Dead in a Week (Forensic Instincts 7)

“Neither do I,” came the reply. “But whatever it is, we have to fix it. Fast. My entire future is on the line.”

Simone’s jaw dropped as she recognized the voice of the other person in Jia li’s apartment.

“Terri,” she said in shock. “That’s Robert Maxwell.”

29

Crescent Woods Garden Apartments

Palo Alto, Ca

lifornia

1 March

Thursday, 8:05 p.m. local time

“Holy shit,” Terri exclaimed. Her fingers were already flying across the keyboard. “This is a game changer. We’ve been looking for a mole. But Robert Maxwell? If he’s the insider, then he’s the kingpin, not a mole.”

“But why would he sabotage his own company?” Simone asked, her head still reeling. “Do you think the technology doesn’t work?”

“I don’t know. I’m digging while we’re listening.”

From inside the apartment, there was the sound of rhythmic pacing, followed by Robert’s muttered, “Where the hell is he? What could have backfired? Everything was on track—at least that’s what he said. The first set of drawings were the real deal—I checked them myself. Nano is set to go into production. We have to beat that deadline. Dammit!”

Simone recognized the clinking sounds of ice and the slamming of a bottle that followed. Robert was pouring himself a drink.

“What if someone from inside Jítuán figured out what Xu Wei is doing?” Jia li asked.

Silence.

“Robert, talk to me. I’m not an idiot or a child.”

“I think my actions have shown that I regard you as neither.”

“Then stop trying to protect me. From the minute I agreed to fly to Shenzhen and talk to Jítuán’s CEO on behalf of a mysterious friend of yours seeking VC funding, I knew something was up. No one invests millions to create a competitor to NanoUSA without knowing the people and the technology involved. And after your dinner with Xu Wei over the summer and my subsequent meeting with him last month, I became certain that my role as a go-between was part of a much larger scenario.”

Robert was pacing again. “That’s more than you need to know. Leave it, Jia li. If anything goes wrong, I don’t want you in trouble.”

More silence.

“I didn’t do this for the finder’s fee or even the VP position at your new company. I did it because I love you.” Jia li’s voice broke. “I don’t want you to go to prison.”

New company?

“So there’s nothing wrong with the technology,” Terri muttered, the clicking of her keyboard momentarily at a pause. “Abandoning that search.” She resumed typing.

Simone was mentally processing what she was hearing, simultaneously integrating it with what she knew about Robert.

Figuring out where he’d met Jia li was easy. It had to have been during one of his speaking engagements at Stanford’s Business School. He would have handpicked her. She fit the mold—young, beautiful, ambitious—the quintessential Robert Maxwell sexual acquisition. And he’d needed her to make his agenda a reality. Not only was she bright enough for the challenge, she had the language skills to cross a cultural barrier that was in the way. So he’d promised her everything she wanted—including himself—in exchange for her help.

But why would he want to steal his own technology and start a new company when his current one was about to make groundbreaking history?

“Okay.” Terri’s voice sounded in Simone’s ears. “Nothing suspect on Robert’s corporate credit card. But I just ran his personal credit card receipts from last summer. July eighteenth, he paid for an extravagant dinner at an out-of-town restaurant. That would be the dinner Jia li is talking about.”

“Are you crosschecking that with the initial press coverage of Nano’s breakthrough?”

“Already done. What I’m finding is inconclusive, because the rumor mill was at it long before legitimate sources started reporting.” Terri was still typing. “But there’s a more interesting connection. The dinner took place two weeks after Nano held its quarterly board meeting.”