Page 24 of Securing His Heart

Did she want him to stay?

If she asked, he would, because Chris didn’t want to go at all.

“It’s getting late.”

Her eyes narrowed as she studied something on the screen. “Damn, I hadn’t noticed how late.”

“Yeah.” He crossed the threshold, wanting to be close to her.

Dinner had been fun and full of laughter.

He’d found the ingredients to whip up a stir fry and he’d had to call on all his Delta training not to leap over the table and haul Lindy upstairs when she moaned around the first mouthful of food.

After their meal, watching her head back upstairs had been difficult but he’d known that he couldn’t ask her not to work to keep him company. As it was, he’d spent time on his phone watching the footage Steve had accessed over and over.

The key was with the man in the suit and dark vehicle. Unfortunately, Wilt hadn’t been able to get a good visual of the guy. When he’d enhanced the footage, the image had gotten grainy and pixelated making it impossible to get anything they could use to see if Lindy recognized him.

They weren’t giving up. Maybe Lindy had found something while she’d been working.

Chris dropped down into the lounge chair that was adjacent to her desk and looked out over the backyard of the house. The pool lights glistened, inviting him to test the waters. “Did you find anything?” he asked.

Lindy sat back and pinched the bridge of her nose—that wasn’t good.

“Not anything concrete. There are a couple of projects I’ve put a hold on. Dad had concerns about them, but he hadn’t voiced them to anyone but me. After his death I decided, until I understood things a little better, that it would be best to halt their progress. They were still in the planning stages, so it wasn’t a big deal,” she shrugged and tapped her pen on the table.

“But to some they could be a big deal?”

“Well, yeah. A couple of the board members questioned my decision. The Chairman sent me an email requesting I reconsider, but I stood firm with my decision. At the end of the day my job is to ensure the projects we take on are profitable for the shareholders, and most of those on the board hold company shares. I hold company shares too.”

Chris made a mental note to see if he could find out who was on the board of the company Lindy ran. “What about the people directly involved with the day to day running of those projects? Did you have to lay anyone off?”

“No. As I said they were in planning stages so we were able to allocate them to other projects.”

“These guys are good employees?”

“Yep, one of the heads of the projects, is a great guy and when I’d called Joel in to let him know that the project wasn’t canceled, but on the backburner. He was totally fine and said, that he was okay with it because after reading some recent reports, he’d decided that they needed to change tack. Joel mentioned that he was planning on seeing Dad to discuss it with him.”

“And the other?”

“I knew he was annoyed, but I really don’t think Eli is the type to get someone to snatch my bag and then bash them for doing it.”

“You never know what some people would do.” After watching the video over and over, something had stuck out to Chris. “The perp handed your purse over, the guy in the suit rummaged through it, as if he was looking for something. Do you take work home with you? Like on a thumb drive or something?”

“Sure, I take work home, but everything computer related is stored in the cloud. There’s no need for me to bring home a thumb drive.”

“So, if all your information is in the cloud, anyone can access it?” He’d never been convinced about storing everything in a place that wasn’t tangible and touchable.

“No, all of the files I work on are password protected. Well, they’re protected by a password generating device.”

Lindy’s eyes widened—bingo.

“Do you think that’s what they’re after?” she breathed.

“I’d say that’s a big possibility.” The mystery was getting deeper and deeper. “But what good would accessing the files do?”

“They could change the information to make it look more favorable for me to be convinced the project can move forward.”

Chris held up his hand, a little confused with what she was saying. “Hold up, before I ask you to explain all that again, where is this device and do you always take it home with you every night?”

---