Jax eased out a slow breath. There was no point in lying, not to Hawk. “I want her. You know it, but no one else does, including her. She needs my protection. I won’t let my feelings get in the way.”
Jason nodded. “Good enough.” He grinned. “Can’t be easy sleeping on the sofa with the woman you want in a bed down the hall.”
Jax just grunted. It wasn’t easy. It was damned hard—for about half the night. Inwardly cursing at the pun, he walked back into the conference room just as Mindy finished typing up her list.
“I sent the names to your phone. I’ll print us a hard copy.”
He took out his cell and studied the list. There weren’t that many people. He knew who Nicki Carson was, the friend who wanted to set up her up with the shrink. Marcus Handley’s name was there. “Who’s Blake Davis?”
“The CPA Mr. Handley uses. He does the quarterly reports.”
“What about Curt Wyman?”
She glanced away. “He’s a guy I dated for a while before I started working here.”
“He knew about your mother’s trust fund?”
She shrugged. “We were pretty serious for a while. So, yes, Curt knew. Then he started drinking too much and using drugs. We started arguing, and then he got arrested, and I broke up with him.”
Jax’s senses perked up. “Arrested? What was he charged with?”
“Burglary. He...um...broke into a bunch of rich people’s houses and stole jewelry and things.”
“Bingo,” Jax said.
CHAPTER FIVE
THEYWEREONtheir way to Marcus Handley’s house. Mindy brought up the subject of Curt Wyman again. “I know you think Curt is the guy who tried to kidnap me, but I would have recognized him even in a mask, and besides, he’s still in jail.”
As the pickup rolled along, Jax flicked her a sideways glance. “Actually, he’s out. He cut a deal with the DA’s office to testify against the jewelry fence he was working with, a guy the cops had been after for a while.”
She mulled that over. “I’m not really surprised. Curt was a stockbroker when he lost all his money. He’s a decent guy or at least he was.”
“I take it you haven’t heard from him since his release.”
“No, and I don’t expect to. He accepted the breakup when it happened.”
“How did you feel about it?”
She glanced over to where he sat behind the wheel. It seemed an odd question. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“Nothing. Forget it.”
She didn’t like to talk about Curt. She should have left him sooner, when things first went downhill, but she’d felt sorry for him. She hoped he didn’t screw up his second chance. “The truth is I was glad when we finally broke up. I was ready to end things way before it actually happened.”
Jax nodded. She would have sworn he seemed relieved.
“Even if Curt’s out of jail, he definitely wasn’t one of the men in the parking lot.”
“Maybe not, but I looked into his case. The guy was no dummy. If he hadn’t gotten careless, he might still be lining his pockets with money from stolen goods. No doubt he’s smart enough to come up with a kidnapping scheme if he thought the payoff would be big enough.”
“I don’t think Curt would do anything to hurt me. He just liked living the high life—expensive cars, Armani suits. We had fun at first. But I didn’t really care about the money, and Curt did. When he ran out, he went a little crazy.”
“Crazy enough to kidnap you for ransom?”
She sighed and leaned back in the passenger seat. “I don’t think so, but I don’t know for sure. I didn’t think he would burglarize people’s homes, but he did.” She said nothing more as Jax pulled up in front of the address she had given him for Marcus Handley’s house, an impressive two-story red brick Georgian with white shuttered windows and doors.
Marcus personally greeted them, a thin, silver-haired man dressed in khaki chinos and a yellow button-down shirt. He leaned over and hugged her in a rare show of emotion.
