The Underwriting (37 page)

JUAN

T
UESDAY
, M
AY
13; E
AST
P
ALO
A
LTO
, C
ALIFORNIA

Juan closed the door quietly behind him as he slipped out of his mother's house in East Palo Alto. It was still early, but it didn't matter: he'd been up all night agonizing over whether or not he should do it.

Juan had taken the Saturday morning flight back to San Francisco but come straight here instead of his apartment: he wasn't ready to tell anyone what had happened with Nick, not even Julie or Amanda. They'd feel sorry for him, and try to comfort him, and that would only make it worse. Juan didn't feel sorry for himself—he'd been stupid to get wrapped up in Stanford kids' problems and white people's multi-million-dollar dreams. They weren't his people, and he didn't need them or their pity.

But he did need to know what had happened.

He walked up University Avenue toward the Shell station next to the 101 overpass that separated the university part of Palo Alto from the part where he'd grown up. The area had cleaned up since the Ikea moved in on Bayshore Road, but something told Juan she'd still be there.

The sky was still gray in predawn light when he got there and saw her through the glass, bent over reading a magazine.

“Izzy.” He tapped on the window, teenage butterflies reawakening in his stomach. She was still beautiful.

Isabel jumped, startled, and peered through the glass at his face. When she recognized him, she unlocked the door and threw her arms around his neck.

“Juan, Juan, Juan,” she said.
“Cuánto tiempo ha pasado?”

“Too long,” he said, pressing his nose into her hair.

She let go. “What are you doing here?” she asked, glancing back at the station.

“I need your help,” he said, getting to the point. “Do you know Jorge Menendez?”

Isabel's eyes got wide, then disappointed, and she shook her head. “No, Juan, not you,” she said softly.

“What?” he asked. “What ‘not me'?”

“Jorge's a dealer, Juan. You don't want anything from him.”

“Do you know if he sells Molly?”

“I'm sure,” she said. “It's what all the college kids want now. Juan, what's going on?”

“I think he killed Kelly Jacobson.”

“What?” Her face paled. “Why?”

“I found something,” he said, “when I was working at Hook. He was with her when she died.”

She shook her head. “It isn't possible. Jorge's a sweet guy. He'd never hurt anyone.”

“But if he was high, maybe?”

“He's never done drugs. You know better than to think dealers use.”

“Do you know where he is?”

“Probably on his way to work,” she said, pulling out her phone. “I'll call him.”

TODD

T
UESDAY
, M
AY
13; M
ENLO
P
ARK
, C
ALIFORNIA

Every seat was taken and two dozen more men stood in the back. It was the biggest turnout they'd had the whole road show, all the invitees curious about how the team would handle Antony van Leeuwen's report. Todd took his seat and watched the presentation for the hundredth time.

As he listened to the familiar words, he felt like a point guard running down the clock, his heartbeat powered by steady anxiety as the moments ticked by. They'd retaken possession of the ball, and now they just needed to play smart and keep investors' minds focused on the positive.

He looked at his watch: nine thirty a.m., just fourteen hours until the road show was over and they flew back to New York; which meant twenty-five and a half hours until the pricing call, where they'd determine the final share price. Another twenty-four hours after that the stock would be out, trading publicly, and his part would be done. That was fifty-one hours from now. He could do this.

“Now, I want to address one more point before we switch to Q and A,” Nick said.

Please don't fuck this up
, Todd prayed. They'd rehearsed it over and over last night, but Todd still held his breath.

“Hook is deeply committed to maintaining individual users' privacy,” he said. “While we do collect certain data in order to understand user behavior and improve our service—like all apps do—we would never share that information in any way that is identifiable or incriminating to individuals' privacy.”

Good
. Todd let his breath go. Nick left out the part about erasing the data immediately, but it was good enough to make the point.

Tara rose to host the Q&A. “We've got time for two questions,” she said. They had planted both those questions in the audience: one from an L.Cecil analyst and one from a private bank client who was happy to ask a softball question in exchange for a guarantee he'd get Hook shares at the institutional price.

Tara called on the private bank client and he asked the question they'd prepared about projected growth rates. Tara answered as planned. The man thanked her and returned to his seat.

“Abishek?” Tara pointed to a man in a linen suit toward the front of the room. Todd's head snapped back to Tara. The L.Cecil analyst's name was Jeremy. Who was this guy? Tara kept her eyes calmly on the man named Abishek as he stood. What was she doing? This wasn't the plan.

“Has anyone ever hacked in?” the man asked casually.

Nick's face drained onstage.

“Just, with all these hackers making headlines,” the man continued nonchalantly, “I wonder if you've ever had any problems?”

Tara passed the microphone to Nick and stepped away from the podium.

“Well,” Nick said. “That's a risk everyone has.”

“And how do you—Hook—mitigate that risk?” Abishek pressed.

“We attract the best engineering talent in the country,” Nick said.

“And you're confident that talent pool will stay at the company, even with Josh Hart and Juan Ramirez gone?”

Todd looked at Nick. Since when was Juan Ramirez gone?

“How did you know we fired Juan?” the CEO asked. The crowd took a collective breath, suddenly intrigued by Juan Ramirez and why he was fired.

Todd looked back at Tara. She just stood there, doing nothing. Was she smiling?

Phil Dalton stood in the audience. “Gentlemen, in all my time in the Valley, I've never seen a company I believe in as much as Hook. So long as I'm on the board, talent is never going to be an issue and neither is security. I assure you, there is no one as dedicated as I am to making sure user information is safe. Now let's let these guys get on to their next meeting.”

The crowd murmured in reluctant agreement and Tara left the stage with Nick close at her heels. Todd stood and followed them into the back hall.

“Do not touch me,” Tara's voice snapped, and she shrugged her arm from Nick's grip.

“What the fuck is going on?” Todd demanded in a hushed voice.

“She planted that question,” Nick said. “She's trying to sabotage me.”

“Why didn't you call on Jeremy, like we planned?” Todd turned to her.

“It would have looked biased if I'd called on someone from L.Cecil.”

“Liar,” Nick spat. “She's pissed because of Juan. She's going to ruin everything. She's just trying to get ahead. But you're not going to,” he snarled at her. “I'll stop you from ever getting anywhere.”

“Did you really fire Juan?” Todd asked, stepping between Nick and Tara.

“He was in the way,” Nick said.

“I cannot deal with this right now,” Todd said firmly, looking between them both. He felt like he was with children. “We've got one more day of this and then it's over. Can you two please just hold it together for three more meetings?”

Nick's chest was heaving. Tara's eyes were annoyed.

“Fine,” Tara said, pushing past him.

“You need to do something about her,” Nick said.

“
She
is not the problem here, Nick,” Todd snapped. “Now hold it together.”

Todd left the room and looked around for Tara. He spotted her hurrying down the hall toward her hotel room.

“Tara, wait,” he called.

She didn't stop. Todd raced down the hall, feeling the adrenaline in his legs.

He caught up with her as she reached her room. “Tara, wait,” he repeated more softly. “Can we just talk about this?”

“I'm sorry, Todd,” she said, pausing and looking at him for a suspended moment, without offering further explanation, then pushed the door open and let it slam behind her.

He banged his fist into the door. “Don't do this to me, Tara!”

He let his head fall into the door and closed his eyes, feeling like he was on an amusement park ride that wouldn't stop and had long ago ceased to be fun. What was he going to do? His brain raced: Harvey was going to find out about the meeting—if he hadn't already—and then he was going to call Todd and yell again with more useless lectures about third-party opinions and getting in the pool. What the fuck did that even mean?

Todd's head snapped up.

Todd had to
get in the pool
: people trusted Antony's opinion because it wasn't biased, which meant Todd had to find an Antony for his own team—a third-party analyst who investors would think wasn't biased—to write a report countering Antony's. But who?

Todd's brain searched through his Rolodex of analyst friends.

Rich! Rich Baker! Todd remembered. Rich was one of the most respected analysts in Silicon Valley, covering tech for Morgan Stanley. He and Todd had been little-a analysts together at L.Cecil ten years ago, when Rich had come out of the closet and confessed his crush on Todd. Rich was
exactly
who Todd needed, and exactly who Todd knew he could get.

Todd turned and headed back to the meeting room, praying it hadn't yet cleared.

AMANDA

T
UESDAY
, M
AY
13; M
ENLO
P
ARK
, C
ALIFORNIA

Amanda scanned the emptying conference room for Chris Papadopoulos, spotting him in the back tapping furiously at his laptop.

“Chris,” she said, “I'm so glad I found you. I have something I need to—”

He looked up. “What are you doing here?” he snapped. “This is a closed meeting. You cannot be here.”

“I know, but I found something out about that guy who wrote—”

“Do you have any idea how much I'm dealing with right now, Amanda?” he said. “I do not need more criticism because an insubordinate paralegal snuck into the road show.”

“But I—”

“Leave, or I will fire you,” Chris said, and she saw he was serious.

She felt her face go white and turned carefully, her legs starting to go weak. Chris never lost his temper: for him to be that anxious, things must be looking really bad. She felt her heartbeat race again. What was she going to do if Chris wouldn't listen? She had to save the deal or Juan and Julie and her company would . . .

Todd.

She had to talk to Todd.

She looked around the conference room again and felt her chest burn when she saw him come through the door, scanning the room. Why did he have to be so hot?

She took a deep breath to refocus and followed his gaze to the object of his search, then watched him beeline for a short man in a tight pink shirt and skinny purple tie.

The two men shook hands as Todd's best smile shone and the other man—clearly gay—accepted his flattery. But then Todd leaned in and said something that made the man's brow furrow.

“Excuse me,” she said, interrupting two men in conversation beside her. “Do you know who that gentleman is over there, in the pink shirt?”

“That's Rich Baker,” one of the men said, turning to look. “He's a tech analyst at Morgan Stanley. Probably their best. Wonder what he has to say about van Leeuwen's stance.” He lifted a brow at the other man and turned back to the conversation.

Amanda's brain clicked: she knew Todd, and she knew exactly what he was doing. And if Rich Baker decided not to play ball, and to report Todd instead, he was going to screw up the deal—and her friends' fortunes—even more.

Before she could stop herself, her legs were carrying her to them.

“. . . it's just a favor,” Todd was saying to Rich.

“Todd”—she touched his arm—“Todd, can I talk to you?”

Rich turned to acknowledge Amanda.

“What?” Todd snapped.

“I have something to tell you,” she asked. “It's important.”

“I'm in the middle of something,” Todd guffawed. “Whatever it is, just put it on the bill,” he said.

“No, I—” Amanda paused, processing his words: did he think she was staff? She looked down at the simple black dress she was wearing: he totally thought she was hotel staff.

“I don't think we should talk about this here, anyway,” Rich said.

“Agreed,” Todd said, and the two men went outside, leaving her standing alone, her brain reeling.

“Oh, no,” she whispered, shaking her head. “No
fucking
way.” She lurched out the door, feeling all her disappointment and hurt switch to anger that overwhelmed everything else. She'd figure out a way to make sure Julie and Juan got their cash, but for right now all she cared about was making sure Todd got a much overdue piece of her mind.

She spotted them by the pool, near a rose-covered trellis. She walked deliberately toward them, her inner voice reeling with the ugly words she was going to spit at his stupid perfect jawline and his stupid deep blue eyes that didn't even know who she . . . Amanda stopped. Yelling at Todd wasn't going to make him remember her. But she suddenly knew exactly what would.

Ducking behind the trellis, she pulled out her iPhone and cleared a space for the camera lens to peek through the roses, careful to avoid the thorns, then pressed
RECORD
.