“Please, let me explain.” Isabel dragged a chair next to Emily’s and sat beside her.
Emily did not respond. She stuck her elbows on the table and buried her face in her hands.
“I did know Evan in DC—I was CIA, too. Although, when I knew him back then his name was David. He was a field operative, but I worked in the office at Langley, monitoring his operations.” Isabel had never told Emily this, not in all the conversations they’d had in the last few months about Evan’s CIA involvement.
Isabel rested a hand gently on Emily’s shoulder, but she shrugged it off again.
“We worked together for a few years and we had become friends.”
“Did you sleep with him?” Emily muttered through her hands.
“No, Emily, we were just friends. I remember the day he told me he had met someone special, unlike any woman he had ever known, he said. Then he told me he may even leave the agency for her, if he could get her to agree to marry him.”
Emily sat up straight and wiped her tears away with her hands. Taking a deep breath, she leaned her head back and ran her fingers through her loose curls. “He was talking about me?” She looked at Isabel with a sideways glance.
“He was.”
“How do I know I can believe you?”
“I may not have always told you the truth, but I’ve always watched out for you, I’ve always been your true friend.”
Emily took another calming breath and relaxed her shoulders. She turned toward Isabel, ready to hear the rest of the story.
“A few weeks later, he came into the office and had a meeting with the head of our department. After the meeting, Evan told me he was leaving the agency, going back into private life. He had asked you to marry him and you said yes. He wanted to start fresh, he said, so he was moving the two of you across the country to begin a new life in a small town.”
“Paradise Valley.”
“Yes. Because of the dangerous nature of Evan’s assignments, my supervisor wanted him to have a lifeline, a safety net, in case anyone came after him. My boss had contacts in the FBI and he got me a job with them and a transfer to the Boise office. That way I could be here for David—I mean Evan—and have contacts in both the CIA and the FBI.”
“I’m sure Evan appreciated having you here.” There was no way she could know for sure, but if Isabel was telling the truth, Emily assumed Evan would have been grateful for her presence.
“How did you know I knew him in DC?”
“I didn’t know for sure.”
“Something must have made you suspect?”
“I found an address book that belonged to Evan. One of the entries in it was Handler comma Izzy. I remembered Evan used to call you Izzy, but no one else did.”
“I see. Where is this address book?”
“It’s safe.”
“Em, if that book were to get into the wrong hands, it could cost agents their lives.”
“I realize that, but forget about the book for now. What about Jethro?”
“What do you mean?”
“You brought him to my house under the auspices of trying to find out who Evan really was—when you knew the whole time exactly who he was.”
“I wanted you to find out about the real Evan, I just didn’t want you to find out about me. Evan’s gone, but I’m still here and I value our friendship. I was afraid I’d lose it if you knew my secrets. A true friend like you doesn’t come along very often, Em, especially for someone in my line of work.”
Emily nodded that she understood.
“Now, where is the address book?”
“I’m not ready to give it up yet, but I will. Give me a few days.” Emily wasn’t finished studying it, there may be more for her to learn from it.
“You never said where you found it.”
“Funny thing. I discovered what that brass key from the safe deposit box was for.”
Emily explained getting the letter from the storage facility and how she had dropped by there that morning. She had suspected the key might fit the padlock on the storage unit after reading the letter and she was right.
“What was in the unit?” Isabel asked.
Emily considered for a moment if she should say or not. Remembering how her husband had scribbled Handler, Izzy in the address book, she wondered if that was enough proof that Evan trusted her. After mulling it over, Emily decided to trust her