Page 34 of Fearless
Elijah leans back in his chair, satisfied. “Not even when we’reold and gray.”
I clutch my heart and act as if I’m wounded. “There’s nothing wrong with a little gray.”
“I’m partial to it,” Harper admits as she picks up a large berry sitting on a silver doily. She gestures toward the plate. “Please, help yourselves.”
I walk over to the closet where we have been storing our additional equipment, and the floorboard squeaks louder than it had before. “The board is getting looser. I’ll really do need to call maintenance to come and fix that before it becomes a trip hazard.”
I retrieve the scanning device from the bag and run it over the areas where Simms and Monroe had been. When there aren’t any beeps, I turn the scanner off and set it on the table. Jessie reaches for a delectable berry as she says, “I thought you already cleared this room?”
I shift in my seat and glance at the door. “I did, but I wouldn’t put it past Agent Simms or Monroe to have planted a listening device when I was in the bedroom calling the two of you and ordering lunch.”
I go on to tell them the conversation Harper and I had with the agents, bringing Jessie and Elijah up to speed. Elijah asks, “How much are we planning on sharing with them? From all accounts, it doesn’t sound like you trust them.”
“It’s not that I don’t trust them,” I say. “It’s that when Harper mentioned them tapping her phone and emails, they didn’t deny it.”
Jessie and Harper narrow their eyes at me since they both know me well enough to know that I’m not telling themeverything. Harper rests her hand on my leg and asks, “What aren’t you saying, Roger? What do you know that we don’t?”
“It’s just a hunch and nothing more,” I say.
“I trust your hunches more than most people’s facts, Roger,” Jessie says. “Sharing is caring, so spill it.”
“Director Whitman is positive that Robert and Eloise are involved in a nefarious plot. To do what, I’m not sure. However, if Whitman has agents monitoring Harper’s communication, they likely suspect that her parents will contact her or that she’s somehow involved. Agent Monroe’s parting remark about ‘one less Finnegan to deal with’ drives that point home.”
Harper sits up, her back ramrod straight and her body vibrating with agitation. “It may be worse than that. While Roger was ordering lunch, Agent Simms all but accused Shining Knight of operating outside of the law. It’s not us that doesn’t trust them. It’s the other way around. We need to be very careful moving forward.”
Jessie bobs her head in agreement. “We should route everything through Ethan and Ben. It’s their company that’s in jeopardy if we misstep.”
I agree and call Ethan, putting him on speaker. His son, Xander, is laughing and giggling in the background when he answers. “Hey, Roger, give me a second to go to my office. It will be a little quieter.”
I chuckle. “A child’s laughter is one of the best sounds in the world, but I understand that it can be distracting during a phone call.”
“Don’t I know it,” Ethan replies. I listen as a door opens and closes, the laughter becoming muted. “Xander is watching anepisode ofVeggieTales. He loves Larry the Cucumber and can’t get enough of him. But enough about that. I doubt my son’s television habits are why you called.”
I spend the next ten minutes detailing Agent Simms’ and Agent Monroe’s visit as well as Monroe’s hostility toward Harper. “When Harper threatened to resign, Monroe welcomed it with open arms. He practically dared her to do it.”
Ethan is silent for a moment, but he’s taking time to mull over the information. “We should continue to share information with the FBI, but I agree that it should be funneled through Ben and me first. A single point of contact will make things easier for all of us. Harper?”
“I’m here,” she says, leaning closer to the phone.
“Should you decide to leave the FBI, it won’t be without job opportunities available to you. We’ll be more than happy to have you join Shining Knight,” Ethan tells her.
Harper sneaks a peek at me, not sure how I feel about the offer. I give her a ten-mile smile so that she knows I fully support the idea should she choose to accept. No doubt we will discuss it later when it’s just the two of us. She rubs the back of her neck and relaxes some. “Thank you, Ethan. That means the world to me.”
“You’re family, Harper. We take care of our own. Speaking of taking care of people, Carter and Leanna have informed me that Carlos and Mrs. Gutierrez accepted the offer of relocation for the entire family and medical care for her youngest child. In exchange, Carlos will cooperate and tell us what he knows. After Carlos came home in the early hours this morning, he packed a bag and was ready to run just as Carter and Leannaarrived. He said he’d share what he knew once his family was safe and warned us that it wasn’t going to be much. They should be arriving at the airfield shortly and up here before midnight.”
I sag in relief. “That’s good news.”
“Indeed, it is,” Ethan says. “The ladies are going with a team to prepare the safe house as we speak and decorate it for Christmas. My wife even made sure to take the platinum card to go shopping for clothes and gifts for the family. Uprooting one’s life is hard enough, but to do it at Christmas can be rough, especially for the kids.”
“Do you have anything new for us on your end, Ethan?” Elijah asks.
“Actually, I do. There was another remote login on Finnegan’s computer less than an hour ago, and Jerry traced it to a coffee shop in Marathon. A different coffee shop than before. That’s going to make tracking whoever it is more difficult for Jaxon if they keep bouncing around to different locations. The good news is that both attempts are in the same town, which means the person is staying local. I’ll be sending Jaxon additional help, so hopefully, we’ll catch a break.”
“Do you think it’s my father?” Harper asks.
“Yes,” Ethan says bluntly. “Although we can’t say that with one hundred percent certainty. Jerry is adding a program that will log the keystrokes so that we can get into the encrypted file and see what’s in it. We’ll have to wait until there is another login attempt and pray that they access that particular file.”
We chat for a few more minutes, and Ethan leaves us with one last parting gift before signing off. “As soon as Carter gets Leanna settled in, he’ll be returning to Florida toassist Jaxon. They will install cameras at every coffee shop in town and monitor from a safe location. It could be a few days before there is anything of note, but I expect it to yield results.”
