“Emily, please, let me handle this.” Colin turned back to Delia. “You can choose to remain silent, but you need to know that we already have the ballistics matching this gun to the bullet that killed Evan. Hard evidence doesn’t lie.”
Delia sat silently staring at Colin.
“If you want to go to trial, make no mistake, the DA will also charge your father with aiding and abetting. With the proof we have, your father’s last weeks or months will be miserably spent in jail awaiting trial and you’ll be given the death penalty for sure.”
Delia dabbed at her eyes again and shook her head slowly. Her lips moved, but no words came out.
“I’ve already spoken to the District Attorney’s office about this,” Colin went on. He pushed off from the table and went back to his seat. “If you decide to plead guilty to second-degree murder, they’ll consider taking the death penalty off the table and not charging your father. He can live out his last days in peace.”
Delia looked directly at Colin for an extended moment, her face as set as stone, likely processing what he just offered to her. She glanced at Emily, then back to Colin, pulling in a deep breath.
“Yes, I did it.” Her normally strong and commanding voice was shaky. “I killed Evan Parker.”
Instantly, Colin was on his feet, stepping behind the suspect’s chair. “Delia McCall, you are under arrest for the murder of Evan Parker, also known as David Gerard. Please stand up and put your hands behind your back.”
She rose slowly, her head down, and Colin clamped the handcuffs on her delicate wrists.
“Why, Delia? Why?” Emily demanded, shooting out of her chair, which flew back from the force. Her eyes welled with tears as she stared across the table, thinking of Evan, his life—their life together—cut short by this woman.
“He deserved it for killing my little sister! Everyone keeps saying she was caught in the crossfire, but Dad found out from a CIA buddy that it was really Evan’s gun that shot her.”
Emily’s eyes widened. “Evan killed Natalia?”
Isabel stood and placed a protective hand on Emily’s shoulder, silently urging her to sit back down. “Actually, Delia, that’s not the whole story.”
Emily took a seat again at Isabel’s urging.
“I received a call a couple of days ago from one of my CIA contacts. He said the file on the official investigation says your sister had been recruited by a terrorist group in Spain and David Gerard had killed her in self-defense. Apparently, their supposedly chance meeting at a Paris café wasn’t by accident, according to one of the CIA’s in-country assets. Natalia’s assignment had been to get close to him, see if she could learn anything, and then take him out because he was working an operation to expose them.”
“That can’t be.” Delia shook her head, disbelief simmering in her dark eyes. “The CIA is just saying that to cover up what he did—that’s what they do.”
“Well, you’ll have the rest of your life to mull that theory over, Ms. McCall.” Colin grasped her upper arm to take her away.
“Wait!” Emily had one more question.
“What is it?” Colin asked.
“Delia, why did you hire me to investigate your husband? I don’t get it.”
“Remember the night you phoned me, told me you’d found my name and number on a scrap of paper in Evan’s old sweatshirt? I figured hiring you would help me discover if Evan had hidden any other information about me. Keeping you close helped me keep tabs.”
“I thought we were friends.”
“Pretending to be your friend simply made it easier.”
Colin led Delia out of the room and down the hall to booking.
Emily sat speechless, stunned by what Delia had just admitted and what Isabel had recounted. Her eyes filled with tears as visions of her husband’s murder flashed in her mind, much like the recurring nightmares she had endured. Only now she knew the identity of the dark shadowy figure that held the gun.
“I’m so sorry, Em.” Isabel pulled a chair out and sat next to Emily. “I didn’t know how to tell you.”
“But his letter said he felt responsible.” Emily wiped a few tears with her hand.
“Look at it from his point of view. He had to kill a vibrant young woman he had feelings for. My contact told me the psych evaluation in his file said that something broke in him that day—he was never the same. He blamed himself for not reading her better, not