Showdown: Tech Billionaires

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Showdown: Tech Billionaires Page 22

by Ainsley St Claire


  “Most likely he was a bad lawyer,” Sara says.

  I nod. “That’s not our problem, but it could become our problem.”

  Sara flips pages as she looks through the contract. “This is interesting. Lilly was behind approaching SHN for the money, and unless my file is incomplete, there isn’t a change in the ownership split I just described. It looks like Lilly Duval is the CEO, and Mackenzie Robinson is actually the biomedical architect.”

  “Sounds like they staged a coup.” Mason turns to Sara. “I know you’re on a deadline. Thank you, this is exactly what we needed.”

  She nods and stands to leave.

  “Thank you, Sara,” I call after her.

  She smiles and waves as she closes the door behind her.

  “I’m considering having my estate attorney reach out to the company and ask for a meeting with Lilly,” I tell them. “I have no doubt Mackenzie knows Lilly was working for my family.”

  “She may still think that if he reaches out,” Mason says.

  I chew on the inside of my cheek. I’ve not done right by Lilly. If nothing else, I can attempt to salvage her company for her.

  Emerson looks at her phone. “Cecelia contributed to six companies, the maximum each time of twenty million dollars. One, Cerefood makes brain-developing baby food. Another, Gemstone, makes a cooking app… There’s one, Windy, in wind energy. Another one, Chaussures, exports shoes to Africa, and the last one, Surtest, is developing a biomedical device for drug testing.”

  She pushes some buttons on her phone and looks at William. “I just sent it over to Quinn Bettencourt. She’s one of our top project managers, and she may have an idea of where these are in development.”

  I turn to William. “Is Quinn any relation?”

  “She’s my wife,” he says with a grin.

  “How many couples work here?” I tease Mason.

  “A few,” he says with a shrug. “People meet their spouses at work all the time.”

  I know that’s directed at me.

  I text Jim.

  Me: We just got a list of six other companies Cecelia donated twenty million to like she did for Brain Bursts. Any luck with the account?

  Jim: I’m walking into Mason’s building.

  “Jim is just arriving,” I announce, and a moment later, he walks into the conference room.

  He has a file in hand and passes a packet of paper to me, Emerson, and Mason. The first page has all the details of the account Cecelia was using. It’s at a credit union where we did all of our banking before going public.

  “I think this is our old account at this bank,” I say.

  “You opened it when you were at the Naval Academy,” he confirms.

  “It wasn’t reported in our taxes,” I note.

  “It looks like Cecelia didn’t begin putting money into the account until earlier that year,” he explains. “The money she moved there would correspond with some of the concerns from the US Attorney’s office.”

  I nod, taking a deep breath. “I need to meet with my attorney and make sure those remaining at Brain Bursts know that the requirement to notify us of a departure from the plan outlined in the funding agreement they had with Cecelia doesn’t go away because she passed. As part of her estate, this stake in the company belongs to Katrina and Rebekah Lancaster, with my help.”

  “Let’s get him on the phone.”

  Quinn steps into the conference room. “Hello, everyone,” she says. “Brain Bursts is the only company to move beyond angel funding so far. Surtest has gone out of business. And the other three are considering other funding and are in our pipelines with various requests that are all pending.”

  “Is there any chance I can sit down and go through those with anyone?” Just as I get that out of my mouth, Dillon walks in.

  “I think that would be me,” he says. “Quinn threw me the names, and I went through them.” He looks at a paper in his hand. “It’s odd. Surtest got the money and almost immediately folded.”

  I sit up straight. “They didn’t have to give it back?”

  “Well, they got the money in the same round that Lilly did, and it was chaos, so they should have, but they didn’t.”

  I rub my hands over my face. “I’ll add that to the lawyer’s list to chase down on behalf of Cecelia’s estate.”

  “The others were probably able to last longer because what they’re building and the prototypes aren’t nearly as expensive.”

  I nod. “Okay. Let’s break this out for me.”

  Dillon spends the next hour going through each company’s proposal. When we get the information on Surtest, some of the names on the team involved seem familiar, but I can’t place them. It’s going to stick in my mind for a while.

  When we’re finished with that, we thank Dillon, and Jim nods, turning to the next order of business. “I understand from Miles that he was unable to locate Lilly’s mother.”

  I can’t look at him. I’m so angry with myself, and I can see his disappointment in me. “I have no idea what to do.”

  Emerson puts her pen down and cocks her head to the side. “I have an idea.” We all look at her. “We know Lilly’s looking for work. What if we were to put together a job description that speaks directly to her skills? It could be blind, so she wouldn’t know it was SHN posting the job.”

  “That sounds very sneaky,” I say. “I like it.”

  “I’ll get it put together and get it uploaded to all the sites.”

  “I just hope she doesn’t have a job already.”

  “Well, it’s barely been twenty-four hours.”

  “I know. But through her alumni network, she might have something. She’s not leaving any kind of digital footprint. What if she’s working on her own thing?”

  “We’ll try to find her some other way,” Emerson says.

  I smile, but I can feel the panic rising inside.

  When we’ve finished up at SHN, I dread going back to Mason and Caroline’s, but I can’t put it off any longer. I’ve already gotten more than an earful from my sister-in-law and Jim’s wife, Kate, about what I did. I’m mud to every female in my life. Fantastic.

  Caroline’s housekeeper has been keeping the girls fed, and Rod has been keeping an eye on them. They’ve been doing schoolwork all morning anyway.

  As I walk in from the garage, Bex comes running over. “Is Lilly here?”

  “No, sweetie.” I sigh. “But Uncle Jim has had someone reach out to all the nursing homes in the Bay Area, and we’re still looking.”

  Bex’s shoulders fall. “You really hurt her feelings, Dad.”

  “I know. But we talked about that, and I have a plan. We just need to find her.”

  “If you have to cry to get her to come back, you’d better cry,” Bex warns.

  “Don’t worry, I will,” I promise.

  Katrina has been standing back with her arms crossed. “I’m not going to Hawaii without her,” she says. “I’m not kidding.”

  “I know, sweetheart. I don’t want to go without her either.” I look around and can tell they’re baking something. “What are you making?”

  “Tamales. Regina’s showing us how to make them. She says whatever we don’t eat we can freeze and eat another time.”

  “Ohh, that sounds really yummy.”

  Since the girls don’t seem to need me, I head into Caroline’s home office to work some more on unraveling all this. Something is bugging me about the companies Cecelia invested in. Why haven’t I heard from any of them?

  I pull up Surtest, and they still have an active website. What they’re doing seems interesting. I pull up the address in Google Maps. It’s not that far from SHN and Clear Security’s office.

  I call them, but it just rings and rings. No one picks up, and no answering machine comes on. I decide to do a drive-by. I have Trevor bring the car around and give him the address.

  We have less than twenty blocks to go, but the traffic is miserable. We sit through at least six lights before we can c
ross Market Street.

  Trevor shakes his head. “I’m sorry, Mr. Lancaster. I didn’t think it would be so bad.”

  “Who’s in town?”

  He sighs. “Oprah.”

  “Oh, that explains it. It’s my fault, anyway. I’m the one who’s interested in knowing whether this company still exists.”

  It takes over an hour, but we’re finally in front of the building. Landon’s building is right next door.

  “Should I park and come in with you?” Trevor asks.

  “I don’t think so. I just want to check the directory. It should be right inside the door.”

  I walk into the lobby. It’s a three-story building with an elevator and a set of stairs. Not much here. I look over the directory, and Surtest is listed.

  “Nate?”

  I didn’t hear the outside door open, but I turn toward a voice I recognize. “Viviana, what are you doing here?”

  “I heard you were out of town—Whistler, right? I was so sorry to hear about Christina Daniels. She and Cecelia were joined at the hip.”

  “It was shocking, to say the least. It’s nice to see you. Are you visiting one of the companies in the building?”

  She gives me a warm smile. “Actually, I own the building, and I’m the primary investor in all the companies inside. I call it my technology incubator. I’m heating up all sorts of ventures.”

  I’m stunned. She’s never talked about this kind of investing before. I don’t say anything as I process the information. “I couldn’t remember if Landon’s company was in this building,” I say, covering my tracks, because I suddenly feel like I need to. “I was just peeking at the directory. That’s an impressive group of companies.”

  Viviana chuckles. “Well, I’m sure it’s nothing like what you invest in with your foundation, but we try.” She looks me over, and I’m not sure she’s buying my ruse. “Landon’s in the building next door.”

  “Ahhhh…” I make a big show of nodding. “Perfect. I think it’s great that you do so much to support entrepreneurs.”

  “I try.” She smiles, but it doesn’t reach her eyes, and I know something is up.

  “Well, thanks for directing me,” I tell her. “You saved me an embarrassing call to tell him I’m lost. I never remember which building.”

  I wave and walk to the car. Trevor rolls the window down as I approach. “What did you learn?”

  “Just follow along,” I mutter and begin pointing to the building next door. “I was at the wrong building. Landon’s next door. Go ahead and park and meet me there.”

  Trevor looks behind me, where he likely sees Viviana, and nods. “No problem. There’s a spot right there in front.”

  I wait for Trevor on the sidewalk as he moves the car. I know he has one eye on me and one hand on his gun the whole time.

  Once he’s parked, we walk into Landon’s building and ask the receptionist to see him.

  Claire, Landon’s sister and co-founder of their company, walks by while we wait. “Nate! What are you doing here?”

  “Actually, I need to make a phone call that can’t be overheard by any long-distance eavesdroppers.”

  Claire nods. “We have just the place.”

  She waves us in, and we follow her to a room full of servers. The constant whir of the fans and computers would make it difficult to record or listen in on anything.

  “Is everything okay?” she asks. “I heard you had to leave town.”

  “I don’t know. If you see Landon, you can let him know I’m here and need to talk to him ASAP? In the meantime, I’m calling Walker Clifton.”

  Her eyes grow big. “No problem.”

  As soon as she leaves, Trevor stations himself outside the door, and I dial Walker’s office.

  He picks up on the first ring. “What’s up, Nate?”

  “Hey. This is going to take a minute. Am I interrupting anything?”

  “I’ll clear my calendar. You sound like you’re in a wind tunnel.”

  “I’m in Landon’s server room.”

  There’s a moment of quiet. “What have you learned?”

  “Well, some of this is embarrassing, but quite a bit. To start with, Lilly wasn’t hired by Cecelia to be the nanny…” I take him through the angel funding and Cecelia’s convincing Lilly to stay for the weekend when she came to get the check.

  “Ooookay,” he says.

  I take a big breath. “When Lilly told me, I accused her of being the cause of Cecelia’s death.”

  “Oh, man,” Landon says behind me.

  I turn and find him standing with Tinsley and Claire.

  “I take it she wasn’t very happy with you,” Walker says.

  “That would be an understatement. She packed her bag and flew back here. But she left behind a box of her personal papers, and I’ve gone through the whole thing. There are all sorts of documents in there, and also a beautiful, handwritten note from Cecelia.”

  “She wrote great notes,” Walker agrees.

  I look up to see everyone smiling at a memory of one of her notes.

  “I understand why Lilly would have stayed with the girls for the weekend, and honestly, I begged her to stay when I returned from Las Vegas. I didn’t even realize she wasn’t being paid for the first six months. That should have been a giant clue...” I was such a mess in those early weeks and months after Cecelia disappeared.

  “But you learned something else,” Walker prompts.

  I tell him about the credit union account and the Women in Tech Shark Tank. “That’s why Cecelia was moving money around. She wasn’t hiding it from me or paying someone off, as you suspected. I think she just wanted to do some investing on her own. She gave a hundred million dollars to a bunch of tech startups.”

  “And you have proof?”

  “I have a copy of the check Lilly got from Cecelia, and Quinn Bettencourt at SHN is working on the others. One of the companies she invested in was called Surtest. It’s not clear whether they’re still in business, but they have a website, and their phone number is still connected. No one answered when I called, but it works.”

  “You should leave the investigating to my staff, but what you’ve found is impressive,” Walker says. “We were looking for a connection between Viviana and Cecelia.”

  Viviana? We were all friends. Why would they think… Holy crap. “I think I found a bigger one.” I’m beginning to sweat. “I went to the address.”

  Claire covers her mouth in shock.

  “I only wanted to see if they were listed on the directory.”

  Walker is alert. “What did you find?”

  “I ran into Viviana Prentis in the lobby.”

  “What did she say to you?” Walker asks, his voice dropping low.

  “She told me she was the major investor in all the businesses in the building.” It’s quiet a moment, and something occurs to me. “Shit, she knew I’d been out of town—fuck. She knew I was in Whistler. I didn’t tell her where I’d been, and most people didn’t know.”

  “You need to get to Maui tonight,” Walker presses.

  “I can’t go without Lilly, and we still don’t know where she is.”

  “It’s too dangerous to stay. You have to go. There’s more developing that I can’t tell you about, but you need to go now. I’m dispatching the Marshals Service to the corner of the street, and I want them to take you to the girls and then you go. No stopping. No arguments from the girls. You’ve just uncovered the link we needed to arrest Viviana for Cecelia’s death. Her partner is Russian mob.”

  I feel like I’m going to vomit. I sit down hard on the floor and hold my head. “How the fuck did Cecelia get involved in this shit?”

  “We think she was targeted because of her brother,” Walker says. “Promise me you and the girls will leave tonight.”

  “Yes. Yes, of course.”

  “I’ll send you a text message once the marshals are in place. I want you to follow them out, and they’re going to go through lights. Do not stop. Get th
e girls packed and ready. Take the helicopter to SFO from Jackson’s place and go to Maui.”

  “Of course.”

  I hang up and relay everything to Trevor. He puts a call in to Charlie while I call Katrina at Mason and Caroline’s.

  “Put all your things in the suitcase now,” I tell her. “We need to leave.”

  “I already told you, I’m not leaving without Lilly,” she says, dripping in belligerence.

  “We’re putting Lilly in danger by looking for her and by being here. The FBI is going to arrest someone else in conjunction with your mother’s death, and it’s someone Mommy and I knew. She’s behind all the craziness at the wedding in Italy and at the condo in Whistler.”

  There’s silence, and I know she’s trying to formulate a rebuttal.

  “Sweetie, I have people looking for Lilly, but we need to go. We’ll find her. I will beg her to come back, I miss her more than you’ll ever know. But I can’t risk losing you or Bex or Lilly. Please.”

  She sighs. “Okay, we’ll be ready.”

  Trevor looks at me. “The roads are chaos. Jim thinks we should load up the girls with a team of four and have them drive to Jackson’s. It will take us as long to get there as it would to get back to Alta Park and Mason and Caroline’s place.”

  I nod. “I’ll let the girls know.”

  I call Katrina back, and the plan is in motion. The girls will make their way downtown while I’m coming in from the other direction. And Viviana, yet another person I thought I knew, is behind Cecelia’s death. This sucks.

  Chapter 25

  Nate

  I beat the girls to Jackson’s office, and I use the extra time to check in with him and Corrine.

  We talk about our arrival in Maui and the plans Jim’s team has made in preparation for us. Then it occurs to me. “Corrine, who are the donors to the Foundation?”

  “Well, we have over fifteen hundred,” she says. “Are you looking for someone specifically?”

  “I’m curious about Christina Daniels.”

  Corrine nods. “She has been a donor, yes. I think it’s a bit of a fuck you to her ex because her name’s on the donation, but he pays for it. But, I don’t think he cares. They’ve got plenty of money.”

 

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