Chapter 8 - The Friend Who Built It With Me
Evan had helped me build Reed Analytics out of a two-room office over a laundromat.
He had slept on the floor during our first product launch. He had loaned me six thousand dollars when payroll came due. He had stood beside me at my father’s funeral.
He was supposed to give a toast at my wedding.
I called him.
Straight to voicemail.
Again.
Voicemail.
Nathan watched me with a face I couldn’t read.
“You knew he was involved?” I asked.
“No.”
“Don’t lie to me again.”
“I’m not.”
“You’ve known about your family for years.”
“I knew they were trying to get access to your company. I didn’t know Evan was helping them.”
Richard’s attorney interrupted. “My clients will not participate in speculation.”
Ortiz looked at him. “Then they can sit quietly.”
The recovered audio continued.
After Evan’s voice, Victoria said, “She saw us.”
Evan replied, “Then get her phone.”
The next thirty seconds were chaos. My breathing. Dirt. Someone cursing above me.
Then Evan again: “Find the phone. Delete anything useful.”
I remembered the footsteps near the edge.
A shadow.
Someone climbing down.
It had not been Nathan.
It had been Evan.
The audio ended with his voice only a few feet from the microphone.
“She’s alive.”
Richard: “Can she climb?”
Evan: “Not fast.”
Victoria: “Then leave.”
I gripped the arm of the chair until my fingers hurt.
Ortiz asked, “Where is Mr. Cole now?”
I opened the company location app we used for executive emergency travel.
His corporate phone was offline.
But his last location had updated twenty-one minutes earlier.
Private airfield. North side of the county.
Nathan stood. “He has access to our family plane.”
Richard looked at him sharply.
Ortiz called it in.
I felt sick.
Evan knew every password I had ever trusted him with. He knew where our backups lived. He knew how our board voted. He knew my weak spots.
And suddenly I understood the merger document.
If they could fake my authorization, they could trigger a change-of-control clause and move key patents into a Vale-controlled holding company before I challenged it.
I looked at Nathan.
“How long?”
“What?”
“How long have they been planning to take my company?”
He hesitated.
“Six months.”
I stood so fast the room tilted.
“You knew for six months?”
“I was trying to stop it.”
“You were sleeping next to me.”
“I know.”
“You proposed to me four months ago.”
“I know.”
I slapped him.
Not hard enough to hurt him badly.
Hard enough to end the lie between us.
He took it.
Then Ortiz’s radio crackled.
Units had reached the airfield.
The plane was gone.
May you like
But Evan’s phone had been found on the runway.
Next to a fresh pool of blood.
