First Family (Sean King & Michelle Maxwell 4)

“Hatka is either an actress or an entertainment company. And Tayyi has something to do with Arabs in the sixth century, apparently some tribal groups.”

“Some terrorist thing?”

“Doesn’t feel right. I’m going to try a few more combinations with these letters.” He pecked at the digital keys and got more results until another entry caught his attention.

“Yi.”

“What about it?”

“I typed in Yi instead of Tayyi and here’s what it says.” Sean read off the screen. “The Yi Syllabary’s origins are lost in time but are thought to be influenced by the Chinese writing system. Each character represent

s one syllable. It was used mainly for religious and secret writings. It’s spoken by millions of people in the Chinese provinces of Yunnan and Sichuan.”

“So a secret Chinese religious society with a weird language is responsible for all this?” Michelle said skeptically. “But the letters are from the English alphabet, not Chinese.”

“I don’t know. I’m just trying to cop a lead.” He punched in a number and held up a hand when Michelle started to say something.

“Hey, Phil, it’s Sean King. Right, yeah, it’s been a long time, I know. Look, I’m back in D.C. and I’ve got a question about a language. Right. No, I’m not trying to learn one, I’m trying to see if something is a language or not. Yeah, I guess I’m not making much sense. Look, do you know anyone at Georgetown who’s familiar with a language called Yi? From China?”

Michelle tapped her fingers on the steering wheel while he talked.

“Yeah, I know it’s not one of the major ones. But could you check and see if anyone in your department might know? Thanks, I owe you.” He gave Phil his number and clicked off.

When Michelle looked at him questioningly he said, “Buddy of mine who’s in the foreign language department at Georgetown. He’s going to check and get back to me.”

“Yi-pee.”

He stared at her crossly. “You got any better ideas?”

She was about to answer when his phone rang. “Yeah?” He straightened up and then glanced out the window. “Now? Right, okay.”

He clicked off and then looked puzzled.

“Who was it?”

“FBI Special Agent Waters. We’ve been officially invited to participate in the investigation.”

Michelle slid the gearshift lever to drive. “Wow, Jane Cox really lived up to her billing.”

CHAPTER 15

WATERS MET THEM at the front door. It was quite obvious that the FBI agent had been put on a short leash with a choke collar and didn’t like it one bit. He had them put on elastic booties and instructed them to walk only where he walked. He was obviously taking great pains to sound polite, but it all came out as a near growl.

“It must be nice to have friends in high places,” he said as they headed up the stairs to the bedrooms after passing the outline of Pam Dutton’s body on the living room rug.

“You should try it, but then you’d have that whole ‘getting friends’ challenge to overcome,” snapped Michelle. Sean elbowed her in the side as they stopped at the door to one of the bedrooms. Waters pushed it open. Sean and Michelle looked around as they stood just inside the doorway.

This was Willa’s room, the one that had been empty when they’d searched the house before. It was neat and clean. There were shelves full of books and a slender silver Mac on her desk. The words “Willa Land” were written out on one wall that was actually a black chalkboard.

“John Dutton said he thought Willa was downstairs with their mother when it happened. But Colleen said she thought she heard Willa on the stairs,” said Sean.

“The same thing they told us,” Waters said curtly.

“Could you tell which version was right?”

“If Willa was attacked on the stairs there’s no trace left there. What she might have heard on the stairs were the kidnappers.”

“Any sign of forced entry?”