Paradise Valley Mystery 02-The Heart of Lies

by Debra Burroughs

  “When Josh found out Lucas hadn’t told you about Fiona, he went to Lucas’s office to confront him.”

  “Oh, Emily, no,” Maggie whimpered.

  “Josh confessed to me that he beat Lucas for what he did to you, but he swears Lucas was alive when he left,” Emily explained. “The cops have a security video showing Josh coming and going from the office building, and Josh admitted to them about the fist fight.”

  “Why did he let the cops question him without his attorney?” Camille asked.

  “Just looking at him, anyone could see he’d been in a fight,” Emily said.

  Maggie took a long cleansing breath, gaining control over her sobs. She dried her eyes with the tissue and blew her nose. “Yesterday mornin’ when I got up, I saw Josh looked like he got in a fight, but the police showed up and arrested him before he got a chance to tell me what happened. Right away I called Alex and he headed down to the jail.”

  “Doesn’t Josh get military representation?” Camille asked.

  “Oh, I never even thought of that,” Maggie said.

  “Well,” Emily looked at Isabel, who through Alex, also knew about Josh’s current status. “He’s kind of not in the Navy anymore.”

  “What?” Maggie cried. “Does anybody tell me anythin’ anymore?”

  “I’m sure he’ll fill you in later, Maggie. He didn’t want to burden you with it before your wedding.” Emily rubbed Maggie’s shoulder.

  “Do you think Josh did it?” Isabel asked Emily.

  “Isabel!” Camille’s eyes darted to Maggie. “How can you ask that? Especially in front of poor Maggie.”

  Maggie’s eyes widened, looking at Emily in anticipation.

  Emily bit her lip, wondering how to best respond without inciting another round of wailing from Maggie.

  “I’m so sorry, Maggie. I don’t mean to be insensitive.” Isabel sat forward in her chair. “I was just wondering what Emily thought Josh’s odds were.”

  “Isabel,” Camille reprimanded again. “Why don’t you talk about this in private with Emily—later.”

  “All right,” Isabel relented, plopping back in her chair and crossing her arms like a child who had just been scolded.

  “Emily?” Maggie asked. “Do you think my son killed Lucas?”

  “I don’t want to believe it, Maggs—and if he did do it, I don’t think he meant to kill him—but I have to be honest, the evidence is pretty compelling.” Emily squeezed Maggie’s hand. “Just know Colin and I will do everything we can to find the truth.” Emily hoped that meant proving Josh innocent.

  “I appreciate that.” Maggie’s voice was small and trembling.

  “But you do have to consider the possibility that he did it,” Emily warned. “He was furious, he admitted to beating the snot out of him, and he was there very close to the time Lucas died.”

  “I’m gonna support my son, no matter what, Em. He’s my family.”

  “I understand,” Emily replied.

  “Whatever I can do,” Isabel offered, “if there’s anything Emily needs from the FBI resources, I’ll do my best to get it done.”

  “There is one thing on Josh’s side,” Emily remarked. “The murder weapon hasn’t been found.”

  “I thought he was beaten to death,” Camille said.

  “Well, according to the medical examiner, the cause of death was being hit in the head from something sharp and jagged,” Emily explained.

  “What on earth?” Maggie exclaimed.

  “Something like that paperweight you said you got in Sun Valley, the one in the shape of mountain peaks,” Emily told her.

  “How do you know that?” Maggie asked.

  “Um, well, you’re not going to like this, but—”

  “But what?” Maggie interrupted, her blue eyes turning gray with worry.

  “I borrowed your paperweight when I was here Saturday.”

  “Borrowed? What for?”

  “Well, that’s the part you’re not going to like.” Emily glanced at Isabel, then back to Maggie.

  Maggie frowned at her as a perplexed expression washed over her face.

  “I wanted to give Isabel something that might have Lucas’s fingerprints on it. Isabel and I had an uncomfortable feeling about that man and we wanted to find out more about him.” Emily braced herself for Maggie’s reaction.

  “You did what?” Maggie’s face turned from confusion to anger. “Behind my back? How could you, Emily? Isabel?”

  “It appears we were right to do it, Maggie,” Isabel said in their defense. “I wish we had done it sooner, maybe he would still be alive, and Josh wouldn’t be in jail.”

  “Why are you sayin’ that?” Maggie cried.

  “Isabel’s right, Maggie. I haven’t told her this yet, or Alex for that matter, but I just learned the whole Whitetail Resort was a scam,” Emily admitted. “But that information doesn’t leave this room. Understood?”

  Maggie and Isabel nodded in agreement.

  “I knew it,” Isabel muttered angrily. “A hundred grand gone.”

  “Camille, not a single word to anyone about this—not even to your husband,” Emily warned.

  “I understand,” Camille agreed.

  “A scam? Oh, Em, are you sure?” Maggie buried her head in her hands.

  Emily gently stroked her back. “Yes, I’m sure, but we’ll help you through this, Maggs. Whatever you need.”

  “Wait a minute,” Maggie gasped, shooting up straight in her seat. “You said the murder weapon was like the mountain paperweight?”

  “Yes,” Emily replied. “Dr. Walters said the peaks are a perfect match to the wound.”

  “Was it my paperweight?” Maggie asked. “Or did they find the paperweight in Lucas’s office?”

  “In Lucas’s office? No, I had it with me the whole time,” Emily said.

  “No, Em, you don’t understand.” Maggie shook her head, causing her blonde ponytail to flop from side to side. “There were two.”

  “Two?” Isabel’s expression changed from surprise to comprehension.

  “You know what that means,” Emily deduced.

  “The other one could have been the murder weapon,” Isabel answered.

  “Where is the other one?” Emily asked.

  “Lucas gave me one and he put the other on his desk,” Maggie said. “He said it would keep us both close to our dream.”

  “Maggie, you may have solved the mystery,” Camille congratulated her.

  “Not so fast, Cam,” Emily cautioned. “That still doesn’t clear Josh. There was no paperweight on the desk. I was in there for a while, I never saw one, and I would have noticed it. The police will say Josh used it, took it when he left, and then disposed of it.”

  Maggie’s face had held the briefest of smiles for the first time since the murder, but it quickly faded to a frown.

  “We have to find the second paperweight,” Emily stared directly at Isabel.

  “But where?” Isabel asked.

  “First thing we have to do is let Detective Kaufman know, get his people to go over Lucas’s office again with a fine-tooth comb. This time they’ll know what to look for. Let’s pray it doesn’t have Josh’s fingerprints on it,” Emily said, hoping it didn’t have Sully’s prints on it either. She wondered if it might have Fiona’s.

  “Shouldn’t you call him tonight?” Maggie asked.

  “It’s late, Maggs. They won’t do anything about it until tomorrow. I’ll fill Alex in and we can get a hold of Ernie first thing in the morning.”

  “Fill Alex in on what?” Alex asked as the men sauntered into the room.

  “Somebody’s ears were burning,” Camille joked.

  “On what we’ve discovered in Josh’s case. Why don’t we step out to the deck and talk?” Emily suggested. She assumed Colin would have refrained from sharing information in front of Jonathan the way Emily just did in front of the girls.

  “We’ll start dishing up dessert while you talk,” Camille offered. “Peach cobbler a la mod
e.”

  “You tryin’ to make me fat?” Maggie laughed weakly.

  The girls got up to head for the kitchen, and Isabel leaned over and whispered to Emily. “Don’t forget we need to talk. Jethro?”

  “I haven’t forgotten. After I brief Alex.”

  CHAPTER 19

  Colin drove Emily home from Maggie’s after Emily and Isabel had a chance to talk about Jethro on the front porch. She was quiet on the drive home, lost in thought about what Isabel had disclosed to her.

  Colin walked her to the front door, the interior lights giving the porch of her bungalow an inviting warm glow.

  “Would you like to come in for a few minutes?” she asked as she unlocked the door.

  “I’d better get going. It’s getting late and I still have to pick up my gear from Ernie’s house. I don’t want to wake them.

  “I thought you drove directly to see me.”

  “I stopped at Ernie’s first, I had brought something for him. It was in my bag and I accidentally left it at his place.”

  “I wanted to go over what Isabel told me tonight.” She moved in close to Colin, placing her hands on his muscular chest.

  He responded by sliding his hands around her waist.

  “Aren’t you even a little curious?” she asked.

  “I’m very curious, but—”

  “You have a funny way of showing it,” she cut him off, her lips forming a pout. “Besides, I thought you’d want to stay and enjoy a little private time with me.” She did—he would be gone back to California soon. “But, I guess you don’t.” She let go of him and started to turn away.

  “Hey, don’t be like that,” he said, catching her by the hand. “If I can finish up with Ernie quickly, I’ll come back. Otherwise, I’ll just head to my apartment and see you tomorrow, then you can fill me in on all of it. Okay?” His lips curled into a sexy smile, and before she could answer, he pulled her into a tight embrace.

  She felt the warmth of his body as she pressed against him. He kissed her thoroughly and removed any doubt that he truly wanted to stay. She would have to settle for this one satisfying kiss to keep her until tomorrow.

  He stepped off the porch and waved good-bye as he got in his car and drove away, only waiting long enough to make sure she had gone safely inside.

  Kicking off her shoes, she headed to the bedroom to slip into her pajamas, then to the kitchen for a cup of chamomile tea. As she waited for the tea kettle to whistle, she thought about what Isabel had told her. Jethro had put out feelers, he said, asked around and showed the photo to a few colleagues. One man thought that maybe he recognized Evan, but not the girl.

  He did say, Isabel recalled, that when he had another friend run Evan’s photo through facial recognition, there seemed to be a match, for a different name, but access to any information was denied. As for the woman, his friend did not find a match, however, he thought he remembered the girl, the daughter of an FBI agent he knew, who had been tragically killed in France years ago.

  The kettle whistled and Emily turned the burner off and poured the boiling water into a mug, bobbing the tea bag in it. She was disappointed he couldn’t tell her more, but his promise to keep searching encouraged her.

  Isabel also said Jethro had asked about seeing the gun again, but she reminded him it was just a hypothetical question Emily had asked. Emily wasn’t ready to show anyone and she was almost sorry she had mentioned it. She was quite sure he didn’t believe the questions were hypothetical.

  She ripped open a yellow packet of Splenda and stirred it into her cup, again thinking of the photo that was now missing.

  Why didn’t I make another copy? Emily questioned herself as if she could have known she would need it. Why didn’t I email it to Isabel as I’d planned? Then she remembered she had scanned the photo, to email it to Isabel the day they met with Jethro, just in case, but she had gotten distracted and not actually sent it.

  She ran to her laptop which lay open on the breakfast bar and she searched through her downloaded files. Yes! There it was, not lost after all. Relieved, she attached it to an email and sent it off to Isabel. Now they’d both have it.

  ~*~

  The alarm clock sounded its rhythmic screech and Emily slapped at the snooze button. Bleary-eyed, she rolled over, hoping for a few more minutes of sleep. Tossing and turning most of the night, she had replayed Lucas’s murder scene in her mind and her conversations with Josh and Sully, along with some eerily-realistic sensual dreams about Colin, who would morph into Evan, and then back to Colin again.

  Not bothering to check the time on the clock, the sun streaming in her windows told her it was time to get up. Her cell phone chimed on the night table, alerting her to a new text. She rubbed her eyes, pushed back a few strands of hair, and picked up the phone, trying to focus on the tiny words.

  The text was from Colin and read, Sorry I didn’t come back. It was late. Didn’t want to wake you. Bringing breakfast. Be there in 15.

  “Shoot!” She flew out of bed and straight into the shower as her nightgown flew over her head and onto the floor.

  Dabbing a little mousse into her tousled curls, brushing her teeth and throwing on her favorite jeans and T-shirt, as well as a little lip gloss and mascara, she dashed to the front door just as he rang her bell.

  “Whew,” she exhaled before opening the door to him, greeting him with a bright welcoming smile.

  “Good morning, beautiful.” Colin stepped inside with a box from her favorite coffee shop, Moxie Java, full of Chai latté for her and black coffee for him, along with fresh slices of lemon poppy seed bread. He swept her up in his free arm and kissed her soundly.

  When he let go of her, she was breathless. She grabbed hold of his arm to steady herself. “You sure know how to greet a girl,” she laughed, giving him a playful push for not showing up the night before.

  “Let’s have our coffee while it’s hot and you can tell me all about your talk with Isabel last night.”

  He followed her into the kitchen and took a seat at the table while she grabbed a couple of small plates. “Sorry I couldn’t come back last night—I know you wanted to talk.” Pulling the bounty out of the box, he waited for her to sit. “I’m all ears.”

  She laid the plates on the table and sank down into her chair. “Isabel didn’t have much for me, but little by little, maybe I can piece this thing together.”

  “What did she say?”

  “She said Jethro told her he’d asked around, emailed the photo to a few of his connections in the FBI and the CIA, hoping someone could identify either of them. He said one of his contacts thought he recognized Evan, thought he had been in the CIA years ago, but that wasn’t his name, which I kind of figured at this point.”

  “What was his real name?”

  “The man was hesitant to divulge the name, but I guess Jethro convinced him that it would be all right since he was dead, 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 n
ot 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.”