As soon as we were situated, he turned to me. “Have you noticed anyone around the apartment building lately? Anyone when you went out?”
“You mean before I went to Leiloa? No.”
“Are you sure?”
“Of course I’m sure. But Price, I wasn’t really looking. Remember, I’ve been existing in a fog for the past year.”
He took my hand and led me to the black and green brocade sofa in the living area of our suite. He gently pushed me down and then sat beside me. “I need you to think hard, Kate. Anything? Did anything seem out of place? Anyone?”
I chewed on my lower lip. “I truly didn’t notice.”
“What about when you took coffee to Joseph? Did you notice anyone hanging around during those times?”
I shook my head.
“Anyone with, say, really light-blond hair?”
Again I shook my head.
“So blond it could be white?”
“Like platinum blond? No.”
Price let out a breath.
“You asked me if Joe was trustworthy. What did he tell you?”
“He said several weeks ago he noticed two blond men hanging around the fourth floor of the building across the street. Every time you left our building, they’d follow you.”
A chill hit the back of my neck. “I never went anywhere, Price, except to the coffee shop and the market. Besides the two-week trip to Spain, that is, and last week when I went to the island.”
“Damn. If they’d laid a hand on you…” Price stood and began pacing the floor, raking his hands through his hair.
I wanted to stand, to go to my husband and comfort him, assure him I was unharmed. No one had hurt me. But something kept me rooted on that sofa.
Had I been in danger?
If Joe thought someone might pose a threat to me, wouldn’t he have let me know? He’d always seemed like such a nice man, a person who’d just had a lot of tough breaks, lost everything, and turned to alcohol. Then again, we’d never really talked. I didn’t know his story. Maybe he didn’t care about anything except his next drink.
Price walked back toward me. “Kate, please. Think hard.”
“If I had seen guys with platinum-blond hair, I would remember.”
“You would? Because this is New York, Kate. I saw a guy with green hair on the subway. Light blond doesn’t seem so out of place.”
“I wish I could help you. It’s possible I did see them and didn’t notice.”
“Well, they saw you.”
“According to Joe. Who, while he’s a nice guy, could have made the whole thing up to make a buck.”
“He gave me the information before I paid him,” Price said.
“So what? You want to know why Nina gives him coffee every day? To sober him up. He’s a drunk, Price. Aaryan and Nina have tried to help him. They offered him a job, but he said no.”
“He wasn’t drunk when I talked to him.”
“Maybe not. I have no idea.” I grabbed his arm and pulled him down next to me. “There’s nothing we can do about that now. Tell the hired gun outside to be on the watch for the blond guys, and in the meantime, let’s take a look at your files.”
He nodded, his lips a thin line. After speaking to the guard, he grabbed his laptop, set it up at the desk, and pulled another chair over from the table. I sat down next to him. He inserted the thumb drive.
“There might be some stuff in here you don’t understand,” he said.
I couldn’t help a laugh. “I’m a journalist. I have to become an expert in anything I report on. I’ll figure it out.”
“God.” He closed his eyes for a moment. “That was so fucking patronizing. I’m sorry, baby. You’re the smartest person I know. Of course you’ll figure it out.”
I caressed his muscular forearm. “Let’s take a look. Together.”
Price opened a file. “I didn’t keep any of my own research on here, just the quarterly reports and stock analysis. I didn’t want to take the chance of anyone finding this file and figuring out I was watching the company. Everything else was encrypted on my other laptop, which went down with the plane.”
“You didn’t back it up?”
“I did, but I don’t know if I can get to it.”
“Where is it?”
“At my parents’ house. I wanted it somewhere safe.”
I sighed. “All right. Explain to me what’s going on.”
“I started watching Cybermark Enterprises a couple years ago. They’d gone public about two years previously, and they were a unicorn.”
“A unicorn?”
“A new company that is valued at over a billion dollars.”
I sucked in a breath. “Wow. How does a brand new company get that kind of money?”
“Lots of ways. They could have been private for many years and built up business. They could have gotten an influx of cash from an inheritance or an investor. Or a host of other ways. It can be perfectly legal, but it’s uncommon, so when I saw this unicorn I kept my eye on it.”
“Did they get the money illegally?”
“It’s possible they set it up as a Ponzi scheme, but they covered their tracks. I wasn’t able to find any solid proof. No one knows where the money came from originally, though I have a theory.”
“So what happened? What made you start to ask questions?”
“Things went fine for about six months or so. I didn’t make any trades yet because I wasn’t quite comfortable with the unicorn concept, but I always tracked the company. The stock was performing well, and according to my system, should have kept going up. But the price started to stagnate.”
“Why?”
“That’s what I wanted to know. And that’s where this all begins.”
My nerves jumped throughout my body. I was about to learn the truth that had taken my husband from me.
The truth, whether I was ready for it or not.
“I started doing some research into the inner workings and personnel. Turned out they’d had some turnover in their accounting department right around the time the stock started stagnating. The week after I began my research, they fired their CFO and hired a new one.”
“Cleaning house isn’t necessarily a bad thing. I mean, if their stock was going down, maybe they needed some fresh insight.”
“Maybe. It’s possible. But not likely. You see, Kate, the stock price has little to do with how the company is actually doing. It’s all about the market.”
“Okay…”
“The replacement of the CFO made the Wall Street Journal, so it was common knowledge. What wasn’t common knowledge was that the entire accounting department turned over along with the CFO. I found this out when I dug deeper. The stock shifted down a little, which is normal. A change in personnel always jars the market a little.”
“Makes sense.”
“The stock went back up within a few days, but was still undervalued according to my system. Anyway, I kept watching, and within another month, they replaced the CFO again.”
“Again?”
“Yes. So this made the third CFO in about six months. Again, it made the news. The entire department turned over again, but this time I didn’t have to dig for the information. The Director of Corporate Relations made the news public, citing his desire for transparency. Only hours later, allegations of accounting irregularities popped up, and this time, the stock price bottomed out.”
“Because investors panicked.”
“Exactly. This was bad business, especially for a company supposedly worth a billion dollars. So I got even more nosy. And you know what they say. Curiosity killed the cat.”
I swatted him. “That’s not even slightly funny. And you’re not dead, thank God.”
“I began asking questions. A lot of questions. Found out the company wanted to reacquire a majority of its shares.”
“Why would they want to do that?”
“There could be many reasons. It’s not that uncommon of an occurrence. It could hav
e been as simple as them wanting to consolidate ownership. But it caught my eye again, because corporate buybacks for a startup company are unusual. Most startups are focused on top-line growth, not reacquisition of stock. For whatever reason, though, they were set on reacquiring shares, so they invented the accounting turmoil to drive the stock price down. Once it hit bottom, they could buy up the shares they wanted.”
“Did they do it?”
“They did. After they thought I was dead.”
“I’m not following. Why did they want you dead?”
“They were deliberately manipulating the market so their stock value would go down and they could buy it up when it hit rock bottom. That’s illegal in the US and in most other countries as well. They found out I was doing a lot of digging. At that point, though, I had no proof. Only a hunch. I never in a million years thought they’d want me dead for it. You have to know, Kate, that I’d never have deliberately put myself in danger. I’d never have gotten on that plane if I’d thought…” He rubbed his forehead. “God…”
I kissed his cheek. “I know that, babe.”
He sighed. “You don’t know how many times I’ve relived this. Wished I’d just let sleeping dogs lie.”
“That’s not who you are. It’s not who I am either.”
“I know.” He sighed again.
“Did you ever get proof? I mean, that the turnover wasn’t just…turnover?”
“I did. I came into some information.”
“Go on.”
“I met a guy who did some contract work for a company they hired to test their security system. He inadvertently uncovered some files proving it was all a scam to drive the stock price down.”
“God, Price. Out of all the people on the planet, how did you happen to find this particular guy?”
He smiled. “He found me. It was Otis.”
I nearly fell off my chair. “Otis?”
“Yeah. How do you think I found Leiloa? I found Otis first.”
“He’s just a kid.”
“He’s twenty-one, and a genius. He was contracting for a little company in the South Pacific, and Cybermark hired them to test their security. It makes perfect sense. They wouldn’t use some big corporate security firm. They’d find some obscure little guy who they could pay to keep quiet.”
“But Otis didn’t keep quiet.”
“Oh, he did. But he’s kind of like me. Curious. After my computer went down with the plane, I couldn’t contact my parents to get my backup files, so I had to begin again. Otis ended up finding me through my IP signature from my research.”
“He hacked you?”
Price smiled. “Yeah. He did. Good thing, too, because I wouldn’t have survived this past year without him.”
“Why didn’t you go to the authorities?”
“We can’t, Kate. Otis could go to prison.”
“Did he hack the system on purpose?”
“No. It was incidental to what he was hired to do.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
“The problem is, Kate, that their goons would fucking murder us before we could make a deal with the Feds. He and I have talked through this a million times, and it’s a no-win. We’ve managed to keep Otis’s identity a secret so far, and he doesn’t want to go to the authorities.”
I widened my eyes. “Is Otis even his real name?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know. I never told him my real name, not until the end.”
“Wow.” I let out a breath. “Just wow. I can’t believe this.”
“Believe it, and it gets worse.”
“Oh God.” I clutched at my stomach, feeling suddenly nauseated. “What else?”
“Otis kept digging. We found out some of these people aren’t just white-collar criminals. They’re into some nasty shit.”
“Oh God,” I said again. “Do I want to know?”
“The major shareholder of Cybermark is a man named Kelly Maguire.”
“And?”
“He’s a drug kingpin, Kate. Meth trade. And the Director of Corporate Relations, who was leaking the turnover news, is his lackey. His mouthpiece.”
My stomach threatened to empty as Price continued.
“And they don’t abide by anyone’s rules.”
Drugs? How did my sweet husband manage to get involved in this? All for some curiosity about a stock that wasn’t performing according to his system?
“How is this possible? How can you know this? Why hasn’t he been caught?”
“Because he’s clean, Kate. He owns the shares through a bunch of offshore holding companies, and he’s manipulating the stock price in the short term for a gain in the long term. His name isn’t associated with Cybermark in any way. I dug too deep. I’m onto them, and they know it.”
I stood, clutching at my stomach. “You said you had a theory about where the money for the startup came from. It’s drug money, isn’t it?”
“I honestly don’t know, baby, but that’s my guess, yes. The company is clean on paper, but it could have been laundered drug money.”
Acid rose in my throat, and my vision blurred. Drugs… Danger…
“Kate?” Price stood.
I fell into his arms.
Couldn’t see…
Couldn’t breathe…
“It’s okay. You just need to lie down.” He led me into the bedroom and helped me onto the king-size bed.
I was shivering. So cold. I looked into his warm brown eyes.
“Breathe. It’s okay, baby. I’m going to take care of you. I’m going to take care of us.”
I gradually got my breathing under control. All this time I’d wanted the whole story from him, and now…
Fuck. Ignorance had been bliss.
Drugs. Anything went in the drug business. Murder was an everyday occurrence. All in the name of the almighty dollar.
“Kate, baby. Talk to me.”
I wrapped my arms around Price’s neck and pulled him to me. “Don’t want to talk. Kiss me.”
He crushed his mouth to mine and I took from him, escaping the utter mess that our lives had become. Need overwhelmed me. I needed Price. Inside me. Now.
I kissed him frantically, nipping at his lips, sucking them into my mouth, twirling my tongue around his. Already my nipples were hardening, my pussy throbbing. I couldn’t get there quickly enough. Ached for him to shove his big cock into me and fuck me into oblivion. Suspend reality, if only for a moment.
I lowered one hand and worked at his belt. His cock was hard and ready.
“God, Kate,” he said against my chin.
“Now, Price. Please. Now.”
He lugged my jeans over my hips, and I shimmied out of them. I’d managed to unbuckle his belt and unzip his pants, and once his cock was free, he plunged inside me with a low groan.
Home. With Price, I was home. After his stunning revelation, I needed to feel the raw part of us, the component that made us uniquely us, the pleasure our bodies could give each other.
Soon he was panting against me, sweat dripping from his brow. “Can’t hold on. Need to come, Kate.”
With his words, I catapulted into the rapturous abyss with him, and for a few timeless moments we were safe, wrapped in each other’s guarded cloaks where nothing could harm us.
Chapter Sixteen
Price
As Kate slumbered in the hotel bed, I stared out the window. Outside, the city hummed with a steady flow of traffic and pedestrians. We could not be farther from our Leiloa oasis. This was our prison now…until we found a way out of this mess.
Part of me regretted letting Kate bring us back to New York. Her stunned reaction to the information I’d uncovered about Cybermark didn’t help. I pinched the bridge of my nose and exhaled heavily. Maybe I should have told her more, given her a clearer picture of who we were dealing with. If I had, perhaps we’d be sipping rum drinks somewhere off the Pacific coast right now. Not running for our lives.
Being at the hotel made me feel ma
rginally better. I had no doubt we were safer here, but I was still edgy and paranoid, ready to fight or flee at the first sign of danger. I knew sleep wouldn’t come easily, not until I had a plan. I settled behind the desk and opened my laptop again. I scrolled through my files, willing my brain to think harder and zero in on any details I may have missed.
Think. Think. Think.
The more I perused, the more my doubts grew. I couldn’t have been alone in my suspicions of Cybermark, could I? If no one else had uncovered anything suspicious, how would I?
Maybe my single point of view was the problem. If Kate was determined to expose Cybermark, she’d need more than my personal interpretation of what wrongdoing could be going on behind the scenes. Any reporter worth his salt would seek additional sources to fill in the gaps. Gaps that I’d failed to fill on my information-seeking mission in Zurich. Gaps I wasn’t willing to fill with findings that could threaten Otis’s freedom.
Slowly an idea began to form. I pulled up the articles related to the accounting department turnovers. I grabbed a pen and scratched the names of the ex-employees on the hotel stationery. If they knew anything incriminating, they’d likely never talk let alone risk their lives as I had. But it was a place to start.
Quickly I typed the first person’s name into my search bar. Victoria Williamson. I scanned the results. A profile on a business social network showed she still worked at Cybermark. Odd. I dug deeper and found her Facebook account, which appeared to have been abandoned. Nothing had been posted for over a year. My next hit was an obituary. For one hopeful moment, I assured myself that she simply shared a name with someone much older who’d passed on.
But no. Victoria Williamson had died in a tragic skiing accident in Chamonix, a resort nestled in the French Alps. Dread took root as I scratched a line through her name and searched for the next person on the list.
Marc LeBaron. The search returned an article as the first result. “Former Finance Executive Found Dead in Greenwood Lake.”
The meager contents of my stomach threatened to rise when I clicked the article. He’d died in what was believed to be a freak accident, having fallen from his boat during an early morning fishing trip. With a shaky hand, I scratched his name out and searched the next person on the list.
Misadventures Of A Good Wife Page 13