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“Hard to imagine that someone would want to kill Amanda Harcourt. What would be the reason? She’s not in line to give away anything in her will. Who could benefit from such an arrangement?”

“Sir, law enforcement has the case. I’m no longer part of th—”

“But they have the men in custody, do they?” he asked, tapping his finger on Ethan’s arm. “The one guy was injured when your dog pulled him off the roof, isn’t that right? Are they checking the hospitals?”

Ethan scanned the street over to the bridge. The woman in the pink dress had lost her battle with the wind, and her hair covered her face. She was aiming toward the tree where Brandon Harcourt stood next to Winston. Now that Ethan had a chance to see the three-ring binder, he knew all the names. “Sir, the FBI has the case.”

Another limo pulled to the curb.

Another set of protectees were glad-handing. “Good to see you. How was your flight?”

The door to Le Canard Frou-Frou shut, and Ethan’s gaze landed on Dr. Peregrine Phillips AKA Piper.

She’d made it over to the shade of a tree and was talking to Winston and Brandon.

Tango stretched her nose in that direction, like she wanted to go over and sniff Piper.

Ethan wouldn’t mind doing that—going over, not sniffing.

Yeah, not sniffing. “That would be forward,” he told Tango. “And odd. For either of us. Mind your manners.”

Though, once Ethan read an article that said that when someone held the person they loved, they would take deep inhales, embedding the scent deep in their memories.

Ethan’s mom had done that with him when he was little enough to sit on her lap. He remembered the sensation of being deeply cherished. The inhale, then the kiss that landed right after. As an adult, he’d seen his brother do that with his wife when they stood alone on the patio, watching the sunset, wrapped in each other’s arms.

“And odd,” Ethan repeated, because thoughts of deep, abiding love didn’t belong here at the restaurant, where he was proving his professionalism and keeping everyone safe.

It was still astonishing how much Amanda Harcourt and Piper resembled each other. Now that Piper was standing close enough in natural light, Ethan could pick out some of the differences between them.

Piper’s hair had different colors in it that told him it was her natural hair color, where Amanda’s was a single color, and most likely dyed.

In the three-ring binder, Ethan discovered that Amanda was sixty. And that was astonishing. Amanda’s body was light when he moved her. That told him she stayed slim by keeping her calorie count low, while Piper—who was the same size—seemed fit. Very fit. She had toned arms that told him she wasn’t a cardio bunny. He wondered what her sports were.

She held herself with dignity, not disdain.

Though she was fidgeting incessantly with the dress.

Ethan had known a fair share of female scientists because of his mom, and all of them chose something less … yeah, something less.

Piper seemed uncomfortable with it being … so much.

Short and tight from waist to knees, with a top that reminded him of the ruffled rumba shirts he’d seen at a street festival in Little Havana.

The heels were high, like those the women wore to the Tifton party. The women at the Tifton party swung their legs from the hip to smooth their walk, and Piper didn’t seem to have experience with that kind of shoe, making her movement clunkier and unsteady.

Ethan imagined she’d rubbed blisters into her heels walking like that on the bridge. He might try to figure out a way to get her a ride back.

Maybe he could drive her if she were willing to wait until the guests had left.

He noticed she was standing with her knees locked for stability.

It was one of those details that Pickeridge had trained him to watch for. When women did that, they were at risk of fainting.

Men, too. But men usually had on shoes that didn’t make stabilization a factor.

He did a sweep. Another limo was at the top of the block. Sidewalk traffic in front of Frou-Frou was light. Another group was coming over the bridge. They looked like tourists.

Ethan’s eye landed back on his two exposed protectees, Brandon and Winston.