“I can’t manage this correctly if I don’t have information.”
How Logan could be so calm was beyond Ryan’s ken. “No,” he said finally. “They won’t resist. They won’t run. They wouldn’t do that to their kids.”
“Are you sure?” Logan’s voice was even, and as inflexible as steel. “Because they’ve already involved their kids. This isn’t the first Ponzi scheme we’ve shut down. They have to know that when they got caught, they would drag every member of their family, their kids, their wives, their parents, brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles, close friends, into the sewer with them.”
“I’m sure,” Ryan said. “They didn’t think they’d get caught. Consequences mean nothing to them. They think they’re untouchable. Nobody thinks about the splash damage that happens when you hit bottom.”
Logan didn’t respond with anything other than a nod. Ryan hadn’t thought it through, either. He tried to, and managed to, for the most part, curtailing his relationships with his closest friends, limiting himself to meaningless encounters with women.
Except for Simone. He hadn’t counted on Simone, on her fiery hair, on her blue eyes that held the strength and compassion that he hadn’t earned and didn’t deserve. That he needed it. He needed her. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. She was supposed to be like all the others, and she wasn’t.
“What happens now?”
“We’ve had teams on standby for these raids for weeks. They’ll be executed within the next sixty to ninety minutes. My guess is that the story will break by tomorrow morning. If it hasn’t, the attorney general will release a statement.”
“I meant what happens to me?”
Logan looked almost surprised. “Tonight you go about your business. After the story breaks, you might want to get out of town for a while. But don’t go too far.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
He stood up at the end of the picnic table. Logan stopped him, and looked up at him through mirrored aviator shades. “You did the right thing.”
“Somehow that hasn’t made it any easier. Thousands of people who go to bed tonight thinking that not only is their money secure but it’s also invested with one of the most talented financial managers in the world are going to wake up tomorrow with nothing. People I know and care about will be out of jobs, and tainted by the stigma of having worked at MacCarren. I’m out of a job, and I bet my car I’ve got a bleeding ulcer.”
One corner of Logan’s mouth lifted in a smile that told Ryan he knew a lot more about doing the hard, right thing than he let on. “Nice car, but I won’t take that bet.” He stood up, extricating his long legs from the picnic table bench. “It will get better from here,” Logan said.
“Can you get me a phone number?”
Logan looked at him, surprise clear on his long, angular face. “Whose?”
“A friend.”
“A friend whose number you don’t have?”
“Never mind,” Ryan said. “Just . . . forget I said anything.”
“Is this a work friend? Someone with a connection to MacCarren?”
“No. She’s just a friend.”
Logan pulled out his phone. “Name?”
“Simone Demarchelier. She owns Irresistible.”
Logan cut him a glance but apparently decided he deserved a reward. “Not one word of this to anyone until the DA breaks the story,” Logan said as he made the call. “Not even a confession to a priest. We’ve come too far and worked too hard to jeopardize this now.”
He rattled off digits Ryan keyed into his phone. “Understood.”
He never felt more alone in his life than he did at that moment. The satisfaction of bringing down a long-running Ponzi scheme didn’t make up for the fact that in twenty-four hours he would be a notorious pariah. Whistleblowers might get the cover of financial magazines like Fortune or Money, but the reality of this walk was that no one could walk it with him.
He wanted Simone. He had no right to ask her to be with him through this, but that didn’t change the fact that he wanted her. She was the only thing that was good and true in his life right now. He had no valid reason to demand her presence, knew better than to tell her what was going on, but that didn’t change the fact that he wanted her with him.
***
Simone set her glass of white wine on the coffee table and tucked herself into the end of her sofa with a sigh. It had been an extremely busy Saturday, the showroom packed with people driven by the curiosity and perhaps even notoriety that Irresistible was gaining. She knew what this would do for her business; even the salacious gossip going around social media would help, in a sick way. But the price was high enough to make her regret it: whatever relationship she might have with Ryan was no longer possible.