Gene shook his head.
“I was just looking it up. They tore that building down and put up a shopping center. Tony’s old home is no longer standing.”
Elizabeth was curious.
Since everything led to something else, she had to assume that each clue would do the same.
“What’s in the shopping center?” she asked, curiously.
He pulled it up.
“A grocery chain, a women’s clothing store, and a pet store,” he stated. “They have puppies.”
Because it was a slippery slope, Ethan shook his head.
“All of this feels like a way to stall us. Remember, he wants her behind. If she can get ahead of him, we have him. Devon knows how good she is. He’s just cocky and thinks he’s better. He’s not.”
Elizabeth appreciated his faith in her, especially since he told her it was gone earlier.
“So, let’s put that on the back burner and go back to DC and the church. Let’s keep our focus on this. He left a Bible verse. In it, I’m being told about fathers giving good gifts.”
Ethan took a shot at it.
“I might be off, but he learned this all from his father. So did you. Charlie taught you how to be a cop. Maybe this is father versus father in his convoluted brain.”
Elizabeth considered it.
Charlie was on her mind since the dream. She didn’t know what it all meant, but she did know where her roots were. They were with a man who instilled right from wrong in her.
If he were alive, this would drive him batshit insane.
“He also worked for the FBI.”
Ethan paused.
“Wait. He did! He helped you. I forgot that part.”
Yeah, they didn’t talk about that much, simply because it had been on the DL.
She explained for Gene since he hadn’t been part of their unit for long.
“Chris and I used him and Sam all of the time when we were working cases. For a while, Charlie and Sam lived up here and helped. No one knows that, but us and Gabe. Chris paid him on the DL, so he could take time off from being a sheriff. Eventually, he went back to that job, but after the blowup.”
Ethan needed to hear this.
“What blowup?”
Chris laughed.
Oh, it had been a doozy, and it happened right around the time Elizabeth and he went nuclear thanks to his cheating.
“Sam came to me and asked me to help Charlie out. He wanted to be up here with Elizabeth, but he had a mortgage and financial responsibility to Abigale. I paid off his mortgage by giving Sam the money. Sam told him it was his.”
Ethan listened.
“When Charlie eventually found out, it was a mess.”
Elizabeth agreed.
