The message did not arrive when it was sent. It arrived when the phone finally had power and a tower.

Which meant that somebody had been standing in that kitchen at 11:06 p.m., taking a photograph.

And Daniel Carter Miller — by his own recorded statement, given at 3:40 a.m. before he stopped talking and asked for his lawyer — had been at a gas station on the highway from 11:20 onward.

“He put himself there,” Reyes said, “to establish that he wasn’t home. He has spent five months insisting he wasn’t home.” She tapped the report. “He is going to have an extremely hard time telling a jury that the person who *was* home, at 11:06, with a camera, was anyone other than the person the defense has spent five months blaming — while also telling them that person is a murderer who then drove the victim to a hospital.”

Then the fabric.

Two pieces. I had seen both on the night. One in Emily’s hand. One in the belongings bag, and I remembered Alan going still when he saw it, and I remembered the deputy’s phrase — *a seam that didn’t match a dress shirt.*