Cooper Security 06 - Secret Intentions Read Online Free Page A

not keeping anything from me, are you? They didn’t hurt you more than you’ve said—”
    “No, they didn’t. But given time, they would have.”
    Her father met her gaze for a long, electric moment, then looked away.
    “You need to talk to Jesse about General Ross’s journal.”
    Her father’s mouth tightened but he didn’t answer.
    Evie gave a little growl of frustration. “I don’t know why you’re being so stubborn about this, Dad. Look what happened today—you think they won’t go after us again? Maybe Rita this time, or Mom. And Jesse Cooper won’t be there to save them.”
    His gaze snapped up to meet hers, pain vibrating in his blue eyes. “I’m doing what I can to protect us all.”
    “By staying silent? That’s not enough for these people. You have to know it’s not. I don’t understand why you don’t just tell people what you do know, even if you don’t have proof.”
    “I’ll increase our security team,” her father said, ignoring her last comment.
    “Are you going to make them aware of the level of the threat against us?” She shook her head. “If you put the average security guard up against the SSU, he’ll lose every time.”
    She knew her father couldn’t argue. He’d been around for the downfall of MacLear Security, a once well-respected private security firm that had done business with the Pentagon for years. MacLear Security’s training corps had been made up of top-notch former military and law-enforcement personnel. Even the company’s legitimate agents had possessed the knowledge and skills of elite soldiers. And the Special Services Unit, MacLear’s secret unit of guns for hire, had layered those skills in with an utter lack of a moral compass.
    Ruthless and violent, the SSU had been a wickedly efficient private army for a corrupt State Department official named Barton Reid. Their work for Reid had eventually led to the company’s downfall, thanks to Jesse’s cousins, who’d thwarted the secret soldiers’ plans to abduct a child as leverage. The Coopers had exposed MacLear’s seamy underbelly and brought the company down, but not before several of the SSU operatives had made their escape and formed a new alliance.
    Funded by a mysterious company called AfterAssets, LLC, the dirty operatives had recently been involved in at least one assassination and another assassination attempt. They’d kidnapped an Air Force general and his family and now had tried to kidnap Evie, as well.
    “They want General Ross’s journal,” she said.
    “Do you know where it is?” her father asked.
    She shook her head. “But they think you do.”
    “I don’t know where it went after Cooper took it from Lydia Ross,” the general murmured, glancing toward the door. “I bet he knows.”
    “Probably so. But it’s important nobody else knows where it is, because you seem determined not to tell us what you know.”
    He bent toward her, as if he was going to tell her something, but a soft knock on the door interrupted. Evie crossed to the door. “Yes?”
    “It’s me,” Jesse said from the other side of the door.
    She let him in. He slipped inside, handing her a cup of water.
    “Thanks.” She downed the two ibuprofen tablets her father had given her. “That took longer than I thought—did you get a call? Any news?”
    He glanced at her father briefly, then looked back at her. “Rick and Megan found the truck abandoned on the side of the road two miles up from the gas station where I found you. We’re processing it for prints, but it’s not likely we’ll find anything.”
    “You should bring the real police into this,” Evie’s father said with a grimace. “You’re screwing up any chance of a court case against these guys.”
    “A court isn’t going to stop these guys. Half of them were already indicted along with Barton Reid, and you see how well that stopped them,” Evie told her father. “The bigger picture is what matters. We need to stop whoever’s funneling