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“Nothing will be wasted,” he said. “They’ll come around. It’s okay.”
But it wasn’t okay. Instinct grabbed him in the gut, told him he had to step in here, he had to get her what she wanted, he had to protect her, he had to sign whatever agreement her publisher insisted on drawing up.
No. No. No.
He wouldn’t say yes right now. He wouldn’t say no, either. He’d start climbing a wall of worry and see where he was when somebody — maybe him — fell off that wall and made a deal.
They said their goodbyes and hung up.
The phone vibrated with a new ring before Van could take his hand away.
“Thank heaven I finally got you. Your phone has been tied up.”
It was Dolores, his right-hand woman, who had been on loan to the almost-new-owners of Van Deventer Ventures while they did their due diligence on the company’s books and got their feet wet inside the operations.
“They’re pulling out,” Dolores said.
“They’re what? But they said they’d sign with or without me staying on. We shook on it.”
“Now they won’t sign the final papers.”
Van sat down. At least, he tried to. He’d forgotten he had been sleeping on a mattress on the floor. The bedataheightsuitableforsittingdownwasn’tthere. Luckily, Guinevere was. She broke what would have been his fall. Van ruffled her neck in gratitude and collapsed more carefully into sitting cross-legged on the mattress.
No deal, no money for the employees to buy a big stake in Van Deventer Ventures. No money to buy Van out of the rest, either, and set him free.
It was a disaster for Van. Far worse, though, it was likely to be a disaster for the employees too.
He’d had to take far more risks than he liked. It was the only way to buy the technology and fund the research that were the company’s future. Van Deventer Ventures had to have money to carry the costs until they could start paying off.
He’d had to take the company right out on a limb. It wasn’t going to be a problem with the backing of thebuyer’sdeepwellofcash.Withoutit,though,any creditor could say, pay me this minute or we throw you into bankruptcy. That limb would break, and the company would fail, all for lack of the time only cash could buy.
Faces flashed through Van’s mind. They belonged to the people who would be devastated if this deal collapsed. Faces, flesh and blood, lives.
Danny Larrabee and his wife had just had a baby. Theywerestilllivingwithhisparentsuntilhisjobwas secure. The ménage à cinq was not working out well. The Larrabees were talking divorce.
Tiny Wilson was the single mom of an autistic eight-year-old boy. She’d just found some private treatment — expensive private treatment — that might help her son fit into the normal world.
Glenda Baumgarden was on the cruise of a lifetime with the husband of forty-three years she still giggled with on the dance floor at the company Christmas party. They’d spent money they couldn’t afford, thinking they’d have time to make it up.
BarryGastonhadjusttakenoutabankloanforthe car he’d drooled over and dreamed of for four years.
Mitch Holgerson, Billy Joe O’Hara, Andrew Muzzi …
So he’d failed them, one and all.
Van could think of only two people whose worlds would not fall apart if Van Deventer Ventures closed: Fred Andretti, the man who had all but shaken hands on buying the company, and Ricky, Fred’s son, who was being groomed to take his old man’s chair some day. Or had been.
Obviously,they’dwantedthedeal.Obviously,they now didn’t want it enough. Maybe it was too big a risk even for them.
“Van? Are you there?”
Dolores’svoiceonthephonecamefromalongway away. “Yes, I’m here. What does the grapevine say about why he’s pulling out?”
“That’s the thing, Van. Nobody has heard a word.”
“I see. Well, I can’t talk right now. I’ll call you back later.”
“But, Van — ”
