“We’ll be looking for a match to your biological father,” she said when she seemed to realize she’d lost him. “The Y chromosome is passed down from father to son. The Y-STR profile for a father and a son should exactly match, except in rare cases of mutation. So this wouldn’t work for identifying a daughter, because a girl wouldn’t have the Y chromosome. The lab will rely upon a combination of information from autosomal STRs and the Y-STRs to make a determination of father/son. You see?”

Judging by his baffled expression, he didn’t see. He didn’t see at all. But he said, “I think so. Thank you for explaining.”

“No problem.”

“Thanks so much for coming, Lindsey.” Sam walked her to the door. “Let me know the second you have anything.”

“You know I will. Even with a rush it’ll be a few days.” Lindsey glanced at Brant guarding the door and lowered her voice. “I don’t know what you’re up to here, Sam, but you need to be careful. I heard Forrester is seriously considering assault charges.”

“So I’ve been told. And don’t worry. I’m being careful. This isn’t an official MPD case. He asked me for a favor. That’s all it is.”

“You’ve involved me, which involves the department.”

“No one knows that but you and me.”

“Be careful.”

“I hear you.”

“I’ll get back to you as soon as I have anything.”

“Thanks again, Lindsey.”

Sam returned to the sofa and sat next to Josh. “So here’s what I’m thinking. I’m going to reach out to law enforcement in Williamson County as a professional courtesy. I’ll tell them what I know so far and that we’ve taken DNA. I’ll strongly suggest they refrain from contacting the family until we know for sure there’s a match. That way if you’re not a match, we haven’t raised their hopes for no reason.”

“What do I do in the meantime?”

“We’re going to put you in a hotel with police protection until we know what we’re dealing with.”

“Is that really necessary?”

“If I didn’t think it was, I’d never ask you to do it.” Sam chose her words wisely. “If this turns out to be true, you’re sitting on a powder keg because of who raised you. If he was complicit in this, it’ll be the biggest BFD in the history of BFDs. You got me?”

“Yeah.” Arms on knees, he dropped his head and sighed. When he looked up at her, she saw his anguish. “You don’t really think he’d harm me or anything, do you?”