about six o’clock. Taking a series of taxis, making sure she wasn’t followed, she arrived at a nondescript Italian diner in Queens around seven.
He was at the table, waiting for her.
Lexi sat down. “Have all the transfers been made?”
“As agreed. Seventy percent for you, thirty for me. A bit harsh really, considering I did all the work,” he joked.
Lexi laughed. “Yeah, and I took all the risk. I staked every penny I have on borrowing the additional stock we needed. I broke my own company—begged, borrowed and stole.” She pushed the thought of Gabe from her mind. “If the market hadn’t panicked, I’d have been wiped out.”
“But they did, though, didn’t they?” Carl Kolepp grinned. “How do you feel?”
Lexi grinned back. “Rich.”
“Good. The spaghetti’s on you.”
They ate and celebrated. What they’d done was completely illegal. Short selling was one thing. But manipulating a company’s stock price through an orchestrated campaign of misinformation? That was something else. Lexi had used her inside knowledge to defraud shareholders. If she and Carl were caught, they were both looking at a long stretch of prison time.
But we won’t be caught.
This time Lexi had covered her tracks completely. All threads linking her to Carl Kolepp had been meticulously destroyed. Unless one or the other of them confessed, they were home free.
Carl asked Lexi: “So what’ll you do now? Buy yourself an island somewhere peaceful? Fill your swimming pool with Cristal?”
The suggestion seemed to amuse her.
“Of course not. This is where the real work begins.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m going to rebuild the company, of course. Buy back all the decent businesses. Get rid of all the dross Max acquired in the last ten years. I’ve halved my own score. Now I’m going to double my opponents’.”
“Excuse me?”
Lexi laughed. “Forget about it. Private joke.”
“Let me get this straight.” Carl Kolepp looked puzzled. “You bankrupted your own company just so you could rebuild it?”
“Uh-huh. I lost so I could win.”
“Has anyone ever told you you’re a little bit nuts?”
Lexi smiled. “A few people. Apparently it runs in my family.”
TWENTY-SIX
FELICITY TENNANT WAS DEPRESSED. SHUFFLING OUT TO the mailbox in her pajamas, she did not return her neighbors’ cheery waves on this glorious, sunny September morning. Behind Felicity stood the idyllic white clapboard house where she and her husband, David, had lived happily and harmoniously throughout twenty years of marriage. Until last month.
First rule of a happy marriage: Get Your Husband Out of the House.
Ever since David quit his job at Templeton, he’d been moping around at home like a bear with a sore head, getting under Felicity’s feet. For reasons Felicity did not understand, they had apparently lost a lot of money. David was even talking about selling the house and moving somewhere more modest. Perhaps even leaving Westchester County.
Over my dead body.
The morning mail did not lift Felicity’s spirits. Bills, bills and more bills. There was only one white envelope among the brown and red. (Red bills! The shame of it!) Felicity would have liked to open it, but David got terribly prickly when she opened his mail. Then again, David got terribly prickly about everything at the moment.
“Here.” Back in the kitchen, she handed him the letter, along with the bills. “For you.”
David Tennant opened the envelope without interest. Since Templeton folded, it was as if a black cloud had descended over his life. Nothing seemed to matter anymore. Inside the envelope was a note and a check. David Tennant read both. Twice. Felicity noticed that his hands had started to shake.
“What? What is it?”
He handed her the note.
Dear David, I am sorry this has taken so long. And I’m sorry I was not able to be more open with you. I hope this check will go some way toward restoring your faith in me. Your friend, Lexi
“Humph.” Felicity Tennant was unimpressed. “Guilty conscience got the better of her, has it? It’s about time. Your friend, indeed! After the way Her Ladyship has treated us.”
Silently, David Tennant passed his wife the check.
“Jesus, Mary and Joseph!” Felicity Tennant clutched the kitchen table for support.
The check was for $15 million.
It was going to be a good day after all.
Yasmin Ross smiled at her boss when he walked into the office.
“Morning Mr. M. The mail’s on your desk, next to the latte and skinny blueberry muffin. I moved the morning meeting to a quarter after so you’d have time to eat something.”
Gabe smiled back gratefully
“Yaz, you’re an angel.”
Poor man. Yasmin watched him go into his office, shoulders slumped, head down.