Chapter 3
“Have you made any sense of it all yet?”
At the sound of her voice—and more the point, the warm caring in her words—Nick lifted his gaze from the twin screens in front of him and rolled his shoulders.
Until that moment, he hadn’t even really noticed the increasing tightness in them, but hell, it was making itself known with a vengeance now.
For the last couple of days, he’d been juggling his time between running the company and examining the financial data in the package from Charles Markham, leading to some long hours at his regular laptop after Charity had supervised the transfer of data from the air-gapped computer.
“There’s something sketchy going on, but the ways they’ve hidden it—or tried to hide it—are very clever. There are missing details, but what I’ve found so far isn’t good.” He flexed his shoulders again.
Determined hands attacked that aching part of his anatomy and dug in, kneading the tortured muscles with surprising strength. “What have I told you about taking breaks?”
Nick looked around and up—as much as he could manage—to catch a glimpse of his wife’s focused expression. “What can I say? Working out what they’re doing and how they’re doing it is a fascinating challenge.”
“And you just love a fascinating challenge.”
Nick shrugged, almost wincing at the needle-sharp shard of pain that shot down his neck. “Tex isn’t the only one.”
“Have you heard anything from Tex yet?”
“Only to say he’s on it, but that the file formats are proving difficult to crack.”
Charity gave a thoughtful hum. “It must be tough if Tex hasn’t been able to break into the files yet.”
“He’s determined not to let it beat him.” Nick managed a wry smile. Tex had been fuming when he’d delivered the update twenty-four hours earlier. “How’s Tay doing?”
His wife sighed. “Still the same. Hurt. Confused. All the things you’d expect. She’s dealing with it by burying herself in work. I keep telling her not to beat herself up for letting this slide for so long, but she’s struggling to let go.”
“Who wouldn’t?” Nick rolled his right shoulder again. Though he tried to hide the wince, it didn’t escape his wife.
“Right. I think we need to take a ride out—you need a break. You’ve been working on this every free minute for over two days now.”
The idea was tempting. Horses had always played a massive part in his life, and riding them was in his blood. The Household Cavalry had been his inevitable destination when he’d passed out of Sandhurst. However, Taylor’s situation had to take priority. “Later, okay?”
Charity made a low sound of grudging acceptance. “I’d have preferred sooner, but I’m willing to compromise. I’ll hold you to it, though. So… something sketchy. What can we do about it? Where do we go with it?”
The million-dollar question. Several millions, in fact, from what he’d gleaned already, and what could doubtless develop into many, many millions more.
Nick was looking at data from a certain point in time, but it was most likely the crime had started long before that date.
The scale of embezzlement was potentially mind-blowing.
“I’ve been thinking about that,” Nick said.
“Regardless of what Tex can find out, sooner or later, this has to go to the FBI, whether Tay likes it or not. Markham has committed a crime, and by sending all this to her, he could have put her at risk of criminal charges.” He ran a hand though his hair.
“If it comes down to it, we could all be running the same risk.”
“Oh no.” Charity looked devastated. “I’ll talk to her.”
Nick reached for one of her hands and tugged her around the chair so she could sit on his lap. He shook his head. “It’s going to be a difficult conversation to have. I’ll do it. What?”
His wife’s expression had settled into a pensive frown.
“Why would a father put his daughter in danger like that? He held onto these papers for a reason. If he’d really intended to blow the whistle on these activities, he’d have done it at the time.
He could still do it now, but no, he sends it to Taylor and tells her to hold onto it until he can take it back.
Why? What’s his motive for doing all that? ”
A word popped into Nick’s mind. “Extortion. What if, all this time, he’s been holding this information and using it to extort money from the perpetrators?”
“Wait a minute—that’s a bit strong, don’t you think?” Charity’s frown deepened.
“Possibly, but just bear with me.”
“Okay.”
“The message he left for her—it lacks specifics but it’s very carefully worded, which makes me think it’s something he prepared in advance, just in case he got wind of something threatening to put an end to whatever game he was playing.
Then he tells her to keep it safe, not to open it, or tell anyone she has it.
You can interpret that a couple of ways. ”
“Such as?”
“If you were being charitable—which I’m not—then you could say he was protecting her, but—again, my opinion—the best way to protect her would have been to take this information to the authorities at the start.”
“And since you aren’t being charitable?”
“You could say he fed her enough information to keep her quiet and prevent her opening the package until the threat passed and he could tell her to send everything back.”
Nick watched his wife’s expression change as she processed the thought. “You’re saying he was using her as a safe place to store his asset, until whatever made him send it in the first place blows over and he can then pick up where he left off?”
The notion clearly distressed her—Nick almost wished he hadn’t been so blunt, but the situation, as it appeared to him to be, made him so angry. “Correct.”
“I hate to say it, but it makes sense. He protected his collateral by sending it to Tay.” Charity bit her lower lip, a sure sign she was heading into even deeper thought.
“All he knew was the address of the forwarding service, so by sending it to her, he could hide it in a place he didn’t even know about. ”
As plans went, it was worthy of some respect—provided nothing went awry.
“True—unless whoever he’s hiding from can somehow extract the destination info from the forwarding service.”
Remote though the possibility was, it still made Nick more uncomfortable than he liked.
Kilburn DefenseTech was a heavy hitter, and not just in the business of weapons manufacture.
Whoever was behind the trigger for Markham to take the course of action he had could easily have the means—legitimate,00000 or more likely otherwise—to track down the address of Taylor’s PO box in town, if all the factors required came together.
If that happened, trouble could land on their doorstep, putting the safety of everyone at Honey Fields at risk.
And that, he could not allow.
Charity kissed his temple. “What’s wrong now?”
“Nothing,” he said blithely. “Just working out possible scenarios. What do you think about the situation?”
She bit her lower lip. “Like I said, what you’ve said makes perfect sense, but I can’t reconcile extortion with what Tay’s always told me about her father. It doesn’t add up.”
“Maybe so, but the fact remains, there’s a strong possibility that Taylor is in danger.
Until we come up with a plan to deal with it, I want her to stay here and not go into town.
I know we can’t secure the ranch—not the way I’d like to—but we do at least have the security cameras in now, so if any trespassers venture onto the property and approach the accommodation, we’ll be alerted to their presence. ”
“Okay,” Charity agreed, “but there has to be more we can do. I mean… Tay’s father has to be holed up somewhere, right?”
A good question. “While we’re waiting for Tex to get back to us with information about the technical specs, I’m going to talk to him and Ghost about locating Markham.
I want to question him about what the bloody hell’s going on, why it hasn’t been resolved the way he promised…
and frankly, drag him over the coals for putting Tay through this.
It’s no way to treat your child, even if she is an adult.
” He couldn’t hold his anger in any longer.
Charity laid her palm against his cheek and guided his head to the perfect position for a deep, lingering kiss. She sighed. “I knew there was a reason why I love you so much.”
Nick raised an eyebrow. “Only the one?”
Her eyes narrowed as she gave him one of her long-suffering looks. Then her lips curved into a smile that, if things went sideways, had the potential to shrivel his balls. “Think yourself lucky there is one.”
His arms tightened around her. “Oh, I know exactly how lucky I am.”
She brought her head closer to his, and he felt the soft brush of her lips across his cheek. “So do I.”
The naked emotion in her whispered words brought a familiar lump to his throat. “I’m going to message Ghost and Tex to arrange a call to discuss what we can do about finding Charles Markham. Do you want to join in?”
His wife shook her head. “I’ll leave it to you. Y’all will probably start talking in military shorthand again, and I won’t understand a word anyway. I’ll go keep Tay company for a while—and break the news to her that she shouldn’t go into town for a while.”
“Good idea, and thanks. I’ll give you both an update as soon as I have one.”
Given the demands on his friends’ time—and the somewhat significant fact that Ghost was a serving Delta Force officer—Nick didn’t expect to get a response from both men within less than five minutes.
He’d expected even less to be deep in a conference call with them five minutes after that, providing a concise briefing to bring them up to date with everything that had happened.
“This connected with the data you sent me a couple days ago?” Tex asked.
“I’m afraid so. Have you managed to make any progress with that?” Nick was aware he was asking a lot.
“You know what? I was getting ready to give you a call. We finally managed to get into the files.”
“And?” Nick prompted.