LITMIR.BIZ

      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.”

      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.”