that his widow had a right to know. The other man said he thought it was David Gerard. Isabel asked that I keep it confidential, though.”
“I won’t tell anyone, Emily—cross my heart.” He made a crossing motion on his chest with two fingers. “Was that one of the names on the passports you found?” Colin took a sip of his coffee and waited for her answer.
“No, but it makes sense he wouldn’t have used his real name,” she replied, picking at her lemon poppy seed bread.
“What about the woman?”
“Isabel said he found out that the woman was the daughter of an FBI agent and she had been killed in a shootout between Evan, or David Gerard, and someone else—a terrorist or enemy spy, or something.”
“The daughter of an FBI agent? Did he know who?”
“Jethro said he couldn’t reveal the father’s name, but maybe the man wanted payback against Evan for his daughter’s death. It was just a theory Jethro had.”
“Are you okay, hearing about all this?” Colin stroked her arm gently.
“It’s upsetting, of course, knowing the man I married was not at all who he said he was, but I’ve been dealing with that fact for months now and Isabel’s been preparing me for something like this. She warned me he was probably running from a previous life.”
“A previous life? Like what?”
“She said I might find out he was an NSA agent, or a CIA assassin, or maybe he was in witness protection because he’d been a criminal who testified against someone high up in a criminal organization, like the Irish mob, or something like that. I kind of laughed it off at the time, but it stuck in the back of my mind and I wondered about it now and then.”
“You seriously thought he might be a CIA assassin? Or a member of the mob? You never said anything to me about it.”
“It was just a possibility. I didn’t want it to be true, so every time the thought popped up, I beat it back down.”
“I wish you’d told me.”
“I might have, eventually, but then you took off back to California.”
“I had to, I didn’t have a choice. You make it sound like I ran off and left you,” he defended.
“No, I know you had to go. Your mom and dad needed your help. Sorry, I’m just being a little selfish, throwing myself a pity party.”
“You know what they say about pity parties,” he grinned, lightening the mood.
“No, what?”
“Few people want to come and they don’t bring presents,” he replied with a smirk, making her laugh.
“Touché.” She stuck the last bit of lemon poppy seed bread in her mouth.
“So what’s on the agenda for today?”
“First up, we need to get a hold of Ernie and get him and the forensic team back to Lucas’s office to search for the murder weapon.”
“Why is that?” Colin cocked his head with a perplexed look.
“Oh, I forgot to tell you. When you and the boys were out on the deck last night, I was talking to Maggie and the girls about the mountain-shaped paperweight. Remember how the medical examiner said it was a perfect fit for the wound?”
“Yeah,” he nodded.
“But the one I had couldn’t have been it?”
“Right.”
“Well, get this. Maggie told me Lucas had one, too, just like it, sitting on his desk.” She sat back in her chair and crossed her arms, letting that bit of news sink in. “If we can find it, I’m sure it’ll have his blood all over it. Whoever’s prints are on it will be our murderer.”
“Assuming it hasn’t been bleached, this could break the case wide open.”
“It could.”
“We need to concentrate on finding that paperweight. If it’s not at the office, Ernie’s going to have to search some homes,” Colin stated.
“He’ll want to search Maggie’s place first. Josh had better be telling us the truth. If they find a paperweight at Maggie’s and they already know they have the one I took—if it has his prints on it—he’s hung.” She grimaced. Ernie would most certainly want to search Sully’s as well as Fiona’s homes, too.
“Since you’re the one with the relationship with good ol’ Ernie, could you give him a call? Tell him about the other paperweight and get him back out to search the office again.”
“Be glad to,” Colin agreed, flipping out his phone and punching in the numbers.
While he was busy on the phone, Emily climbed up on a stool at the breakfast bar and went on her computer to Google the name