"No, no, no! Please – please –"

I started awake in the middle of the night. Alex was thrashing around beside me with a nightmare, tears streaking down her cheeks. I narrowly avoided her flailing limbs and gently took her shoulders. "Alex, Alex! You're having a bad dream. It's just me. You're okay. I'm here."

"No, please – please – don't – please – no!" She was still crying and then I noticed the damp spot on the sheets beside her. Oh. She'd wet the bad. That was not good. As far as I knew, she'd never done that before.

"Alex, baby," I said calmly, holding her still. "You're having a bad dream. It's not real. You can wake up now. It's okay."

Her eyes flew open at my words and she immediately scooted away from me, cowering on the edge of the bed. Then she saw the wet spot on the bed and burst into a fresh round of sobbing, snapping out of her nightmare. "I'm sorry!" she wailed. "I didn't – I didn't mean to –"

I hugged her tightly and kissed her tears away. "It's okay, baby. It was just a dream. I understand." I followed her gaze to the damp sheets, then gave her a comforting squeeze. "It's okay, Alex. It happens sometimes. Let's get you into the bath. I'll change the sheets."

She shook her head and buried her face in her hands. "To little kids! Not to me. I haven't done this since I was five. I'm sorry, Liv."

I rubbed comforting circles into her back and repeated, "It's okay. I'll take care of it. I'll go run you a bath."

"No!" She latched onto my arm as more tears fell. "Don't leave me," she begged.

"I'm not going anywhere," I assured her. "You can come with me if you want."

She clung to me as we walked toward the bathroom and I ran her a nice, hot bath. She climbed in without a word and I went to put our sheets in the washing machine and put on our spare set.

It was going to be a long night.

The next day at work, I was peevish and just plain exhausted. I didn't really have the patience to deal with Theodore Masoner, but it was my job to get a confession out of him, and I was going to do it if it killed me.

I plopped myself down in the interrogation room beside Abbie and across from Theodore and his lawyer and said, "So, Ted – is it all right if I call you Ted? – what happened between you and Alex?"

He shrugged. "I never met the woman in my life."

"Well, she picked you out of a line up."

"She probably saw me around the office. I don't know why she would have picked me, though. I definitely didn't rape her."

"Okay." I decided to switch tactics, even though right now all I wanted was to knock his teeth down his throat. "Where were you on the night of May 21, 2010, around ten or eleven?"

He smiled smugly. "I was at a charity benefit to support breast cancer research. At least three hundred people must have noticed me. Call them, please."

I checked with twelve different people, all of whom had seen Theodore Masoner at the benefit. I couldn't explain it, and neither could Abbie. She said she had no choice but to cut him loose.

"Maybe she just got the date wrong." But the words sounded hollow, even to me. I remembered the day well and I knew it had been May 21. Not a day earlier or a day later.

"Liv, I know she's your girlfriend, but there are just too many discrepancies. If it was anyone else, you would at least consider the possibility that she might be lying," said Abbie.

"She's not," I said stubbornly. "Alex wouldn't lie."

She sighed. "Then how would you explain it?"

I couldn't, and that was the problem. "I can't," I admitted. "But I know Alex. She wouldn't lie to me. She was raped, Abbie, I know she was. She was pregnant, for God's sake."

"That doesn't necessarily mean she was raped," said Abbie carefully.

My eyes widened. "She says she was, Abbie! She wasn't cheating, I know she wasn't. Alex wouldn't do that. What other explanation is there?"

"I'm sorry, Liv, but I can't prosecute a case with no evidence."

"You have Alex's word that it happened and that's enough. And you win cases on purely circumstantial evidence all the time."

"But Olivia, we don't even have that. It's not that we only have circumstantial evidence; it's that we don't have any evidence at all. Alex's word isn't enough for a judge, even one that knows and likes her, and you know it. He has an alibi and she gave you the wrong name. There is not a shred of proof to support her story. I'm sorry, Olivia, but I have to cut him loose. If you find any evidence whatsoever, then I promise I will get him indicted and put in prison for the rest of his miserable life. Alex is my friend too, but putting an innocent man in jail doesn't help anyone."

"How do you know he's innocent?"

"How do you know he's guilty?" she fired back.

She had a point. But I couldn't accept it anyway. I turned and stormed out of the precinct, back home to my Alex.

Alex was lying on her side on the bed, crying softly and trembling. She looked up when I entered the room. "Did you – did you arrest him?"

I shook my head. "I'm sorry, baby, but there wasn't enough evidence. We had to let him go." I sat down beside her and pulled her close. "I need to talk to you, Alex."

She lowered her eyes. "Not now, Liv," she whispered. "Please, not now."

Part of me had expected this, but the rejection still hurt, the pain made all the more intense when I remembered how she'd been the week before, when we were away. Relaxed. Carefree. Happy. "I know it's hard, princess, but we have to. I need to know if there's something you're not telling me."

She shook her head stubbornly. "I told you everything. That man raped me."

"But sweetie, he couldn't have. He has an alibi."

"Maybe I got the date wrong."

"No, Alex, you didn't. If it wasn't him, who was it?"

She closed her eyes. "It was him, Liv, I swear."

"But Alex, it wasn't. Look, you've set this ball rolling and we can't take it back, so I need you to start being honest with me. You of all people know we can't put an innocent man in jail. Tell me who it was."

"Liv, you're not listening to me! I already told you," she insisted.

"Alex, you're not listening to me. He has an alibi and I know you did not get the date wrong. I can't help me if you can't tell me the truth." I hesitated, knowing I shouldn't even ask, but I had to. "Were you having an affair?" Seeing the look on her face, I added, "I won't be angry if you were – or are. You just need to tell me and we can stop these proceedings right now. I don't want the fact that you lied to come out in court."

"I didn't lie!" she screamed. "I didn't lie! I didn't, Liv. I would never lie to you about something like that."

"What are you so afraid of? I promise that I'll never leave you unless you want me to and I'll never stop loving you no matter what you say or do. You're my princess and you always will be."

The fight drained from her eyes and she rested her head against me. She burst into a fresh round of sobbing and whimpered, "Please don't hate me, Liv. Please don't. I couldn't tell you. It was Elliot."

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