“Oh, and one more thing—” Scott handed her his phone as he hit the play button on the screen. Scott’s voice rose above the background din of a noisy bar, followed by a low voice Lindsay didn’t recognize. He had recorded his entire conversation with Kevin the bartender. His face broke out into that perfect Scott smile. “Who do you love?”

“SP! For the win.” She jumped out of bed, threw her arms around his neck, and then held his face in her hands, planting an exaggerated kiss on his lips before AirDropping the voice recording from Scott’s phone to hers. “This is perfect. It’s exactly what we need.”

Scott stood motionless as she took a seat at the desk in the corner of the hotel room and opened her laptop. The celebration was over.

“I’m sorry, babe,” she said, opening a new document. “I’ve got to make this perfect for tomorrow.”

“No, I totally get it. Do what you need to do. Pretend I’m not here.”

When she crawled between the sheets two hours later, Scott pulled her into a tight spoon position, wrapping his top arm around her waist.

He’d done it. He had come through for her, just as he promised he always would. And she felt nothing but guilt.

31
Wednesday, June 23, 9:32 a.m.

The Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution requires all searches and seizures to be reasonable. It mentions warrants and probable cause. But it says nothing about the police needing to be tidy about it.

Lindsay had seen more damage in the aftermath of a search warrant’s execution, but it was going to take a few hours to get the cottage back to its previous state. The police had not yet filed a return with the court, which would itemize the evidence they seized, but the bottom two shelves of the bedroom bookcase were empty. She envisioned the motion to suppress she would file, arguing that fifteen years of journals were beyond the scope of the warrant, but then reminded herself that if everything went according to plan, there would be no criminal trial at all.

Police had left behind smudges of gray powder from the dusting technique used to lift latent fingerprints. Hope’s, Lindsay’s, probably the landlady’s. Alex Lopez’s prints would be a worst-case scenario, but she had to be prepared. If he’d followed Hope to the Stansfield house, it was also possible he had broken into the cottage.