Chapter 4

4.

One after another, they couldn't be reached.

The project leads resigned as a group.

The company had no one at the helm.

The investors pulled out, one following the next, and the thriving firm was reduced to an empty shell in the blink of an eye.

The Whitfield family got word from the company that several projects had gone wrong and no one could find Josh.

They had no choice but to bring in the illegitimate son, Preston Whitfield.

Only barely did he manage to turn the decline around.

The Whitfield family lost all patience. His phone dead, the man himself nowhere to be found, they struck him off the list of heirs in a fit of anger.

The hiking trip over, all three of them had faces gone slightly purple from the cold.

They were ready to head home.

That was when Cary found his bank card frozen.

"What's going on?"

He stared at the string of red missed calls on his phone, dialed back, and found no one picking up.

Josh grabbed his own phone.

One look and it was the same for him. No one answering, and his bank card frozen too.

He hurried to call home.

"Mom, Dad, my bank card—"

A cold snort came down the line. "You'll know when you get back."

The unease churned inside him. Neither of them could touch their money, so they both looked to Lesley.

"Lesley, how about you book the tickets first? Once we're back, I'll pay you back."

Lesley thought it was a little strange, but she still took out her money.

"What are you talking about. You two paid for everything on the way here, so of course getting back is on me."

"Aren't we friends?"

"It's just that I don't have much left, and this month's paycheck hasn't come in yet, so I can only get you economy."

The plane landed, and the three of them split up.

The ones going to their companies went, the one going home went home.

The two young CEOs got to where they were headed and found each other's situations more wretched by the second.

One company had been swept completely clean, as if it had never existed at all; the other man wasn't even let into the office and could only go home.

Both of them were dumbstruck.

How could this be happening.

Cary asked the other workers in the same office building, and only then did he learn what had happened.

He rushed home to find me, only to find the place looking as though no one had lived there in a long time.

On the coffee table sat the fruit he'd bought before, gone rotten from sitting untouched, yellow juice running off the table onto the floor.

He pulled out his phone, his hand shaking as he found the number.

The moment it connected, he demanded, "Summer, what exactly are you doing? Why did you poach our company's staff?"

"And those investors, why did they all pull out, one after another? Do you have any idea how much I poured into that company?"

I closed the file I'd just signed and couldn't help asking back:

"You're a broke student with nothing to your name. Why would anyone invest in you?"

"Did you forget who those people actually wanted to invest in?"

Understanding dawned on Cary, his voice dropping a notch.

"But, but I put in my time too."

"If the investment came in because of you, then why would they pull out?"

I laughed, low.

"In this day and age, time is the cheapest thing there is."

"And a con man doesn't get to keep an investment."

"Cary, talking to Josh and the others in that secret code of yours, wasn't it thrilling, all so hidden and private?"

He swallowed, his voice thin and unsteady.

"What secret code? I don't know anything about that."

"Summer, did someone feed you some nonsense?"

"That code notebook under your bed. You wrote it out very carefully."

"There's one more thing I never told you. Let's break up."

I hung up and blocked him with one tap.

On Josh's end, it finally dawned on him too that something was wrong, and the call came through to me.

"Summer, didn't you promise you'd cover the company for me for a few days?"

I curved my lips.

"But what I said was in code."