“No, I’m fine, thanks. I just had a weird thing happen. I’ll tell you about it after I hear the lab results. You’ve got me curious. I don’t see how I could have mislabeled those samples.” But then again, she had sent the samples overnight to Jocelyn when she had been distracted and irritated with Gabriel. She supposed anything was possible.

“Well, here’s the thing. I found the markers matching your blood sample to the sample you said came from your ancestor. So that made sense. There wasn’t a lot to work with, given the age and size of the sample, but I did a DNA comp to the first hair sample you gave me and there was no match. So whoever that hair belonged to, it wasn’t his blood on that knife. Which again, makes sense since you said it was a woman’s blood on the knife, the victim. But then I compared the two hair samples to each other, since you said the two men are related. Only they’re not related.”

“They’re not related?” But then why the hell had Gabriel said he was a descendent of John Thiroux if he wasn’t? Or did Gabriel just think he was, but he wasn’t?

“No.” Jocelyn gave her a shrug. “They’re better than related. They’re the same guy.”

“What?” That made absolutely no sense whatsoever. “That’s impossible.”

“Nope. There’s no doubt about it. Those two hairs came from the same dude, Sara.”

Sara wished she’d said yes to the wine. She sat back against the couch cushions, mind racing. How could she have wound up with two samples from Gabriel? That was just impossible because she was sure there had only been one hair on her pillow, and the other hair had come from Gabriel’s sample of John Thiroux. Unless the hair Gabriel had given her as John Thiroux’s was really Gabriel’s all along and he had known that. But why the hell would he lie about something like that?

“That’s just so weird . . . I don’t see how they could have gotten mixed up like that. Maybe he’s just a close match to his relative.” Even as she said the words, she knew that wasn’t possible. Jocelyn knew what she was doing and she would be able to tell the difference between mere markers and a match.

“DNA doesn’t lie, honey. For whatever reason, you wound up with two samples of the same guy. And I’m hoping after I’m done telling you the rest of my findings, you’re going to illuminate me as to who all these samples belong to, and what exactly it all means. I thought you were in New Orleans on sabbatical.”