“When you said we could afford it? Yeah, I kinda figured.”

“No, not that.” He told her about the call from Charlotte, or at least the person pretending to be Charlotte. About Maggie tracking the phone. About the couple who had set him up. He felt foolish. He braced himself to tell her the rest—about his job, about their finances, about him taking the pills.

Before he could do so, Liv said, “Well, I have something to tell you too.”

Evan tilted his head to the side.

His wife went to the bedroom and came out with a thin file folder. She handed it to him.

“Ron Sampson’s wife gave this to me when I was in Nebraska. Her husband told her the file proved Danny was innocent.”

“Why didn’t you—” Evan stopped himself. It didn’t matter.

“I knew we were here because of Danny,” Liv said. “I didn’t know what exactly you and Mags were up to, but I knew. And I’m sorry I didn’t give you the file earlier. We were having such a good time, you guys didn’t seem completely consumed by the case, so I thought it could wait. Sampson’s wife seemed out of her mind, and it looked like just random papers, and I thought there was nothing we could do here anyway, so I—”

“It’s okay,” Evan said softly. He opened the folder, which held three sheets of paper. Examining the first two pages, he said, “It’s blood work. It looks like tests of samples of Charlotte’s blood and Danny’s.” The file assigned numbers to the samples. Charlotte’s 4215, Danny’s 5094.

Evan inspected the third document, realizing it was a page from an evidence log. Why would Sampson have these in his files? Then it hit him. What if Charlotte’s blood work had been switched out with someone else’s? Because the murdered girl wasn’t Charlotte. He caught himself. He was doing it again. And the separate log—a police chain of evidence record—didn’t show anyone having access to Charlotte’s sample. Then Evan realized that it did show someone—Ron Sampson—gaining access to sample 5094, Danny’s blood.

Evan pointed to the log. “It looks like Sampson had access to Danny’s blood sample for some reason. And he must’ve stolen the page in the log, not wanting anyone to know.”

“So what’s it mean?”

Evan shook his head, mad at himself. He’d spent thousands of hours combing through the files, pulling every thread, testing every theory. But he was drawing a blank. A complete and utter blank.

Liv said, “Why’d they test Danny’s blood anyway? His blood wasn’t found at the crime scene. There was no DNA evidence against him.”

“To prove he was the baby’s father. His supposed motive,” Evan said. Then it struck him like a bullet. “Holy shit. Holy shit!”