She had other files still in her locker. Take-home work. She picked through them and she found what she could use. Fingerprints from another case. A kid that had been setting fires. Paperwork from another case. All gathered up into an otherwise nondescript file folder.

With her phone, fingers clicking on the number keys, she flicked through to find more pictures she’d taken while visiting the family home. She found one she’d taken of Jen. A family photo, thirteen-year-old Owen smiling as best as he could with his facial deformation, dressed smart in a nice shirt and sweater. Owen’s mother and father. And Jen, standing with a measurable distance between herself and Owen.

She couldn’t do it anymore. She couldn’t stand in that room, apply that slow and steady pressure, wait for the interview with Mrs. Bowers to finish, have the pow-wow, work out the plan of attack, and then turn her full focus onto Jen Bowers. Not when Jen would get defensive, insist on her lawyer in a way they had to oblige, and tie up the process. She knew how it would go, what the lawyer would say. What the boss would say.

Her own jaw would break from clenching her teeth before Jen broke. She had to do something.

She had to plug her phone into the printer to send the picture. Grainy and low-res, but that didn’t matter.

Three swipes of the box-cutter knife separated Jen’s black and white image from the rest. It went into the file, tucked beneath someone else’s fingerprints.

She was on her way back when the chief stopped her, one hand at her shoulder. She showed him what she had, and she watched as the older, better detective picked through her ‘evidence’. A pen-tip ran along the case number printed with the fingerprints. The pen turned around and the butt-end was used to lift up pages, then to prod the evidence bag with the pills.

He looked at her, quizzical. She shrugged.

He moved on. He knew it was all charade. His role had changed now, as he assessed whether any of it was poorly done or oddly specific enough to give away that charade.

He seemed amused as he gave her the silent go-ahead.

Three more steps took her into the room where Doug was commenting aloud on the stepmother’s mannerisms. Jen had twisted around in an uncomfortable way to look.

“She keeps adjusting her wedding ring. I read that as a sign of infidelity. Is it a sign of infidelity, Jen?”

“No comment,” Jen said, staring through the one-way mirror. Still trying not to engage.

Jen looked, too, as Nic put the file down, then the bottle, and then the forged notes in Owen’s handwriting.

The file and papers weren’t on the table for two seconds before they were picked up by Doug.