Cooper Security 06 - Secret Intentions (7 page)

“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.”

Jesse rose to his feet, his earlier calm control slipping away. He ran his hand over his crisp dark hair, frustration burning in his brown eyes. “We should have been looking there long before now. I don’t know why we don’t already have a crew in D.C. sniffing around.”

“You’ve had a few fires here in Alabama to put out,” Evie pointed out. “The SSU was here, causing a hell of a lot of trouble.”

“What if that was part of their goal? To distract us, to keep us too busy to look closer at the genesis of this whole conspiracy?” He was pacing now, long, agitated strides that made her uneasy to watch.

Odd, being suddenly the calm one while Jesse lost his cool in front of her. Even during his romance with Rita, Jesse had been centered and unflappable, handling her sister’s occasional meltdowns with remarkable maturity. Evie supposed being the eldest of six motherless children had made Jesse grow up quickly. So it was a little unnerving to watch him unraveling before her very eyes.

“So what if it was?” she asked, standing to block his steps.

He faltered to a stop, looking down at her with fathomless eyes. “So what if it was?”

“You’ve learned a hell of a lot about the SSU over the past few months. You know they’ve reconstituted themselves as AfterAssets. Your family has helped put several of them out of commission. You found out about my father and the other two generals and got your hands on that journal the SSU wants so badly. They’re not winning this war. You are.”

He put his hands on her shoulders. “I should have hired you years ago, Evelyn Marsh.”

She grimaced at his use of her given name. “Please.”

He smiled. “Evie.” He gave her shoulders a quick squeeze and let go, turning away. He walked over to the window and shifted the curtain aside. The darkness outside the house and the light from within turned the window into a mirror that bounced their reflection back at them. Before Jesse dropped the curtain back into place, Evie caught a quick glimpse of his face in the glass, caught the hint of anxiety in his expression before he turned back to face her with a blank countenance.

“There’s a big thrift store in Borland,” he told her. “We’ll drive over there in the morning to shop for clothes and supplies. I’ve got an emergency fund I can get my hands on in the morning, but it’s got to stretch a long way.”

“How long do you think we’ll be staying here?”

“Here? Probably through tomorrow.”

“Then what?”

“Then I’m going to find a new safe house for you and assign my brothers and sisters to take turns guarding you.” He turned off the lamp near the window and started toward the hallway.

She followed him, frowning. He hadn’t mentioned himself among her guards. “And where will you be when I’m in the new safe house?”

He turned so suddenly she had to catch herself on the doorframe to keep from plowing into him. His eyes gleamed black in the low light.

“I’m going to Washington, D.C.”

* * *

“Y
OU’RE NOT LEAVING ME
here,” Evie declared as she followed him out to the car the next morning. “I can be an asset. I know the Washington area about as well as anyone. We lived there for years, even part of the time while my father was deployed overseas. I went to the first three years of high school there, learned to drive on the streets of the capital—”

“People will be looking for you, Evie. Your father made sure of that.” Her father’s televised plea meant that ordinary people, people who wouldn’t normally pose a risk, would be a threat to revealing their location.

Why had Baxter Marsh put his daughter in such a position? It didn’t make any sense. And then to give them a message where to look—it was insane. Unless—

“You just have to be the lone wolf, don’t you?”

He looked over the roof of the car at Evie, who glared back at him, her blue eyes ablaze. “It’s not about going to Washington alone. It’s about going there without you.”

“You think I’d be a liability?”

Damn it. Now she looked hurt.

But maybe he should let her think that was his reason. Let her go to the new safe house and lick her wounds for a day or two. Get good and pissed off at him so that she was glad he’d gone to Washington without her.

“That’s not why,” she said slowly, the injured look clearing from her face, replaced by dawning understanding. “You don’t want to risk my getting hurt. Or worse.”

“Can you imagine the hell I’d catch from your father if I took you with me and something happened?” He opened the car door and slid behind the steering wheel. “He didn’t want you to go to D.C., Evie.”

She buckled her seat belt. “So you don’t think his Morse code message was to me?”

“Do you? Really?” He buckled his own belt and started the engine before he turned to look at her again. “Why would he make sure that your face was plastered all over the national news if he wanted you to sneak off to Washington, D.C.?”

“But the code—”

“You don’t really know Morse code. Your father would know that.”

“But you do. And he’d know that, too.”

Jesse nodded. “He meant that message for me. And he made sure you were too high-profile to go with me.”

“So we just let him have his way?”

“His way makes sense.”

Her voice sharpened. “His way will get you killed.”

Jesse shot her a wry smile. “Win-win for him.”

“Don’t say that.”

“I’m not his favorite person.”

“But he’s not evil. He wouldn’t deliberately set you up to get killed.”

He touched her arm. “I was kidding.”

“I’m not. You need backup in D.C. and I can do that.”

He cut the engine and turned to look at her. “Evie, you’re an accountant. You work at a computer all day. You’re not an agent.”

“I’ve been trained like an agent.”

“Don’t get cocky, Marsh. You received basic training. Agents go through many more weeks of training, plus annual refresher courses in case new procedures and weapons come into use.”

“So give me a crash course in what I need to know.”

If he wasn’t so intent on keeping her safe, he’d admire her determination. “There’s not nearly enough time.”

“Give me a shot. I’m a fast learner.”

“Evie—” He couldn’t hold back a soft laugh. “What am I going to do with you?”

“Take me with you,” she said.

He leaned toward her, catching her face between his hands. He’d meant it simply as a way to make her focus and listen to what he was saying, but the moment she looked up at him, blue eyes smoldering, he forgot his argument.

She was really stunning, with her porcelain skin and cornflower eyes. Rita was prettier, her attractiveness more blatant, impossible to miss, but Evie was the one with depth to her beauty. It was more than the fine bone structure or the perfect skin. It was the intellect in her bright eyes, the kindness in her frequent smiles.

Rita had been like a bright light, obscuring everything around her whenever she was in the room. Somehow, her luminance had made him completely miss the deeper, quieter appeal of her little sister.

He dropped his hands from Evie’s face, feeling vulnerable and out of control. “Let’s just go shopping. We have the rest of the day to work all of this out.”

She was quiet during the twenty-minute drive to Borland. Too quiet. He ended up turning on the radio to fill the uncomfortable silence, fiddling around until he found a news station out of Birmingham.

The big news seemed to be Alabama and Auburn football, but at the half hour, the news broadcaster did mention Evie’s disappearance. “Police are looking for Marsh and her bodyguard, Alan Wilson of Southland Security, neither of whom have been seen since yesterday. Wilson, a married father of two, worked for several years as a Jefferson County jail guard before taking the job with Southland.”

Evie made a low moaning sound. “Married father of two.”

“You didn’t kill him.”

“I still feel horrible.”

The thrift store in Borland was huge, filling a space that had once been a large grocery store. Jesse stuck close to Evie while she shopped for clothes, mostly jeans and T-shirts, a few long-sleeved T-shirts and a couple of cardigans. “Will I need heavy winter clothes?” she asked quietly. “I mean, how long will I be keeping a low profile?”

“Get a sweater or two,” he suggested.

She did as he suggested, adding a lined windbreaker to the pile, as well. Shoes came next, sneakers and boots, plus a couple of dressier flats that hadn’t seen too much wear.

“You’re going to need those at the safe house?” he asked in a low tone, keeping an eye out for other shoppers close enough to hear.

She gave him an enigmatic look and moved on to a different section of the store. She grabbed a couple of large water bottles and added them to their cart. “Can never have too many of these.”

He eyed her suspiciously. “You’re not thinking about the safe house at all, are you?”

“Shh,” she said, glancing at a passing shopper. “We’ll talk later, remember?” She took charge of the cart and rolled it forward, leaving him to catch up.

They finished shopping and paid. On the way out to the car, Jesse handed her the keys. “Can you put the stuff in the backseat? I need to take a quick detour.” He headed down the sidewalk toward the drugstore a couple of stores away. Inside, he found the item he wanted and carried it to the checkout counter, ignoring the clerk’s curious look.

Evie gave him an equally curious look when he got back to the car and dropped the shopping bag on the seat between them. “What was that about?”

He nodded at the bag. “Thought you might need that.”

She looked inside, then looked up at him, a question in her blue eyes.

“You’re too recognizable,” he said. “And because I know damned well you plan to go to D.C. no matter how you have to do it, I figure you have a better chance staying under the radar as a redhead.”

Evie grinned as she pulled the box of hair dye from the bag. “You won’t regret this.”

“I already do,” he murmured, starting the car.

But if she was going to risk her neck by going to Washington, he was going to make damned sure he was there to watch her back.

* * *

T
HE
S
UPER
B
UDGET
M
OTEL
near Christiansburg, Virginia, wasn’t the nicest place Evie had ever seen, but it had two things going for it—clean beds and free Wi-Fi. Jesse had made it clear, when they’d decided to stop rather than push on to D.C. Monday evening, they were going to share a room.

“We’ll find a place with two beds,” he’d said, “but I’m not comfortable with being in a separate room when there are people trying to kidnap you.”

“They won’t even recognize me,” she’d argued, tugging at the now-short auburn hair framing her face.

“Not taking a chance.” His tone ended the discussion.

She wouldn’t have protested at all, she thought, if she weren’t still so bloody vulnerable to her attraction to him. Maybe it was just a crush, but knowing so didn’t change much. He was still the sexiest man she’d ever met, and if he took her face between his hands again, the way he had in the car the day before, she wasn’t sure she’d keep her cool a second time.

“I’m going to take a shower. Do you want to go first?”

“Go ahead,” she said. “Can I borrow your computer?”

“Sure.”

He didn’t hesitate, she noticed. In fact, he seemed to be going out of his way to accommodate her on this trip. It was as if, once he’d decided to let her tag along, he was buttering her up for something.

Probably about to toss some onerous ground rules her way. Jesse was big on ground rules.

“What’s your password?” she called as he disappeared into the bathroom just as the log-in screen came up on the computer.

He stepped back out, already stripped down to his jeans. “It’s jf2Rdx378. The
R
is capitalized.”

She dragged her gaze away from his powerful shoulders and flat belly to type the code into the computer. Jesse went back into the bathroom, and a few moments later, the shower came on.

Don’t think about him naked,
she told herself as she pulled up the web browser and typed in
Espera Group.

Several pages of links came up in response to her search. She scrolled through them, having read most of them before now. She was looking for something new. Something more informative than the slick, PR-oriented doublespeak she had found on most of her searches.