Carter had cashed in a favor to access the machine, hoping to get Lindsay off both his and the Stansfields’ backs. But now, sixty-seven hours later, he had a criminal defense lawyer on his porch. And though he had in fact gotten the DNA results after forty-nine hours, he wasn’t about to share the details.

“Good morning to you, too, Ms. Kelly. Nice keychain, by the way.” He wouldn’t have pegged her for something as childlike as the purple plastic cat head dangling from her car keys. “Very cute.”

“Sorry,” she said, slipping the keys into her purse. “You were sleeping.”

She said it like it was shocking to find someone sleeping at nine on a Saturday morning. “Worked night shift.” Why was he explaining himself to her? “The blood wasn’t your friend’s,” he said.

He could see relief wash over Lindsay’s face as she let out a deep sigh. “But it was blood, though? Was it Stan’s? From that cut that Robin mentioned?”

Carter was so tempted to lie. It would be so easy. It would help settle this woman’s fears and get her off his property. But despite all Carter’s faults, dishonesty wasn’t one of them. His father had always told him that a man lost a little piece of his soul every time he looked another person in the eye and told a bald-faced lie. A man who lies, his father warned, is a man who has no bottom. He never warned Carter, though, that a man who didn’t lie might just screw up his law enforcement career, as Carter had discovered.

“The important thing is,” he said, “it’s not your friend’s.”

“No, the important thing is that Hope is still missing. So is that rug. And now you’re being cagey about that blood. She would have defended herself. She was strong—physically and otherwise. And a survivor. That blood could be from the man who killed her. Or took her. The point is, she’s still gone.” Her voice cracked, and she swallowed before speaking again. “Do you know where that blood came from or not? Was it a man’s or a woman’s? I know the analysis would say.”

“I promised you I’d run the DNA, and I did. You don’t know me, but I am actually good at my job. You can trust me on this: I don’t know what happened to your friend, but that luminol hit’s a dead end.”