“Why not?” Ian asked.
“Something was off in his profile. Hiller never really dated, or at least he never talked about it. The CIA used that as a sign that he was obsessed with Eloise. He was obsessed with the work they were doing, that is all I could find.”
The disdain in her voice made his mouth twitch. “I take it you don’t have respect for The Company?”
She rolled her eyes. “They are very good at spy things. Not profiling.”
He couldn’t argue with her there.
“Either way, Hiller hadn’t had a regular date the whole time he worked for the CIA.”
“Sometimes you don’t have time for that, even as an analyst,” Eden said.
“Even more so for Hiller. If he were trying to prove himself, he would probably work overtime to gain Eloise’s respect,” El said.
“Still, he was a healthy, young man, and hookups in the spy game happen, right?” Miko asked.
He knew she was trying to get to a point, but she was taking such a long route to get there, Ian wanted to scream.
“Can you get to the point?” Ian demanded.
“Hold that thought,” Emily ordered as she popped up out of the chair. “Thanks for the coffee, Jenner.”
She splashed a lot of cream and some sugar into the mug and settled back down. “So, when I talked to Miko, I thought I could find something nefarious in his interactions. Maybe there was an operative who honey trapped him. He was young and impressionable. But there’s a reason a lot of this was swept under the rug. Well, actually two.”
She sipped her coffee and her eyes widened. “You make coffee as strong as my Mama, but then she’s a Marine.”
“I thought your parents had retired from the Marines,” El said.
“There’s no such thing as a retired Marine,” she said with a laugh. Jenner’s mouth twitched.
“Can we get back to the subject at hand?”
“Okay, okay. Well, our newbie was sort of what they would call a nepo baby, CIA style. A lot like Eden and El.”
“His parents worked for the CIA?”
She shook her head as she brought up a picture. “An uncle. One he was really close to.”
Eden and El looked at the man. “Well, hell, that makes sense that they buried the crime if they thought Hiller the culprit.”
“Does someone want to fill the rest of us in on this dude?” Jenner asked.
“That is Dean Browning. He was one of the highest-ranking CIA officers at the time. Not a political appointee,” Eden said. “He worked his way up the ranks.”
“Which means he did everything to protect himself and his family,” El finished. “He buried the information.”
“So, we have a favored uncle who buried the idea that Hiller was responsible for the bomb. That doesn’t mean the man didn’t kill the Underwoods.”
“I’m getting to that,” Emily said with a huff. “His uncle wanted to cover up the crime, so even though they were convinced a CIA family had been targeted, they didn’t really investigate it all that well. The public were told there was a gas explosion, and everyone went on with their lives. There is one thing that made it an obsession, at least one that would explain why Hiller wanted Eloise and Michael dead, completely moot.”
“For the love of God, just tell us,” Ian demanded, as the back of his neck prickled. Emily was brilliant, but she was very dramatic at all times.
“Hiller was gay.”
There was a beat of silence in the kitchen. He glanced at Miko. “You thought this might be the case?”
“Well, there were two scenarios. One was that he had been turned by a foreign operative. The other was a lifestyle he didn’t want to talk about. Hell, most of you spies don’t like talking about anything personal. It might just be that he was simply really private.”
