His voice became serious. “Hmmm, should I be jealous?”
“Well, he did ask me out.”
“What!” Colin shrieked. “What did you tell him?” Suddenly his voice was high and intense.
“What do you think? I told him no, that I was seeing someone, of course.” She probably shouldn’t have baited him that way, but it felt kind of nice to hear a sizzle of jealousy in Colin’s voice, standing up for his woman. It made her want him all the more. “I told you I’d wait for you.”
“I guess I’d better be moving my butt back there sooner rather than later.”
“I guess you’d better.” She laughed. “Not to change the subject, but I had a heart-to-heart with Isabel the other night and it turns out she was Izzy Handler from Evan’s address book.”
“No kidding.”
Emily explained to him what Isabel had shared about her relationship with Evan, and how she had moved to Paradise Valley to help him. However, the part where someone was possibly hiding in her house while the girls were there and may have overheard her conversation with Isabel, well, she thought she’d keep that to herself. It would only upset Colin and there was nothing he could do from seven hundred miles away.
“I’d better let you go, Emily. It’s getting late. I’ll call you again tomorrow.”
“That’d be nice,” she replied, reclining against the pillows once more.
“I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
~*~
With nothing on the agenda for Sunday, Emily hadn’t bothered to set the alarm, hoping to get some extra sleep. She’d had too many exhausting nights with little sleep because of Evan, so sleeping in would be a treat.
At nine o’clock, there was a loud knock at her front door. She was still in bed, hovering in that dream-like space between sleep and waking. She was dreaming Colin had come back to Paradise Valley and was knocking at her door. Then another loud knock interrupted her dream and she realized someone really was at her front door.
“Coming!” she hollered as she grabbed her robe, not knowing for sure if the visitor could hear her or not. As she rushed to the entry, she could see the top of a police officer’s hat through the windows across the top of the door. “What on earth?”
She cinched the belt on her robe and opened the door part way, peeking around it. “Good morning, can I help you?”
“Emily Parker?” the officer asked.
“Yes. Is something wrong?”
“Do you mind if I step inside?”
She knew most of the officers in Paradise Valley, but this one didn’t look familiar to her. She looked past him and saw his cruiser parked in front of her house, then she looked for the familiar police badge on his uniform before agreeing.
These days she was suspicious of just about everyone. She backed up, opening the door all the way for him and he stepped inside the entry.
“What is this about?” Emily pulled her robe a little tighter around her chest.
“We got a call a little while ago from one of your neighbors who said he saw a man peeking in your windows. We just wanted to make sure you knew about it and that you were okay. Are you all right?”
“I’m fine. I was sleeping.” She wondered if the peeping Tom could have been the same person who’d been breaking in. “What neighbor called it in?”
“The report said anonymous, but the dispatcher said it sounded like an elderly man.”
“Mr. Cooke, next door.” She motioned toward his house with her thumb. “That was kind of him to look out for me.” She thought for a second about reporting the other break-ins, but then she would have to explain the entire story of Evan and his mysterious past. She decided she’d rather leave that investigation to the Feds. “Did the man see Mr. Cooke?”
“I believe he did. The report said the man ran off when he saw he’d been spotted.”
She wondered if Mr. Cooke would be in danger now. Emily decided to pay him a visit, see if he could describe the man.
“I’ll go have a talk with Mr. Cooke. I appreciate you stopping by, Officer, but as you can see, I’m fine.”
“You should make sure your doors and windows are locked when you go to bed, ma’am, just to be safe. You might also think about investing in an alarm system or at least a big dog.”
“I appreciate your suggestions,” she said, opening the door for him to leave. “I’ll give them some thought.”
As soon as the officer was gone, she went to her bedroom and threw on jeans and a red pullover sweater. She ran her hands through her hair and fingered it into place. After shoving her phone in her pocket, she stuck her gun in the back of her waistband and pulled her sweater down over it. She stepped into her flats and headed out the door to see her neighbor.
Knocking briskly on the front door, Emily could hear Mr. Cooke’s German Shepherd bark ferociously in response. She listened to the elderly man holler at the dog to be quiet right before he opened the door.
“Hello, Emily,” the short and stocky old man said with a grin. His eyes twinkled behind his glasses and the sunlight reflected off his shiny bald head. “Are you okay?”
“Yes, I’m fine. The police stopped by my place and told me you’d reported a peeping Tom at my house.”
“I never gave them my name. How’d they know it was me?”
“They didn’t. I figured it out. Do you mind if we talk for a minute?”
“Oh, sure, sure.” He shuffled a couple of steps back and opened the door wide. “Come on in.”
The dog growled and Emily hesitated to go inside.
“Rocky!” the man yelled.
The dog quieted and Emily stepped in.
“Here, let me move those newspapers. Have a seat.” He gestured toward the sofa and picked up the papers before he dropped down onto his leather recliner.
“I appreciate your looking out for me, Mr. Cooke. Could you tell me what happened exactly?”
“Well, I was coming back from taking Rocky here for a walk. I saw the man looking into a window on the side of your house and I hollered at him, ‘Hey, what are you doing there?’ The man took off, jumped in his car, and drove off.”
“What kind of car was it?”
“It was black. One of those foreign jobs.”
“Could you describe him?”
“Older white guy, or maybe Latino, full head of gray hair. Not as old as me, though.”
“Is there any way he would know you lived next door?”
“What do you mean?”
“I just want to make sure you’re safe, in case he’s the type to pay someone back for being a witness to him trying to break in.”
“You think he’d have the gall to show his face around here again? Old Rocky would tear his leg off.” The dog sat watch next to the old man, as if confirming.
She had to put a hand over her lips to stifle a giggle and cleared her throat. “Maybe, if he thought you could identify him—”
“No, no, I don’t think so.” The old man shook his head. “I was standing on the sidewalk with Rocky when he drove off. I can’t see how he’d know where I lived.”
“That’s a relief.”
“You really think I’m in danger?”
“I don’t want to scare you, Mr. Cooke. I simply want you to be safe.”
“I have Rocky here.” He patted the dog’s head. “I think I’m safe enough.”
“Did you happen to get his license plate number?” She could only hope.
“I’d like to tell you I did, but my eyesight ain’t what it used to be, even with these dang spectacles.” He pulled off his large wire-rimmed glasses and held them out to her briefly, then stuck them back on his face. “But I can tell you the color of the plate.”
“You mean it wasn’t local?”
“Naw, it was different.” His gaze lifted to the right as he apparently worked to remember. “It was white, no light blue maybe. I recall the letters were dark blue and there was a red bird in the left corner. I think there might have been
flowers around it.”
“Around the license plate?”
“No, around the bird.”
Virginia! Emily had lived in Virginia before she married Evan and moved west, and she immediately recognized the description. She wondered if it had been someone from DC, someone from the CIA or the FBI.
“That’s quite a memory you’ve got, Mr. Cooke.” She didn’t want to give away anything she was thinking, so she decided she’d better head back home. Rising to her feet, she thanked him for his time. “I should be going. If you ever see that man or the car again, please let me know. I’d sure like to know who it was.”
“Sounds like you don’t think it was just a random burglar.”
“Oh, it probably was.” Emily shrugged as casually as she could, hoping to conceal her suspicions. “Thanks again,” she said, backing toward the door.
As she left her neighbor’s house, she thought about phoning Colin, but there was nothing he could do for her from California. So, she decided to call Isabel instead.
“Hey, Em, what’s up?” Isabel asked.
“I just had a visit from the police. Seems someone was peeking into my windows this morning while I slept, and one of my neighbors called the cops.”
“Do the police know who it was?”
“No, not at all. I went and talked to my neighbor to see if he could tell me anything, but no, he doesn’t have a clue either. Although, he did give me a pretty good description of the perp, older guy, white or Latino, gray hair, and that his license plate was from Virginia.”
“Gray hair? Virginia? I wonder…”
“What?”
“No, it wouldn’t be.”
“Wouldn’t be who?” Emily had to know.
“Jethro.”
CHAPTER 6
Emily asked Isabel if she was free around noon on that Sunday afternoon and perhaps would like to take a peek into the boxes in the storage unit. Isabel jumped at the chance. Emily promised to swing by and pick her up.
After Emily made sure all her doors and windows were secure and her laptop hidden, she drove to Isabel’s, keeping an eye out for anyone following her.
Am I going to have to be checking my rearview mirrors forever?
As she drove, her mind wandered to the unsettling events she was dealing with, namely the tail and the repeated break-ins. More and more it seemed it was probably the same person. It wasn’t like they were trashing the place, but things had been moved and she could tell they were searching for something. Evan had been dead for a year, so why was someone searching for something in her home now?
Jethro.
Was he the missing link? It seemed to fit.
The tail and the break-ins started after Isabel connected her with Jethro. As a favor, when Emily had become desperate to find out Evan’s real identity, Isabel had introduced her to Jethro, someone she had known for years in the FBI. He had recently retired and was now living nearby in Boise.
Isabel had brought Jethro to Emily’s home one evening to talk about Evan. Emily had shown him the photo from the safe deposit box, and had asked him to help her find out who Evan really was—and who the mysterious brunette cuddled up to her husband was. That was the night she had mentioned a hypothetical gun to him, although everyone, including Jethro, knew it wasn’t as hypothetical as she had intended it to be.
Suspicions were all she had. How could she prove he was the culprit? And why?
Emily pulled into Isabel’s driveway and honked a couple of times.
“Hey, Em,” Isabel greeted as she climbed in the car. “Thanks for inviting me. You can’t imagine how curious I’ve been since you mentioned the storage locker.”
“Hopefully we can find something useful, something giving us a lead in Evan’s murder.” Emily backed out of the driveway.
“I’m all for that.” Isabel fastened her seatbelt.
“Were you serious about suspecting Jethro as my stalker?” Emily drove down the wide winding streets of the upscale neighborhood.
“The description fits.”
“Yes, but it could describe a number of guys. Even your husband is Latino with graying hair.”
“True, but Alex and I don’t have Virginia plates.”
“That’s a good point.”
“If it is him, though, I wonder why he’d be tracking you.”
“The gun we told him about?” Emily wished she’d kept the gun a secret if she’d known it would cause her this much trouble, but she couldn’t get away from the fact that Evan had hidden it in the safe deposit box for a reason.
“Maybe.”
“Let’s hope something in the files will tell us.” Emily peeked one more time into the mirrors but saw nothing suspicious.
Arriving at the outdoor storage facility, Emily unlocked the padlock and pulled open the door. Armed with flashlights, Emily began with the boxes she hadn’t yet scoured, and Isabel agreed to recheck the ones she had.
Isabel grabbed a hair band out of her jeans pocket and pulled her long, dark hair back into a ponytail. File by file, document by document, with flashlights in hand, the two spent the next couple of hours reading through every piece of paper they found.
“Hey, I think I found something.” Emily held up a few sheets of paper stapled together.
Isabel stepped in for a closer look. “What is it?”
“It looks like a background check on Delia. Funny, it wasn’t in a file, just loose between a couple of folders.”
“I wonder if Delia knew Evan had checked up on her,” Isabel remarked.
Emily shone her flashlight on the document and read through it, flipping the pages as she went on to the next one. Isabel read with her, over her shoulder. “It says her full name is Delia Banderas McCall. Banderas…why does that sound familiar?” Emily looked to Isabel, but she did not reply. “Banderas must be her maiden name, don’t you think?”
“Yes.” Isabel replied slowly. Her eyes seemed to be looking blankly off into the distance, lost in thought.
“What’s wrong, Isabel? You’re so quiet.”
“Jethro.”
“I don’t get it.”
“Remember I told you we would call my friend Jethro, because I couldn’t tell you his real name?”
“Yeah.”
“You have to promise to keep this between us—”
“All right, already. Spit it out.” Emily’s impatience was showing.
“His real name is Jerry Banderas. Which would mean—”
“He’s related to Delia somehow.”
Suddenly Emily remembered why the name sounded familiar—Evan’s note. He had said the woman in the photo was Natalia Banderas, and he had blamed himself for her death. That would mean Delia could be somehow related to Natalia, as well.
The note also warned Emily to trust no one. Could she trust Isabel enough to tell her about it?
It was likely already too late to be asking that question. After all, Isabel was here, going through Evan’s things with her. Since Emily had learned Isabel had been Evan’s handler, and that she had moved to Paradise Valley to help him, she contemplated if she should take another leap of faith, even if it was just a small one.
Emily took the leap. “You said you’ve known Jethro, or Jerry, for a long time.”
Isabel nodded.
“Did he have a daughter named Natalia?”
Isabel’s eyes widened. “Yes. As a matter of fact, he used to talk about her all the time. In fact, he had two daughters. How did you know?”
“Two daughters?” Emily’s mind raced ahead of Isabel’s, not stopping to answer her question. “Maybe the other one is Delia.”
“She could be. I don’t recall him mentioning her by name. She was older than Natalia. But how did you know that?” Isabel’s eyebrows wrinkled in curiosity.
“Evan told me.”
“When?”
“In a note I found in his safe deposit box.”
“When were you planning to tell me about that?”
Emily stared h
er friend in the eyes. “I’m not sure I was.”
“What does that mean?”
“In the note, Evan warned me to trust no one.”
“Not even me? I’m your best friend.” Isabel put her hand on Emily’s arm.
“Yes, my friend who’s been lying to me for the past five years.” Emily pulled away.
“I wasn’t keeping my identity secret to hurt you. I was trying to protect you.”
“And now you’ve brought Jethro into the mix and all hell is breaking loose!” Her arm waved around for dramatic emphasis, the papers flapping in her hand.
“If you recall,” Isabel lowered her voice and spoke in a calm, serious tone, “I asked you if you wouldn’t be happier to simply remember the great marriage you had, let this investigation drop, and get on with your life. You insisted you absolutely had to know. That’s why I brought my friend into it—as a favor to you. I had no idea he might be involved.”
Emily crossed her arms and shifted her weight, taking a moment to absorb Isabel’s words. “I guess you’ve got me there. This whole mystery has me so wound up. I’m sorry. You’re right—it was me who pushed it.”
“I’m not your enemy, Em. I’m here to help you, if you’ll let me.”
Emily looked at Isabel, then down at the papers in her hand, pausing to consider her options. She could continue to keep things from Isabel, continue to have her suspicions about her, or she could lay it all out there.
“Okay, no more secrets.” She pulled the note out of her purse and handed it to her friend.
Isabel moved to the sunlight at the opening of the unit. She unfolded the paper and took her time reading the message aloud, softly.
“Dearest Emily,
If you’ve found this note, it means I’m dead. I hope you’ll forgive me for keeping things from you. You may have figured out Evan Parker was not my real name. My name is David Gerard. Again, I’m sorry.
“The gun belongs to someone who tried to kill me once, after moving to Paradise Valley. I wrestled it away from him before he got away, but I don’t know who it was. He must have succeeded on a second attempt or you wouldn’t be reading this note. I hid the gun because I had hoped to track him by it. Sorry I never told you, I didn’t want to worry you.
3 The Chain of Lies Page 5