Every Last Fear(92)

Alone with Liv, Evan said, “You sure everything’s okay?”

Liv nodded. “We can talk about it more later, but she’s okay, I promise.”

Evan wondered if Maggie had told her about the reason for the trip. Their futile investigation. The couple who’d tricked Evan into coming to Tulum. That would explain the mood.

He needed to swallow his medicine and tell Liv himself. He needed to be honest with his wife, otherwise the magic of this trip wouldn’t be real.

“I have something to tell you,” he said.

Liv sat next to him at the dining table.

He took a long gulp of water, stalling, thinking how he’d explain. “I haven’t been totally honest with you about the trip.”

“When you said we could afford it? Yeah, I kinda figured.”

“No, not that.” He told her about the call from Charlotte, or at least the person pretending to be Charlotte. About Maggie tracking the phone. About the couple who had set him up. He felt foolish. He braced himself to tell her the rest—about his job, about their finances, about him taking the pills.

Before he could do so, Liv said, “Well, I have something to tell you too.”

Evan tilted his head to the side.

His wife went to the bedroom and came out with a thin file folder. She handed it to him.

“Ron Sampson’s wife gave this to me when I was in Nebraska. Her husband told her the file proved Danny was innocent.”

“Why didn’t you—” Evan stopped himself. It didn’t matter.

“I knew we were here because of Danny,” Liv said. “I didn’t know what exactly you and Mags were up to, but I knew. And I’m sorry I didn’t give you the file earlier. We were having such a good time, you guys didn’t seem completely consumed by the case, so I thought it could wait. Sampson’s wife seemed out of her mind, and it looked like just random papers, and I thought there was nothing we could do here anyway, so I—”

“It’s okay,” Evan said softly. He opened the folder, which held three sheets of paper. Examining the first two pages, he said, “It’s blood work. It looks like tests of samples of Charlotte’s blood and Danny’s.” The file assigned numbers to the samples. Charlotte’s 4215, Danny’s 5094.

Evan inspected the third document, realizing it was a page from an evidence log. Why would Sampson have these in his files? Then it hit him. What if Charlotte’s blood work had been switched out with someone else’s? Because the murdered girl wasn’t Charlotte. He caught himself. He was doing it again. And the separate log—a police chain of evidence record—didn’t show anyone having access to Charlotte’s sample. Then Evan realized that it did show someone—Ron Sampson—gaining access to sample 5094, Danny’s blood.

Evan pointed to the log. “It looks like Sampson had access to Danny’s blood sample for some reason. And he must’ve stolen the page in the log, not wanting anyone to know.”

“So what’s it mean?”

Evan shook his head, mad at himself. He’d spent thousands of hours combing through the files, pulling every thread, testing every theory. But he was drawing a blank. A complete and utter blank.

Liv said, “Why’d they test Danny’s blood anyway? His blood wasn’t found at the crime scene. There was no DNA evidence against him.”

“To prove he was the baby’s father. His supposed motive,” Evan said. Then it struck him like a bullet. “Holy shit. Holy shit!”

“What?” Liv said, not containing the excitement in her voice.

“Danny wasn’t O negative blood type.” He pointed a finger to sample 5094 on the report.

“You know Danny’s blood type?”

“No,” Evan said. “But I know he couldn’t be O negative. Because I’m type AB.”

Liv shook her head. She didn’t understand.

“A parent with Type AB blood can’t give birth to an O negative child.”

“How do you know that? What—”

“Tommy’s appendix,” Evan said. His son’s emergency surgery.

She was staring at him, confused.

“Tommy needed blood.”

“Right, they got it from the blood bank when we were freaking out.”

The terrible memory came back to him, that day in the ER. Evan rushing in late, the doctor explaining that Tommy’s blood type was rare—type O negative—and he’d ordered some blood, but it would be faster if Evan could be the donor. Liv couldn’t because she was type A positive.

“They asked me to give my blood,” Evan said. “Tommy is O negative.” He pointed at Danny’s blood sample, which had the same blood type as Tommy.

Liv turned white.

“The doctor pulled me aside, said he didn’t know how to tell me this, but I couldn’t be a donor. A type AB cannot give blood or even be the parent of a type O negative.”

Liv’s eyes were wet. “You knew? All this time, and you knew?”

He nodded.

“But why?”

“Because he’s still my son,” Evan said. He’d long considered telling her that he knew Tommy wasn’t his biological son, but he could never bring himself to do so.

Tears spilled from her eyes. “I’m sorry, I’m so, so—”