The way he did with all his books, even if this one was personal. “You start with the murder. That’s what grabs reader interest. Then when you’ve shocked them into attention, you go back and scene set.”

“Scene set?”

“Try to set the stage for the murder. What life was like in 1849 New Orleans for a prostitute. Trace the timeline of the principle parties involved. Introduce the characters.”

“I don’t know if my brain works like that. I’m a forensic lab grunt. I stare at gel slides all day.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “And they’re not characters. They’re people. Real human beings who lived and died.”

“I know that.” He struggled with the weight of that pressing down on him every single day. Gabriel pulled the schedule out of the printer and handed it to Sara. He wanted her gone, out of his space, away from his guilt, his raw self-hatred. “That’s why I write the books I do. We both want to solve a murder, don’t we? You want to solve your mother’s murder, and I want to solve Anne Donovan’s. And that takes logic, the kind of logic a lab grunt understands. But you also can’t solve a crime without understanding the people involved and the world in which they lived.”

She took the paper and gave him a slow nod. “True. I can see that. But I want your reassurance that whatever you write, you won’t treat my mother’s death like a juicy soap opera.”

Sorry for her pain, feeling a new rush of guilt for his role in reopening her wounds of grief, Gabriel spoke softly. “I have no intention of doing that, Sara. I want to show how the use of DNA and forensic evidence can solve crime. It can solve Anne’s murder, and it can solve your mother’s murder, if handled correctly, and result in a conviction. But that ultimately it’s the human factor that determines whether a crime will be solved, or if someone will be put behind bars for it. I don’t think the police or the courts did their job, and that’s not fair to you, or your mother.”

Maybe he shouldn’t have stated that so baldly, because she blanched. Glancing around the room at his cluttered file cabinets, stacks of papers, bookcase crammed with reference materials, she said, “I know you could have gone ahead and done this without my involvement. I know you didn’t need my permission. The case is public domain, as much as that disgusts me. So I appreciate you contacting me, but at the same time I have to wonder why you did. It would have been easier for you if you had just proceeded on your own with an independent forensic consultant.”