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more rows, the file growing heavy in his arm. Tamara Perkins. Maybe you. A gravestone at the rear fence, lost beneath dead leaves. He swept them with his foot, unearthed another cold, carved name. Maybe you. He scrutinized dates and wondered. He closed his eyes, breathed in the familiar scents, and dreamed a little.

He knew, of course, that neither of his parents was in this cemetery or any of the countless others at which he’d stopped over the past twenty years. He couldn’t even be certain that they were dead. Given that splash of blood on his father’s cuff, he assumed that his mother was. And his father could well have been brought down by any variety of perils. But even if one or both of Mike’s parents was in the ground, and even if through some marvel of chance and guesswork he arrived at the correct cemetery, he could stroll straight over the right grave and still not know. So what the hell was he looking for here on these lush swells? The rites that were denied him? After all, he never got the deathbed visit, the box and shovel, the ash-filled urn.

He passed the aftermath of a service, people breaking off in solemn twosomes and quartets. A rubbed-raw exhaustion hung over the gathering, all those universal fears and vulnerabilities laid bare. And Mike at the periphery, traipsing between gravestones like a zombie, trying to convince himself that he came from somewhere, anywhere. Trying to convince himself that as a four-year-old boy he might have been something worth keeping.

Your mother and I, we love you very much. More than anything. Feeling intrusive, he gave the widow a wide berth and a gentle nod. It’s Morning Again in America. Walking up a jagged path of broken stone, he pictured the way Hank’s dress shirt had bagged between his shoulders in the back, slack from his lost bulk. Nothing that happened was your fault. He sensed the phantom bite of the station-wagon seat belt’s buckle beneath his hip, saw the sweat tracking down the flushed back of his father’s neck, felt that void in his four-year-old gut. Where’s Momma? He thought of the high curve of his mother’s cheekbones, his eyes misting, and then he became aware of his arm, sweating under the weight of the file.

It was an absurdity, the file. A collection of random men and women who shared a birth year or a first name or a vague set of descriptors. He’d always kept it at Hank’s. What was he gonna do now? Take it home? Leaf through it with Kat?

A pastor’s voice, cracked and portentous, carried down the hill from a second service: the age-old incantation, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

Something in Hank’s illness had jarred loose a new awareness, a harsh reality Mike couldn’t help but meet head-on. Maybe it was the symbolism of his sole remaining accomplice in the search being stricken with a death sentence, but it hit him with sudden, vicious certainty that failure was inevitable and that it had always been inevitable. He’d been searching for a needle in a stack of needles.

He would never know.

A trash can appeared around the turn, a sign from the accommodating universe, and Mike looked down at the bulging file, trembling in his too-firm grip. He held it over the mouth of the can, closed his eyes. Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust. He let it fall. The twangy rattle echoed off the surrounding stone.

Case closed.

Chapter 9

The baby monitor, with its soothing blue trim and newborn-soft edges, was designed to project calm. Its red lights – five of them, like an equalizer bar on an old-fashioned stereo – were designed for the opposite effect. An emergency flare, harsh red, coded by man and nature for fire, danger, blood.

The first bar flickered on, then came steady, laying a crimson glow across Mike’s face. Bar one meant static, usually. The color, a perfect match for the alarm-clock digits, currently showing 3:15. Annabel slept soundly, her breath a faint whistle.

Now the second bar joined its counterpart, climbing the ladder, adding weight and force to the alert. With a thumb, Mike nudged up the volume until he could faintly discern the rush of white noise. The air-conditioning vent kicking on in Kat’s room? When he’d last checked on her, she’d been as still as a scone beneath the sheets, tucked in with the polar bear, both heads sharing the pillow.

A muted hush of air leaked from the monitor, a dragon exhaling.

Then a voice, faint as a whisper, sandblasted with static: She looks so peaceful when she sleeps.

Mike went board-stiff, frozen, his thoughts spinning, looking for traction. Was he dreaming?

But then, again, fuzzed at the edges: Like an angel.

He bolted upright, hurling back the covers, Annabel yelping beside him. He was running down the hall, feet pounding the floorboards, his wife calling after him. Skidding through Kat’s door, tensed for combat, fighting for night vision, he took in the room in a single scan.

Nothing.

He slapped the light switch.

Kat sleeping as contentedly as he’d left her. Annabel was behind him now, breathing hard. ‘What? What is it?’ She was whispering hoarsely, though you couldn’t wake Kat with a jackhammer when she was out like this.

‘I thought I heard a voice.’

‘That said what?’ She clicked off the rocker switch with the heel of her hand, and the room fell dark. ‘What did it say?’

He pinched his eyes, the afterglow of the ceiling lamp hanging on in the darkness. He could hear the crickets sawing in the creek bed that ran behind the property line. Annabel stroked his back.

‘I thought it said…’ He was shaking now, rage burned out, leaving behind adrenaline and a vague kind of terror. He felt his muscles, each one individually, taut and bull-strong.

‘What, babe?’

‘“She looks so peaceful when she sleeps.”’ Repeating it put a charge into him, made it real again.

‘You’ve had a lot going on lately.’ Annabel rested a hand on his cheek. Her face held empathy and – he feared – pity. Despite his embarrassment, he was compelled to draw back the curtain and check the window. Locked.

Annabel said, ‘What are you…?’

He made a snorkel mask with his hands, peering through the glass at the dark backyard. ‘The window autolocks, so someone could’ve slipped back out and lowered it.’ From the side he could feel the weight of Annabel’s stare. ‘I’m just saying it’s possible. They could have been in here, whispering at me through the monitor.’

‘Mike,’ she said, ‘who’d want to do something like that?’

Chapter 10

When Mike picked Kat up from school the next day, she carried a jar containing a twig and a baby lizard. She climbed into the back, slid the headphones on, and clicked around the TV channels. He watched her in the rearview, figuring you know you’re doing a good job as a parent when they take you for granted.

‘Take those things off and say hello.’

‘Wireless,’ she said. ‘Noise-canceling. I’m just trying to get our money’s worth.’ She held the jar aloft, showing off the lizard. ‘Look! I caught him. And Ms Cooper helped me make a home for him.’

‘I’m not sure he can breathe in there, baby.’

She pulled off her red-frame glasses and folded them carefully in their case. ‘I poked holes in the lid. He’s fine.’

‘He needs more oxygen than that. He’ll die if you keep him.’

She shrugged. ‘I like him, though.’

The trapped lizard bothered Mike more than seemed rational. His irritation grew. Kat was so mature generally that it was easy to forget the ways in which she was age-appropriate. One of the hardest parts of parenting, he’d