Page 272 of The Defiant Curse

Elizabeth could tell the wheels on that bus were going round-and-round at a very high speed. She knew Tony well enough that all she had to do was ask a pointed question, and he would handle it.

In the silence, she could tell he was processing the question.

When he gasped, Elizabeth knew he figured it out.

“You wouldn’t! Journals are for keeping, not mailing letters! That doesn’t make sense! How did we miss that?” he asked.

She knew how.

They weren’t investigators.

They didn’t look at things the same way. Gabby was a computer science person, Ian had been Secret Service, and Tony—bless his heart—was a bone nut.

This was her thing.

Unfortunately.

“It doesn’t matter how it was missed,” she offered. “We’re on the right track now. Those letters were a smokescreen to protect Duncan and Ciarán from the church. I’d bet my ass on it.”

Tony got serious.

“So, you think you’re related to Ceit?”

She did.

“I wish we had Callum’s remains, and I can’t freaking believe I said that. I personally think that she was pregnant with the child belonging to this Cathal person. He was her true love.”

Tony was curious.

“But she was pissed. A curse was put on the place.”

She stopped him.

“Do you hear yourself, man? You’re a scientist. Pull your big boy britches up and slap yourself for me.”

She actually heard him do that.

Jesus.

She loved this nut. He made her laugh.

“We can’t verify that Ceit wrote those letters. We can’t verify a lot. What we can assume is that the ones she received from her father were valid. They weren’t torn from a book. We can say that the ones she wrote to Duncan while he was away at war are probably just that. For all we know, they came up with this plan in case the church came a-calling.”

Tony didn’t question it.

Why?

It made sense.

Elizabeth had irrefutable evidence when it came to the letters looking like they’d been torn out of a journal.

Damn.

They should have caught that.

“Thanks to Devon Slater, you have scans of Charlie’s skull. Run it against Duncan and Ceit. If my gut is right, you’ll have markers that genetically tie him to her, and not Duncan.”

He could do that.