Tracy shrugs. “Calculated risks.”
“You suspected it was Robert who leaked information to Strauss. It was never about being in the weeds of our numbers to spot a solution. It was about being with Alex to spot a clue.”
“So you spotted a clue, then?” she asks.
“Tracy!”
She sighs and sits down, and gestures for me to do the same. Hollowly, I thunk down in the chair across from her. “The day you and Alex filmed with Saanvi outside of our building? I was there, across the street, coming back from a meeting nearby. I saw you two together, the way you looked at each other, and…” She winces. “I used you. Just like you used him.”
She phrased it like that precisely so I wouldn’t have room to get angry.
“What exactly do you suspect Robert Harrison of?” I whisper.
She gives me a flat look. “I suspect him of preferring to see LC torn apart than in the hands of his college enemy. I suspect him of cutting a deal with Strauss—maybe a seat on their board in exchange for proof that LC is a good investment. Something like Bite the Hand, for example. I suspect him of violating his noncompete and breaking confidentiality. And I suspect that’s just the tip of the iceberg.”
I scoff. “That all?”
“Casey,” she says. “What. Do. You. Know?”
I shake my head, ignoring the question. “You were hoping I’d come to you like this one day. I was your Hail Mary. All those bread crumbs you left me—”
“Casey,” Tracy says again, growing impatient. “I’m not going to apologize for doing every last thing I can to save this company. I don’t think you would, either, in my shoes. Now, tell me what you know. You’re here for a reason, and it isn’t because you read my diary.”
All of a sudden, I’m blinking back tears. “The Strauss logo was in Robert’s house,” I whisper.
“And?” Tracy probes.
And Alex gave the entire launch plan to his father on a silver platter.
I bite my lip. “That’s all I know.”
She narrows her eyes. “You’re lying. You’re very easy to read.”
“That’s all I’m saying,” I amend. “That’s all you’re getting.”
Tracy rubs her forehead. “If Alex is involved, you should tell me. What’s happening to Little Cooper is manipulative and wrong—”
“Alex knows nothing about this,” I spit. “If anyone’s doing the manipulating here, it’s you and Robert Harrison.”
She looks at me for a long moment and sighs, defeated. “Well. I guess I had a hand in why you’re protecting that kid. I pushed you toward him myself. But all you gave me today is a rumor.” She opens her laptop, signaling the end of our chat. “To stop this acquisition, I’m going to need proof.”
* * *
“This,” Alex says, low and careful. “Is ridiculous. Ridiculous, Casey.”
“Robert said the words ‘Don’t be so sure about that,’” I argue. “When you called him an early retiree. I was there that day. I heard it.”
Alex exhales a hollow laugh, throwing up his hands. “You think when he said that, he was giving me some vague, familial clue he’s planning a hostile corporate takeover—”
“Not a takeover—”
“Of a company he chose to step down from—”
“And willingly left to his nemesis?”
“After spending twenty-five years at LC—”
“I saw the Strauss Holdings logo in his town house. What are the odds, Alex? What are the odds the acquiring company’s logo—”
“Don’t even get me started on that,” Alex interrupts, pointing at me. “I can’t believe you spoke to Tracy about this before you spoke to me.”
Because you would have talked me out of it, I think. And I would have let you.
He groans loudly. Outside the conference room we’re in, an intern stops to stare at us. I glance at her out of the corner of my eye before stepping back from Alex. Like a magnet, I drew too close. He’s looking at me with molten eyes, his defenses on full guard. But he’s not just angry. He’s hurt. And like a wounded animal, he’s lashing out.
“Alex,” I whisper. “Robert didn’t want you working here, and then all of a sudden he did.”
He shudders, stepping farther back from me, and I know I’m hurting him worse, but I have to get this out.
“Because he realized your job description fit into his agenda. He’s probably been planning this from the moment Dougie weaseled his way into the CEO seat. If he couldn’t have LC unspoiled, Robert was going to dismantle it. All he needed was the right opportunity and a motivated buyer.”
Alex’s voice is rocky. “What does any of that have to do with me?”
“In your apartment, he challenged you to see this launch through. He offered to help you with the presentation not because he thought you would succeed, but because he was deliberately setting you up to fail. Think about it. I’d put money on him leaking that presentation, and then Strauss upping their offer of purchase after they saw it. Tracy confirmed as much.”
I say my piece, then snap my lips together. There’s no sense of victory here. No thrill at possibly cracking this case. But I can’t keep secrets anymore, and that includes what’s going through my mind.
He sighs, like the fight’s gone out of him. “I want you to consider,” he says, “the possibility that this is a story you concocted in your head, a loose end you want wrapped up before you go to London, so you won’t think of Tracy Garcia as a mentor you never proved your worth to.”
My nose wrinkles, his blow landing. We’re slicing each other open right now, trading wounds. I picture Tracy and me in the break room—how eager I was to please her, how she knew it, how it’s coming back to ruin me now. But as frustrated as I am at being used, I can’t even deny that she’s anything other than a fighter, and a leader.
“It wasn’t about proving myself,” I say. “I’m trying to keep this company alive so I’m not in a constant panic over everybody’s job security, including mine. I just accepted a new job! In a foreign country! And Molly told me it was a risk, but I did it anyway! Fari and Brijesh—they have good situations here, which I know because they’ve told me—”
“Companies get bought,” he says. “It’s normal. You’re desperate to find a villain, but there isn’t one. It’s just business.”
“If I’m desperate to find a villain, you’re desperate not to find one,” I counter. “But maybe it’s closer to somewhere in the middle. Your father might not be all bad. But from what you’ve told me, he isn’t all good, either.”
Alex’s mouth pulls into a flat line. He stares at a spot over my shoulder, unseeing. “Can you blame me for searching for the good in him, Casey? Please don’t act like you don’t understand. I’ve seen the way you try to measure up to your own parents.”
And I do. Understand. I’ve always wanted to be the type of person they would be proud of. When it comes to his dad, Alex wants exactly the same. But him saying it—him naming the feeling—is what finally cracks open the lie.