The Underwriting (27 page)

“I have some exciting news,” Nick continued. “As you know, we are set to take Hook public in just a few weeks.” He took a proud breath. He was beaming. “And as a public company we will be held to new standards of excellence.”

Brad chewed his burrito loudly. “Dude, can I get some ketchup?” he whispered to Juan, indicating Juan's condiment puddle. Juan passed him his container, no longer hungry.

“And our company board, led by the esteemed Phil Dalton of Dalton Henley Venture Partners, has decided that more experienced leadership is necessary to take the company to the next level. Which is why”—he paused and took an audible breath—“they've appointed me as Hook's new CEO, to replace Josh Hart, effective immediately.”

The room was still.

“We'll be rolling out some changes over the coming weeks,” Nick continued, “some little things to help the company run more smoothly. It's going to be hard work, guys: I've literally got to play two roles now, until we can find a new CFO. But I'm happy to do it for you, and for this company, and for our shareholders. I haven't got time for Q and A,” he went on, “but my new assistant, Tiffany”—he smiled across at a fake-tanned blonde, who waved and smiled—“has set up an e-mail account, questions-at-hook-dot-com, for any inquiries.”

No one in the room moved.

“Okay,” Nick said happily. “Back to work! Everyone have a great day!”

“I can't eat this.” Brad dropped his burrito, looking down at the remnants of chorizo and sour cream as if it were the broken pieces of a shattered dream. “I'm so upset, Juan-dizzle.”

Juan put his hand on his shoulder. “It's going to be okay, man,” he coaxed. “Who cares about Nick? We're about to make a lot of money. We'll quit and start our own thing.”

“I don't want to, bro.” Brad looked up, his brow pinched, guacamole on the corner of his lip. “I don't want to start something else. I want things to be like they were, only with me and you multigazillionaires.”

“Maybe it won't be so bad,” Juan said.

“It will,” Brad said gloomily, standing up with a pout like a six-foot-five child. “I'm going to the game room to play Halo. I need to be reminded of happier things.”

Juan sighed and went back to his computer, but he couldn't work. He read the news about Kelly Jacobson again without reopening the database. The media had reestablished its loyalty to the girl, turning instead on Robby Goodman, the rugby player RA whom police had arrested on charges of her murder.

Just do it
, he whispered to himself, closing his browser and navigating back to the server page.
Just do it, and then be done.

He held his breath, his hands hovering over the keyboard.

He typed in Robby Goodman's name. The college student's profile came up and loaded. Eighty-two meet-ups. Juan scoffed: this guy got around. He sorted by date and clicked to March 6.

Logged In: Xanadu, Stanford University.

Juan zoomed into the map and transposed it with Kelly's. The two dots were close, but they weren't together, far enough apart to be next door from each other, as Robby had said he was that night. That didn't mean anything; he'd probably just left his phone in his room when he went to Kelly's. Still, Juan searched again to find all users within a one-hundred-meter radius of Kelly at three a.m. A dot appeared right on top of hers: the same corrupted profile Juan had found the first time he'd searched Kelly's activity log.

“Shit.” Juan felt his heart beat in his throat. He shook his head and clicked out of the map. That didn't mean anything, either. Maybe Robby had gotten another phone to use to murder Kelly, and then hacked into the program to cover his tracks.

Robby didn't seem that clever.

Which meant he was innocent. He'd been in his room, asleep, when Kelly died, just like he'd said.

Juan closed his eyes and shook his head. “Why did you do that?” he whispered to himself.

TARA

F
RIDAY
, A
PRIL
18; N
EW
Y
ORK
, N
EW
Y
ORK

“Will you tell me what's really going on?” Tara asked Rachel. She was in the corner of an empty conference room, talking on her cell phone. Since the latest round of investigations into L.Cecil, the regulators had started recording all the landlines in the firm, and management had responded by casually suggesting that bankers handle potentially delicate calls on their personal devices.

“It was the best choice we had,” Rachel said, her voice tired.

“Best choice for what?”

“Do you really want to know?” Rachel asked. It sounded like she was asking whether Tara wanted to be told the details of a massacre.

“Yes,” Tara said.

“You really can't ever say anything.”

“What happened?” Tara looked down on Park Avenue. The gray sky was raining steadily, clouding the air so it was impossible to tell the time of day, adding to the sense she had that she was in some alternate universe.

“Phil Dalton is more than Hook's number-one investor,” Rachel said.

Tara waited.

“He's also Hook's number-one user.”

“Ugh.” Tara shook her head. “His poor wife.”

“Oh, she's fine with it,” Rachel said. “Their contract runs out in four years and she gets a twenty-million-dollar payout.”

“What?” Tara said. “They have a contract?”

“Phil's gay,” Rachel said. “It's not just that he's on Hook: he's on Hook with younger men.”

Tara's mouth fell open. “Phil Dalton is gay?” she asked. “Why doesn't he just come out?”

“I don't know,” Rachel said, “but he's not the only one, and he's one of the more G-rated.”

“Is that your business model?” Tara suddenly realized she'd never asked Rachel how she'd established herself at such a young age as the go-to PR rep for successful men in Silicon Valley. “To cover up private lifestyles of your clients?”

“There's a lot to cover up,” Rachel said. “Take socially awkward men, plop them into San Francisco, the sexual fetish mecca of America, and give them billions of dollars to play with? Trust me, I deserve every penny I earn to have to see what I see. Anyway, I guess Josh somehow got a hold of Phil's entire history on the app. Every outreach, every location of every hookup. Phil freaked out and told Josh to delete all the databases, and Josh refused to do it. So Phil offered to buy him out, at which point he put Nick in as CEO, knowing Nick won't say no.”

“I thought all the information Hook gathered was unidentifiable.” Tara felt a pit in her stomach: that should be in the disclosures. “Can they look up anyone's history?”

“Not anymore,” Rachel said. “Nick's erasing everything users don't directly provide.”

“Did Josh not care?” Tara asked. “That he's getting pushed out?”

“No,” Rachel said. “Josh doesn't care about the company, he just cares about power games. And he definitely established his power over Phil.”

“Wow.” Tara didn't know what else to say, thinking back on the first day in the fishbowl when Josh commented on her not using Hook. Had he looked up her history? Her skin crawled.

“Still, I'm sorry,” Rachel said. “I know it's not ideal for you guys.”

“It's okay,” Tara said. She was trying not to worry about how she was going to get to her sister's wedding with the deal still going on.

“In other news,” Rachel said, “Callum?”

Tara blushed. “I can't believe you did that.”

“But you're glad I did?”

“Yeah,” she admitted, thinking back on the dessert box. “We were supposed to go out here tomorrow but I had to cancel because of this.”

“No!” Rachel said. “Ugh. How does Josh Hart always find a way to ruin everything?”

“It's okay,” Tara said. “He's actually in London during the road show so we're going to get together then, assuming there aren't any more delays.”

“Fine. Just promise you'll sleep with him and all my work hasn't been in vain,” she said. “Oh shit.”

“What?”

“Hold on a sec.” Rachel switched to another line.

Tara looked back down at the street and watched a couple kiss on the corner, the woman tilting her umbrella out of the way and climbing under his long enough for a peck on the lips before they went their separate ways.

“Hey, Tara?” Rachel's voice came back to the line. “Can you do an interview on CNBC this afternoon?”

“What?”

“They got the news about Josh and need someone to answer a few questions. I can't do it, and I think putting Phil on is a bad idea. And I'm definitely not letting Nick on camera.”

“I've never—”

“You'll be great,” she said. “I'll give you what to say.”

“Yeah, I guess, but I don't know if L.Cecil will let me. I mean, compliance is—”

“I know your head of PR. I'll get it approved.”

“Okay,” Tara said, acknowledging her excitement. Her? On CNBC?

“Okay. Be at their studios at three. I'll send you the info. I gotta run.”

“Sure. Thanks, Rachel.”

“No sweat,” she said. “Talk to you soon.”

—

T
ARA
LEFT
THE
CONFERENCE
ROOM
and went straight to Terrence's desk, where she found her friend deep in concentration at his computer. He noticed her in his peripheral vision and held up a finger to indicate she should wait, without moving his eyes from the screen.

“Tom Ford on Gilt starting in five . . . four . . . three . . . two . . .” Terrence swung into action, clicking rapidly on the screen and typing in his credit card number with expert precision in a race against other buyers vying for the limited quantity of designer goods. “Come on, come on,” he coached the screen, waiting for the transaction to go through. “Yes!”

He looked up at Tara and smiled proudly. “Got it.”

“I am truly impressed,” she said, laughing. “But I need a media tutorial—can you spare an hour?”

“Darling, clearly,” Terrence said. “What's the occasion?”

“Me on CNBC—this afternoon.”

“This might truly be the greatest day of my professional career,” Terrence said, standing and grabbing his coat. “Come with me. We'll stop at Saks on the way.”

“Saks?”

He put his finger to her lips to stop her speaking, then moved it to silently point out her undereye circles, un-done hair and wrinkled blouse.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, I get it,” she said, following him to the door.

CHARLIE

F
RIDAY
, A
PRIL
18; P
ALO
A
LTO
, C
ALIFORNIA

“They're going to have to exhume the body,” Deb Stein, the attorney Charlie had hired to represent the family, said slowly but firmly.

“I know,” he told her, looking at his hands.

“Is your mother prepared for that?” Deb asked.

“Yes,” Charlie lied. How could a mother ever be prepared for any of this?

“They probably won't find anything new, but it's important to look at the body again with the lens of malintent.”

“I understand.”

“Semen will be lost, if there was any, but they'll check the body for signs of force and—”

“Yeah, I got it,” Charlie cut her off, standing up. “Is that all?”

“It's going to be harder than this in there, Charlie,” Deb said. Her brow was wrinkled with permanent exhaustion.

“I've seen worse,” Charlie said.

“It's different when it's your family.”

“I can handle it,” he repeated.

“I've got a friend,” Deb said softly. “She's really good at talking through this stuff. She works with people all the time who—”

“I don't need a shrink,” he snapped.

“Right.” She raised her hands apologetically, acknowledging she'd crossed the line.

He put on his jacket and walked to California Avenue. It was only four o'clock, but he went to Antonio's Nut House and ordered a beer, deciding it would be the first of many.

He took a seat in the corner and opened Kelly's journal again.

April 11, 2011

I can't believe I'm a Pi Phi. Like, how cool is that to say? Pledge week just started and it's amazing. I came out of class today and a really hot sophomore was waiting with a golf cart and a sign that had my name on it. He drove me home and gave me a candy basket and a Pi Beta Phi sweatshirt. I wore it all afternoon!! And now I'm getting ready to go to White Trash bowling. I was freaking out because I had no idea what to wear, but this other pledge, Emily, was on her way to Diddams so I went with her and we picked the most hilarious costumes. I know I said I'd never be in a sorority, but I think that was just because I didn't understand what they were. I was actually being hypocritical before—I thought sorority girls were shallow and judgmental, but really I was the one being judgmental of
them
. Sure, some of the girls I met at rush talked like valley girls and this one girl literally sticks her nose up in the air—I think it's like a medical condition—but most of them are
really nice
. This girl Jess gave me all her study notes when I told her I was stressed about this Chaucer midterm, and Emily and I stayed up until two a.m. yesterday to cheer up another pledge, Jennifer, when she texted to tell us she broke up with her boyfriend. That's
exactly
the kind of friends I want—people you can party with and who help you, not judge you, for studying, and who stay up late when you've hit a low point. Okay, maybe not all the girls are nice to everyone, but I don't know anyone who's nice to everyone. I think they're just more hated because they're more noticed. And they're more noticed because they're pretty. And that's not their fault. Wow—writing that . . . writing that and knowing that I'm one of them now . . . does that make me pretty? The kind of girl who gets noticed? I think I was the mistake. Or maybe they just picked me because I'm nice.