“You didn’t go with her?”
“Umm…” He clears his throat. “She, uh, asked me not to go with her because we kind of turned it into a competition the last time we ran together.”
I can imagine—those two have elevated fighting into foreplay. “Couples run didn’t go so well, huh?”
“There might have been puking at the end.”
I laugh because it’s so typical of them. “You or her?”
“Me,” he says sheepishly.
That sounds typical too. “That… is exactly what I expected.”
There’s a beat where we’re almost back to how things used to be. For a moment. And then the silence hangs too long and we’re awkward and strained again.
“What do you need?” Finn asks briskly.
“I’m going through Fuchs’s office again today. He’s got to have stuff hidden in there, locked up nice and tight. I wanted to ask you what I might expect to find. Since you’ve snuck in there once before.”
Finn isn’t exactly vain, but he is justifiably proud of his hacking skills. And his trip into Corvus was pretty damn amazing.
“Unless he went completely off the rails for the security in his office,” Finn says, “it’s probably the same shit he was using to lock up the rest of Corvus. I can send you the specs of what I saw and loan you some of my equipment. Minerva didn’t have a complete map of all his hidey-holes for you?”
“There was some stuff he kept even from her. I figure it can’t hurt to go through his office again.”
“What are you looking for in there? Because you’re searching for something.”
My jaw clamps shut. How the hell did Finn figure that out? It’s none of his business what I’m doing.
Slowly I force the muscles in my face to release. Of course Finn had to suspect something was up. I’ve asked him and Minerva about getting into hidden files within Corvus—my interest is too deep to be casual.
“I think Fuchs has something… something from my childhood.” I’m not ready to give him any more than that.
“Oh.” It’s all Finn says for a while. And I’m not planning on saying anything else. “Well, if you need help cracking encryption or whatever on any files you find, let me know.”
His offer is stiff, a touch hesitant. Not like how Finn would have offered before. But he did offer.
“Thanks.” I put my very real gratitude into that. “For all your help. I hope one day I can tell you everything behind this.”
Anjelica would be so pleased. I’ve made a move, offered some of my rationale and even my past to Finn. This is what she said she wanted.
“Me too.” Finn doesn’t sound as satisfied as I expected. “When are you going to let Doc into those archives to find all the files on her brother?”
I picture Doc going through the archives, finding my birth records before I can, sharing them with Finn, the two of them knowing my parents first. Or worse, Doc seeing them and passing them by, not knowing what they are. The records might remain buried, so close to discovery, just hiding in plain sight for who knows how much longer.
No. I don’t want her in there. Or Finn or anyone else. I have to be the first. I have to find it, and then they can go wild in there. But the first discovery is mine.
“Minerva gave her all the records already.” My tone is flat. Blank.
“We don’t know that it was all of them. Not even Minerva knows that.” Finn’s voice is rising into true anger. “Seriously, what the fuck is your problem? What are you hiding in those archives?”
“Nothing.” The bite in my voice surprises me. “I’m not hiding anything. I’m looking for it.”
“What is it then?”
Why can’t I just tell him? What the hell is wrong with me that I have to be so damn secretive?
Because even when the people surrounding me are showing they can be trusted, have been doing it for years, I still can’t believe it. I’m… blocked. Like, fundamentally blocked, wrong compared to the rest of them. Anjelica seems to think I can magically be different, but she doesn’t understand.
I exhale. “I’m not ready to say what it is. But when I find it, Doc is free to search the archives. I can promise that.”
Even giving Finn that much is making my jaw clench, my fists curl. But I did it.
When Finn speaks again, he’s resigned. Like he’s starting to give up on me. “Okay, man. I’ll bring that stuff for you into work today.”
I want to tell him wait, that I can tell him more. And then just tell him everything. From being left at the fire station all the way to yesterday when Anjelica and I finally reconnected. Really, truly reconnected.
But I don’t, because I can’t unlearn a lifetime of instincts in a few seconds.
“Thanks. I’ll see you there.”
I hang up and wonder what Anjelica would have made of all that.
Chapter 17
This meeting with Helen isn’t going as well as my first one. In fact, it’s awful.
I sigh, look at the numbers she’s given me again. “I’m sorry, but the subscriber numbers are going down? Like, the actual number of subscribers?”
After all the rosy growth projections Helen has given me, the user base is shrinking. People are canceling their subscriptions—and more people aren’t signing up fast enough to make up the loss.
This is very bad. This looks fatal for Helen’s company. My company too, since I’m an investor.
“We couldn’t push the update we promised,” she says. “And the marketing isn’t… It’s just not working.”
“The marketing person has no idea why it’s not?”
Helen shakes her hanging head. “No. I don’t know enough about it to help her, and I don’t know how it’s going wrong.”
My first instinct is to comfort her, tell her everything will be okay. That I’ll make everything okay.
But I’m not her fairy godmother. I can’t grant her wishes—I need to give her some tough love.
“This is bad.” I look her straight in the eye. “Very bad.”
Helen purses her mouth. “I know. But I don’t want to fire my head of marketing. She’s so nice.”
I don’t want her to fire the woman either. But a subscription app without subscribers isn’t going to survive.
“Let’s bring in a consultant to look at what’s going on, give some suggestions,” I say. “But if things don’t turn around, she’ll have to go.”
Helen nods in relief.
“Now, let’s talk about the missed update,” I say. “And the falling subscriber numbers.”
Helen’s relief vanishes. “That was all my fault. I pushed the developers to get the update out, hyped it to the subscribers, promised it by a certain date, but it had a bug in it. A major one. I didn’t let them do enough testing, then I pushed the update… and the app crashed. Completely.”
The blood drains out of my face as she tells me that. When she’s done, my cheeks are cold. “And then people started canceling.”
Helen swallows hard. “Yes. But I reverted back to the old version as soon as we found out.”
Not before she pissed off enough subscribers for them to cancel. “So the app broke and there’s still no update. What do the reviews on the app store look like now?”
“Bad,” Helen says faintly.
The entire situation is more than bad, but she already realizes that.
“That update needs to be out. Immediately. And it needs to be so amazing it knocks the current subscribers’ socks off. So amazing even nonsubscribers are blown away.”
Helen licks her lips. “Right. I completely understand.”
She slinks out of my office, her shoulders slumped. I feel like the wicked witch, but it had to be done. If things don’t turn around and fast, Helen’s dreams will go up in flames.
Still, I wish I didn’t have to be the bad guy. I prop my chin in my hand and ponder my orchids, trying to find a calm center. I need to do some clipping in there—I just haven’t had the time, between
becoming partner and helping Dev.
Dev. I let my head tilt to the side and my mouth stretch in a dreamy smile. Last night was amazing. He did exactly what he promised—blew me apart with pleasure and put me all back together again, without even taking off his clothes.
I shouldn’t be imagining what it might be like if he did take his clothes off. I know that would be dangerous—my heart wouldn’t survive it. I’d fall completely for him then and he’s… he’s still so alone.
My smile dies. If I fall for him, give in completely to what’s between us, I worry that I’ll always be the only person he has. The only one he ever lets in.
Finding his parents’ identity might help. He might finally be able to see past his childhood then. But even if he could see past it, would that be enough to make him imagine a bigger future? One involving more than just me and him, together? Because we can’t be a bubble of just two.
I don’t know. I just don’t know. It felt so right last night, but when I consider everything, there’s still so much to overcome with him. I can’t puzzle my way out of it.
There’s a quiet knock at the door. Without even turning, I know it’s Dev—that’s how he knocks at my door. My body immediately lights up even before I’ve seen him.
And when I do see him leaning in the doorway, wearing a shirt that outlines his lean muscles, his soft jeans hugging his hips and thighs, my body goes incendiary.
“Hey,” I say, breathless as a teenager seeing her crush.
He smiles kind of shyly, and it’s like a roundhouse kick to my heart. He had me screaming his name last night with that mouth and he smiles like that? Gah.
“Hey.” His voice is deep and scratchy and makes my toes curl.
We simply look at each other, him smiling like that and me probably looking starstruck. What happened last night hangs between us, light and bouncy as a balloon.
“Are you ready?” he asks.
My mood drops some. We’re going to search Fuchs’s office today, and I don’t like the idea of what we might find. He collected secrets, dirty ones—I’m not expecting to find anything I want to see.
Dev, however, has an energy in him—a touch anxious but also excited. He must be hoping he’ll find something about his parents.
I want to be excited for him, but I can’t help my unease. I just can’t shake the feeling that even if he finds what he’s looking for, it won’t be enough.
“Yep” is all I say though. I grab my purse and we’re off.
The Corvus building is the creepiest office space in Silicon Valley. Maybe even the entire world. The security guards at the front desk look a little nicer now, but they still have to buzz us in because there are no handles on the doors. Any of them.
In the hallways, people have put up printed signs to show where things are. And they’ve gotten creative with it—a break room has been renamed the Feasting Hall, and the name they’ve given the bathroom makes me blush.
Dev has a pass card that lets him in all the doors, the locks clicking open at his merest approach. The entire building seems to bend to him. As the employees pass by us, they make eye contact and nod to him. There’s a palpable sense of relief in them as they do. Like people waking up from an awful nightmare.
Once we’re in the elevator to the floor with Fuchs’s office—yes, he took an entire floor for himself—I turn to Dev. “Do they know you’re shuttering the company?”
“I’ve told them.” He’s wearing his impassive mask again. “I’ve also brought in an entire team to help them look for new jobs. And I’ve promised that no one will be let go for at least another year.”
I suppose that’s fair. “They look at you… It’s interesting how they look at you. Like you’ve rescued them even though you’re shutting them down.”
His reserve cracks a hair. “I’m not Fuchs. That’s why they look at me like that. They’re not as afraid of me.”
He’s tearing apart their company and putting them out of a job, and they’re not as afraid of him as their old boss. Which is pretty damning for Fuchs.
The elevator comes to a stop, but the doors don’t open. And don’t open.
My heart slams against my ribs. I don’t like this. Not at all.
Then Dev reaches forward and presses his thumb against a pad. A light comes on and scans his face. Finally the doors slide open.
I suck in a deep breath as I rush through them. “Oh God, I thought we were stuck.”
Dev follows behind me, calm as ever. “No, just Fuchs’s insane security measures. Minerva was the only employee ever allowed up here.”
“Not even the janitor crew?”
He shakes his head. “Minerva had to clean it.”
I can’t say that I like Minerva even though Elliot loves her and she makes him happy, but hearing that makes me feel for her. She really was in Fuchs’s thrall. Or pretending to be.
There’s a short hallway—nothing in it—and another set of doors. No knobs on those either.
“You’re kidding me,” I say.
Dev’s got a wry expression on his face as he walks up. He puts his hand on a palm scanner and lets yet another console scan his face. “What, you think this is too much?”
“Clearly Fuchs didn’t.”
The door swings open silently, eerily. I’m half expecting a mummy or a ghost to pop out. But nothing does.
I take two careful steps inside. It’s a massive open space with enclosed glass cases like you’d find in a museum. The cases are filled with sleek ceramic sculptures done in whites and grays and blacks without any defining features. They’ve all been smoothed into blankness.
“I’m told the pieces are very valuable,” Dev says. “I don’t know anything about art.”
They look expensive. And cold. I get the sense that was the artist’s idea, to make me feel unsettled when I look at them.
At the end of the room is a desk. There’s nothing on it and nothing under it. It’s simply a sheet of glass held up by four thin legs. No drawers, no computer, no pens, no paper.
Now this is an impersonal space. Dev’s bedroom is bursting with personality compared to this.
“Did he make it this creepy on purpose?” I ask.
Dev is messing with some kind of console on the wall. He’s got a duffel bag open at his feet, with electronics peeping out of it. “Maybe. He probably thought it looked cool and had the added benefit of freaking people out. Not that anyone else saw it.”
“What did Minerva say about it?”
“She only told me how to open everything—she didn’t give an opinion.”
No, she wouldn’t. In her own way, Minerva is as closemouthed as Dev. I read the plaques under each sculpture, listing the artist’s name—Kee Grantland—the year they were made, and the name of the piece. The names are deeply weird, like they were pulled from a random word generator. Bucket Awful and Exclude Receipts are some of the more normal ones.
I feel like I’m missing something with the sculptures. Like Fuchs has hidden some meaning within them that I’m this close to grasping. He’s not an art guy, so why these? Yes, they’re creepy and valuable, but…
I squint at one of the… forms, a cylinder of deep, gleaming black. If there’s a deeper meaning in the art, I’m not seeing it. But what would Fuchs see when he looked at these? Because he was the only one who did once the pieces were here.
Or maybe I’m searching too hard for a meaning. Maybe there is none.
Dev makes a small noise of triumph, pulling me out of my thoughts. He steps back from the console, which is lit up.
Light suddenly pours onto each of the sculptures. Somehow they look even stranger with light bouncing off the polished surfaces, banging into the odd angles of them.
Dev points to one of them. “I want to get this case open.”
So he feels there’s more to the sculptures too. I look at the case nearest me, a square of impenetrable plexiglass. There’s no opening I can see. I could try to lift it off, but I won’t be able to raise it hi
gh enough to clear the sculpture.
“Is there a way in?”
Dev is studying his case. “That’s what I’m trying to figure out.”
“What do you think is inside?”
“Maybe nothing.” But the way he’s looking at that case, I don’t think he believes that.
I suddenly want so badly for him to find what he’s searching for. After last night I want… I want him. But he needs to get closure on this before he can move forward with anything. With me or with the Bastards.
I resist the urge to cross my fingers as he examines the case from all sides, putting a hand on one corner. I’m not sure what he’s looking for since it looks very solid and seamless to me.
“Hmm.” He steps back. “I wonder if this will work.”
He goes back to the console in the wall and pulls some electronics from the duffel bag. I’m not sure what he’s doing—he plugs the electronics into the console, and numbers pop up on the screen of the electronic thingy. And that’s about the extent of my knowledge about whatever’s happening.
It seems to take forever, although it can’t be more than a minute. I’m holding my breath instead of crossing my fingers, waiting for something to happen for him.
There’s a whoosh of air from all the cases, which makes me jump. “What the heck?”
Dev doesn’t react. He acts like he was expecting it.
With a slow lurch, the cases rise in the air, propelled by small legs that were hidden inside the bases.
“Oh.” I put my hand over my mouth. I never expected something like this. I reach for the sculpture nearest me and pick it up.
Immediately an alarm starts to blare. I put the sculpture back as quick as I can, my heart pounding. The alarm keeps going.
“Shit,” I hiss.
Dev is laughing, almost doubled over with it. “What did you think would happen?”
I don’t think it’s that funny. “So he never even picked them up once they were open? He’s the only person up here! Even when it’s just him, he can’t let anyone touch his stuff. He’s pathological.”
Private Disclosures Page 12
