Lily is sitting in a hospital waiting room, waiting to give an interview to a detective. And like the scrum of reporters, she is also waiting anxiously for a doctor’s update on the conditions of Ellis and Geraldine, both shot by Sylvia, the sister of the head of an Italian mob family. When the detective arrives, he tells Lily that he is happy that everything turned out okay. He asks her to tell him the story, from the beginning. Lily says the story is really a series of events that began over a year ago with a picture.

Ellis Reed is in Laurel Township, Pennsylvania, in August 1931. Ellis takes Society pictures, not exactly the “hard-nosed reporting” he wants to do (7). He does like to take photos of natural scenes. So on that day, when Ellis is looking through his camera lens, he sees two boys on a porch next to a sign, “2 children for sale,” and takes their picture.

Ellis knows that since the stock market crash in 1929, many parents take their children to orphanages or send them to relatives hoping they will be fed and clothed. But selling children made the Depression’s dark days even darker.