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“Nobody hit me. Believe me, I’d have told you.” Her lips curved in a wry, humorless grin. “Though I’d take getting socked in the face three times a day over being shot at.”
Something in the tone of her voice made his gut ache. “Did you have a nightmare about it? While you were asleep?”
She looked away. “I don’t remember.”
She did remember. Vividly. He could tell by the look on her face, the tense set of her shoulders and the white-knuckled grip of her clasped hands.
“I used to have combat-related nightmares all the time. Still do sometimes.”
“So they don’t go away?” Despair tinged her voice.
“They usually soften with time. Sharp edges dull, sounds mute.” Blood didn’t run as freely or as crimson-dark after a while.
“I don’t know if Wilson had a family,” she murmured after a moment of tense silence. “I don’t even remember if he wore a wedding ring.”
“You didn’t get him killed, Evie.”
“He wouldn’t be dead if he hadn’t been guarding me.”
“He wouldn’t be dead if those men hadn’t shot him. That wasn’t your doing.” He slid his arm across the back of the sofa, letting his fingers brush against the curve of her shoulder. “First rule of engagement—remember who’s the good guy and who’s the bad guy.”
“No, the first rule of engagement is to be courteous to everyone but friendly to no one,” she countered.
He smiled. Should have known he wouldn’t get that one past the daughter of a Marine Corps general. “You’d have been a good Marine.”
The wistful look she gave him caught him off guard. “I wanted to be a Marine. Did you know that?”
He shook his head, surprised. “No. Why didn’t you?”
“Mother didn’t want another Marine to have to worry about. And Dad agreed.” She rested her cheek on her knee, still looking up at him. “I could have defied them. Hell, maybe I should have. But I couldn’t put my mother through another twenty years of anxiety, especially so close to my father’s retirement date.”
He tried to imagine Evie in uniform. She was small but physically strong, as he’d experienced when she’d kicked him in the face earlier that day. He’d watched enough of her Cooper Security training sessions to know she was agile and skillful. She had a decent record at the shooting range, and her thinking skills were top-notch.
The only disadvantage she’d have had as a Marine was her size, and she could have made up much of that deficit with her courage and intellect. He wouldn’t mind having her covering his backside in a fight.
“Do you regret not becoming a Marine?”
“Not as much since you hired me. I get to hone my skills at the office training center, and recently, I’ve had plenty of brushes with death to keep me on top of my game.” She shot him another wry smile. “Always something hopping when you Coopers are around.”
“You have no idea,” he said, thinking about all his family had been through over the past few years. “We used to be such a calm, quiet family.”
She shook her head. “I doubt that.”
Jesse’s cell phone rang, giving them both a start. He fished the phone from his pocket. It was his brother Rick.
“Turn on the television,” Rick ordered tersely.
“What channel?”
“Any of ’em.”
Jesse picked up the TV remote from the coffee table and turned on the television. It was already tuned to a news channel.
“That’s my father,” Evie said, her voice tinted by surprise.
A pretty black television reporter out of Birmingham stood in the live shot next to the general, holding the microphone toward him as he spoke.
The general’s tone was grim. “My daughter Rita and my wife are safe, but I’m worried about my younger daughter, Evelyn.”
Evie grimaced at her father’s use of her given name.
“What is he doing?” Jesse asked Rick.
“Just watch.”
“She’s gone missing and I have no idea where she is.” Her father’s voice trembled with despair.
“What is he doing?” Evie echoed Jesse’s words. “He knows where I am. He just talked to me.”
“Technically, he doesn’t,” Jesse murmured, his heart sinking into the pit of his gut. “And this is a way to put the world on notice to keep an eye out for you.”
So much for flying under the radar.
“Why would he put me in danger this way?” Evie asked.
Jesse didn’t like the only answer that made sense, but she had a right to know what they were up against.
“Someone’s gotten to him,” he said.
* * *
E VIE PACED in front of the sofa, her stomach in knots. To her right, the television played on, the volume muted. The news broadcasters had moved on to a new story, but Jesse had left the television on in case there were any new developments.
“Does your father know who’s been hiring the SSU?” he asked.
“I’m not a hundred percent sure,” she admitted. “But I think not. He hasn’t told me much at all, but from what he’s let slip, I think General Ross is the one who knew the most.”
Jesse nodded. “That’s what Emmett Harlowe told us.”
Evie made herself sit down on the coffee table in front of Jesse, folding her hands in her lap. She willed herself to mimic Jesse’s serene confidence, even if she couldn’t feel it. “Even if we were able to talk my father into sharing his part of the code, we still don’t have General Ross’s.”
“Shannon and Gideon have been working with Lydia Ross to figure out who might have his copy of the code.” Jesse’s sister Shannon had spent a week with General Ross’s widow almost two months earlier, helping her archive the general’s possessions in anticipation of Lydia’s move away from the private Gulf Coast island that had been in her family for generations.
Shannon’s discovery of the coded journal had been an accident, although Jesse had admitted afterward that he’d sent his sister to Nightshade Island in hope that she’d discover why the three generals were of such interest to the SSU.
“Have they had any luck?” Evie asked.
“Not yet,” Jesse admitted. “There weren’t many people the general trusted. General Harlowe and your father, of course, and his wife. The only other person who seems a likely prospect is Gideon, but he swears the general didn’t give him any sort of code.”
Evie didn’t know the big, quiet ex-Marine very well, but the Coopers seemed to trust him, mostly because he’d helped Shannon escape a trio of SSU mercenaries determined to use her as leverage to get their hands on General Ross’s journal. Formerly the Nightshade Island caretaker, Gideon had been in need of a job, with skills well-suited to Cooper Security. Plus, Shannon Cooper was clearly nuts about him. It hadn’t taken much coaxing to convince Jesse that Gideon would be an asset to the company.
“And Mrs. Ross doesn’t have any idea who else her husband would have trusted with the code?” she asked.
“She says he became suspicious of almost everyone in the weeks before his death. Maybe he knew someone had gotten wind of his investigations. If anyone can figure it out, Shannon can. She’s like a dog with a bone.”
Evie smiled. “I won’t tell her you used that particular description.”
“Thank you.” His return smile was uncharacteristically warm, charming enough to make her stomach turn a couple of flips.
Jesse leaned close to pick up the television remote control, his shoulder brushing against hers. Her heart jumped, and it took most of her control to keep from reacting to his accidental touch.
“They’re repeating your father’s interview.” He clicked the mute button to turn up the volume again.
“She’s gone missing and I have no idea where she is,” her father was saying to the reporter. “She left with a bodyguard after the wedding and failed to show up for the reception. Now the bodyguard has disappeared.”
“Do you think that’s true?” she asked Jesse. “Do you think those men disposed of Wilson’s body?”
“Maybe,” Jesse answered, his gaze fixed on the television as if trying to read her father’s mind.
“General,” the reporter said, “you’re the second retired military commander to make the news in the last three months. As viewers will remember, General Emmett Harlowe, a retired Air Force general, went missing in late August, along with his wife and daughter. All three were safely recovered but remain under protection, their abduction as yet unsolved. Do you believe your daughter’s disappearance could be connected?”
“I’m hoping my daughter is safe somewhere.” Her father gazed directly into the camera. “Evie, if you’re watching, remember how much your mother and I love you.”
“I still don’t understand what he’s doing here,” she admitted aloud.
“He’s talking directly to you,” Jesse answered. “What’s he telling you?”
She frowned, listening to her father’s words more carefully.
“Do you remember that Christmas in Falls Church, when you rode your bicycle up and down Oak Street? You loved that bike, but you had so much trouble learning to ride. Remember?”
She glanced at Jesse, grimacing. “So I was a little klutzy at age six.”
“But you never gave up,” her father continued. “And I don’t want you to give up now. Trust yourself—you know how to find the answers.”
“That seems really specific,” Jesse murmured.
“It does.” She looked at her father’s serious expression, trying to figure out why something about his demeanor seemed off-kilter. “He’s blinking a lot. Like he’s fighting tears. But his eyes are dry.”
Jesse watched for a second as her father looked into the camera, even as the reporter wrapped up the interview. “You’re right.”
“I don’t suppose there’s a recorder connected to that TV?”
“There is, actually. After your father’s interview aired the first time, I set the DVR to record the rest of this cable network’s news shows for the night. I thought we might want to see it again.”
“Can we replay it? I want to watch it again.”
“Sure.” Jesse bent close again, his shoulder brushing hers once more as he pulled a second remote from the coffee-table drawer. He pushed a few buttons and her father’s interview started replaying.
“See the blinks?” she asked. “It’s odd. They seemed almost—”
“Deliberate,” he finished for her.
“You see it, too?”
He nodded, his lips curving slightly. “The wily old leatherneck.”
“What?’
“He’s blinking in Morse code.”
Chapter Five
Evie leaned closer to the television. “You’re right.”
“You know Morse code?”
“Only a few letters,” she admitted. “I used to know more but I’m rusty. Can you tell what he’s saying?”
Jesse reversed and started the recording over. “It’s amazing he can blink code and speak at the same time.” Admiration tinged his voice.
“He’s always been a multitasker,” Evie said lightly, hiding her pleasure. It was an unexpected surprise to hear Jesse speak positively about her father, given their antagonistic relationship.
“Here we go.” As her father started to answer the reporter’s first question, Jesse muted the television. “I’m not such a multitasker.” He answered the unspoken question in Evie’s gaze. “The sound is distracting.”
Her father’s eyelids tapped out a cadence of slow and fast blinks. “It seems to be just words, not full sentences,” Jesse said after a few seconds. “One of the words is Espera.”
“We knew they were involved.”
Jesse nodded, his eyes narrowing to follow her father’s blinks. “Admin—administration. Definitely administration.”
“You think the conspiracy could go all the way to the president?”
“I’m not sure your father knows who. Just where to look.”
“What else is he saying?” she asked a moment later when Jesse didn’t say anything more.
“Ruthless,” he answered. “Deadly.” Jesse met her troubled gaze. “The last thing he spells out is be very careful.”
She stared back at him, shocked by her father’s message. “He wants us to investigate the Espera Group?”
“I don’t think he wants us to,” Jesse answered quietly. “I think he wants me to, and he’s giving me a place to start.”
“You mean D.C.?”
He nodded. “It’s where it all started, right? We know there’s someone high in the government pulling strings for the Espera Group. Thanks to my brother-in-law Evan, we also know there are people in the Pentagon involved in all this, and your father worked at the Pentagon, right? That’s why you and your family were living in D.C. when you were learning to ride your bike.”
“Right. And the Espera Group is doing a lot of lobbying on Capitol Hill these days.”
