"What about my degree?" I ask. "Wouldn't they think it's a little suspicious?"
"You can leave that out. Maybe, maybe not. I don't know. But definitely mention your bachelor's. We can figure out the details if you're interested."
“So, what would I do?"
"Work for him. Figure out how he works, what makes him tick, maybe get access to some of his internal files. I mean, you will be doing all that, and I want to confirm my suspicions. If you tell me that there's nothing shady going on, then that's it. We let it go. I'm wrong. But I just can't help but wonder that my investors are losing a lot of money. They're getting swindled. I don't want to be a part of that, no matter what kind of deal Cedar made on their behalf."
We talk about that for quite some time. He's not so much trying to convince me to do it, but just putting it out there as an option.
I would be lying if I said that it didn't intrigue me.
"Is this here?" I ask.
"No. That's the other thing. It's in Seattle."
"Seattle?"
"Have you ever been there?" I shake my head no. "Well, I'd have no problem putting you up in a hotel. Whatever you need. Or renting you some short-stay apartment."
"So I'd have to move to Seattle?"
"It would be a longer term thing. I mean, it'd probably take, what, six months? I don't know how long. But he'd have to trust you."
I nod. “Some of that proposition is a lot less enticing. This is like a full-time job, and that's if I can get it."
"It's true." He nods.
Suddenly, the question of where we stand in our relationship comes up, but I don't want to be the first one to bring it up.
We have just met. We connected. This is unfair, this talk about ... so early in whatever it is that this is.
"I travel a lot for work," Dante says. "I can take some time off, but not much. I don't have that much leeway. But we can see each other and I can visit you in Seattle if this works out just as easily as I could visit you here."
I smile. This warms my heart. "Really?"
He nods. "Really."
"Okay. I'll think about it."
20
Dante
I feel bad that I haven't told her the truth about everything. But when I saw her on the beach, we started talking. Then we were going on that date, it was like I suddenly got to be with her again and I remembered what it was like and how good it felt and I didn't want to ruin it.
After Jacqueline had a fight with Allison, we spend the day at the beach. I pack a lunch and an umbrella and a cooler full of cold drinks, and we swim and make out in the ocean.
We hold hands and play and laugh. We have the most perfect day. And while she reads stuff on her phone, I catch up on some emails.
I'm putting in a lot of extra hours at work to pay off the debt that she doesn't know that I owe. The money that I paid for her mother's treatment came partly from my trust fund and partly from…elsewhere.
I keep waiting for one of the companies that we had invested in to be sold. But they're hang-ups, nothing outrageous or unexpected, but every time there's a delay, it means that there's a delay in the money that comes back to me.
The thing is that the trust fund is not the only place where I had borrowed the money from. I was short and I needed to do this for her because of the mistakes that I had made. So I borrowed about seventy-five from very bad people.
This is part of the secrets and the lies that Jacqueline can never know.
She thinks the money all came from me. But I owe debts, which I don't know how to pay back.
Life would be so much easier if Cedar had told me the truth about his investments with Vasko. I have suspicions about the kickbacks and the fact that he's using this infusion of cash to raise other money or perhaps pay back debtors that he's beholden to. Not that I would allow him to do that.
The duty that I owe my investors, I take very seriously. If they find out that Apex Capital is involved in some sort of scam, they will pull out. And if two pull out, then they all pull out because rumors are the one thing that can kill a financial company. The rumors don’t even have to be true.
Our reputation is our bond.
That's why I have to find out what is really going on with Vasko.
I've brought in enough investors into Apex to get them to leave with me if I were to start a new company, but the success of that company is entirely dependent on the quality of Apex Capital.
If I were to leave now and set myself up as a competitor, theoretically stealing his clients away from him, Cedar will go after me with everything he has and I don't stand a chance.
He will tell every startup, everyone he knows, not to invest with me. And even the clients that I do manage to bring over will start to have doubts if we can't find suitable investments to place our money into.
If I find out and confirm that the deal with Vasko is a backhanded thing and show proof that I formed my company to not participate in fraud, then all of his clients will run over to me, setting myself up as the winner in this exchange.
I will be someone who is on the right side of things.
While Jacqueline tells me about her struggle to find a good-paying job, I suddenly have an epiphany. What if I had someone competent, someone who knew how to investigate on the inside?
I saw the posting online for a personal assistant at the corporate office. And the way it was written, it seems like the assistant will be working for someone very high up in the company. Of course, Vasko is not identified directly.
But even if the position is not for him directly, she'd work for the Chief Financial Officer, or the Vice President, or anyone else up there, theoretically with access to more information than I could possibly get from the outside.
I run this idea past Jacqueline. She hesitates. I know that this isn't exactly what she has in mind and it has nothing to do with news directly.
While we walk over to a local crab shack for some takeout and stand in the long line stretching down the highway for some of the best fried seafood around, I put my proposal in a different light.
"What if you thought of this as a big investigative journalism job? You'd work from the inside out. You get them to trust you. You have access to all the paperwork and you'd see if they're doing anything that's illegal or not above board. Journalists do that all the time. But I'd pay for you to do this job. Afterward, you can write a tell-all story. You can expose him for the fraud and the liar that he is, and possibly even collect evidence for a criminal case.”
She nods, clearly enticed.
"What about that? What if you approached this job from that way and then sell the story to any magazine out there? CNBC’s American Greed would love it. Vanity Fair would eat it up. Then you'd have your choice of positions."
Jacqueline shifts her weight from one foot to another looking at me nervously. She got a little sunburn and the tip of her nose is bright red. Her skin is shiny and her eyes light up.
I can tell that I'm finally making an impression.
21
Jacqueline
That evening I stop by the cottage to change, take a shower, and Allison is still nowhere to be found. It's late and I wonder if she had already went to The Redemption. I text her and call her, but she doesn't reply.