Okay, she agreed. They sat with the leftover evidence of the evening between them, and neither of them needed to say anything else. Her phone rang on a Thursday morning while she was in the garage handing Daniel a torque wrench. She looked at the screen. Her CFO, Noah Brenner.
She'd been dodging Noah's calls for four days. I have to take this, she said. She stepped outside into the cold. She could hear Noah's voice before she even raised the phone to her ear, clipped, precise, the voice of a man who had spent the last 72 hours managing something that had gotten significantly out of hand. Riley.
The Caldwell Group wants a response by end of day tomorrow. They're reevaluating our Series D terms, and if we don't get in front of this I know, Noah. Do you? Because your assistant told me you've been in Aspen for three weeks, and no one seems to know. I know the situation.
I'll get on a call at 4. They want you in person. Chicago. The board is I'll fly tomorrow. She closed her eyes briefly.
Set it up. She stayed on the phone for 12 minutes. When she hung up, she stood in the snow outside the garage for a moment, her breath clouding in the cold air. The mountains were very still. She went back inside.
Daniel was still working on the truck. He didn't look up immediately, but she saw something in his posture, the slight change in how he held his shoulders that told her he'd heard. Your company, he said. Not quite a question. There's a situation I need to deal with.
How big is the company? She hesitated. 430 employees. He set down the wrench. He turned and looked at her, really looked at her with an expression she hadn't seen before on his face.
Not anger. Something more complicated. The look of a man solving a problem and not liking where the answer is going. What kind of company? He said.
Analytics. Software. We build. She stopped, tried again. I should have told you earlier.