“Obviously. Only he didn’t know that.” Gavin walked away and left Thomas and Jack standing in the hallway.

“Thomas, are you all right? You’ve looked pale all during the interview. But now you look worse. In fact, you’re sweating quite a lot.”

“I’m fine. They just need to turn some air conditioning on in this goddamn hot building.” Thomas put his hand to his head and wiped his brow. He moved his hand to his chest and looked for a place to sit down. There was a chair a few feet in front of him. He collapsed before he made it.

36

Val couldn’t sit still. Someone had tried to renew her dental license, sending in false documentation to do so. Someone was after her, confirmed, and had been for some time.

She slowly walked into Detective Gavin’s office. He had asked her to meet with him and she wasn’t sure what to make of the invitation.

She’d been avoiding him because lately it was impossible to talk with him about anything without him warning her to stay away from Jack and Thomas. Whatever suspicion or thought she tried to share, his response was the same: “They’re putting fantasies into your head.” To Gavin’s mind, Colin was guilty. End of story. The two criminal investigators were in this only for money and fame. Not justice. “They’ll do anything to spin the story in Colin’s favor,” he said. “If Colin goes free, they endorse their celebrity status. It attracts more high-profile, hence higher-paying, customers. This is their game, Val.”

So this time Gavin caught her off guard when he asked how Thomas was doing.

Val sighed. “There’s no change. Thomas had a heart attack yesterday afternoon, but then slipped into a coma last night. The situation is critical. Jack’s with him now and has pretty much been at his bedside the whole time.”

Val had offered to come to the hospital to keep him company but Jack declined. He’d prefer to be alone, he said, adding, “I’d rather you and Gwen were following up on that lead about the washing machine.”

A washer readily transfers DNA. In this case, all that would have been required was to throw something into the load containing Francine’s DNA—for example, her missing bloody sheet—and it would deposit on everything in the machine. Regular detergent does not destroy DNA—only an oxygen-producing one does. Her DNA ended up on Colin’s pants—the same pants that supposedly came out of Julia’s washer.

“I’m very sorry to hear about Thomas,” Gavin said with genuine sympathy. “Did Julia ever mention a Molly Dolan to you?”

The name meant nothing to Val. She shook her head, no. “Why do you ask?”