“That could be the link,” Jax said, shifting forward in his chair. “The only thing you found missing from your apartment after the break-in were your flash drives.”
She looked up at him. “Maybe they think I have one that belonged to Ryan.”
With Shipman dead and her apartment trashed, it wasn’t that far-fetched.
Chase shook his head. “None of this makes sense. You worked for Shipman months ago. If the incidents are connected, why the delay? Why was Shipman killed now? And if his death is connected in some way to you, why did they wait so long to come after you?”
“Good question,” Maddox said.
Jax sipped his coffee, his mind going over the problem. “Gunderson said Shipman had recently run up a gambling debt. Maybe he figured abducting Mindy for the ransom money was a way to pay off his debt.”
“I never mentioned anything about my mother’s trust,” Mindy said. “There’s no way he could have known about it.”
“Let’s back up a minute,” Maddox said. “From the beginning, we’ve been following the premise that whoever went after Mindy wanted access to her mother’s money. But what if that was never what the kidnappers wanted? Maybe they didn’t even know about it.”
It was an idea Jax had considered. “If this has something to do with the missing flash drives, maybe one of them has something on it the kidnappers want.”
“Something worth money to someone else,” Chase said.
“You’re talking about blackmail,” Lissa clarified.
Maddox grunted. “Yeah, instead of money, Shipman got three bullets from a .45 cal.”
“I think Chase could be onto something,” Lissa said. “Shipman was kidnapped, tortured and murdered. They certainly weren’t after his money because he didn’t have any.”
“An unpaid gambling debt can sure as hell get you killed,” Chase said, playing devil’s advocate.
“True enough,” Jax agreed, but he could feel the idea gaining momentum in his head. “For the moment, let’s run with the blackmail theory. Say Shipman had something valuable on a flash drive and Mindy took it home with her by mistake. Maybe the drive got in with the ones that held Shipman’s accounting records.” Jax swiveled his chair around to look at her. “Is that possible?”
Excitement flushed her cheeks. “I took at least three or four drives home with me every time I went to his house. Each of Ryan’s primary subcontractors had a flash drive solely for their own records. It’s possible one of his personal drives could have had gotten mixed in with the others.”
“I did a little digging on Shipman before I came in,” Jax said. “The guy didn’t have the best reputation. He was arrested a couple of times on white collar charges, one scam or another. But he always managed to walk. He’d been staying out of trouble for the past few years, but if he owed somebody money, he might have gotten desperate. Blackmail wouldn’t be much of a stretch.”
“If that’s the case,” Chase said, “we need the name of his victim and what Shipman had on them.”
Jax’s gaze returned to Mindy. “If you have that drive, honey, we need to find it. It could be what the kidnappers are after. If it is, they won’t stop until they get it.”
While Mindy went to search her desk, Maddox cornered Jax. Anger vibrated through every muscle in his big body. “What the hell, bro? She’s family. You’re supposed to be protecting her not fucking her.”
Jax clenched his jaw. “Don’t say that. That isn’t what it was.”
“The way you look at her—you think I wouldn’t know?”
“I’m telling you it wasn’t like that. Mindy’s special. I knew it way before anything happened.”
Some of the tension eased from Maddox’s wide shoulders. “Son of a bitch. I had a hunch you were in over your head. You’ve had your eye on her ever since she started working here.”
Jax released a slow breath. “I know she deserves someone better. I get that. I know it shouldn’t have happened, but I’ve wanted her for so long. When I realized she wanted me, too, things just got out of hand.”
Maddox squeezed Jax’s shoulder. “Maybe it’ll work out. If that’s what you want, I hope it does.”
Jax’s felt a pinch in his chest. He shook his head. “I don’t think so.”
“Why not?”
“She doesn’t think it could work and she’s probably right.”
Maddox’s intense blue eyes locked on Jax. “You’re a navy SEAL, dude. You want something, you go after it. You want it to work, you make it work.”
