the screen, walked forward, then got out of the way, so that she could see the prisoner, his head tilted down.