Chapter 6 - Lyra Had Joined the Company for a Reason
I wanted Thain’s accusation to be another lie.
Instead, Lyra confirmed part of it.
“Yes,” she said when I confronted her.
We were sitting in Sloan’s office.
This time Lyra didn’t cry.
“My father invested in Thain’s first company.”
I had never known Thain had another company.
Not really.
Years ago, before the startup that made magazines interested in him, Thain had joined a small software venture with three friends.
It failed within eighteen months.
He always described it as a college experiment.
Lyra’s father had put almost his entire retirement account into it.
$140,000.
“He lost everything,” she said.
“Was that Thain’s fault?”
“I don’t know.”
That answer surprised me again.
“My father blamed him until the day he died. I wanted to know if he was right.”
Lyra deliberately applied for a job at Thain’s new company.
At first, she intended only to examine old financial connections.
Then Thain noticed her.
Compliments became drinks.
Drinks became dinners.
And revenge became something messier.
“You fell in love with him.”
Her eyes dropped.
“I thought I did.”
She admitted searching his laptop.
That was how she found Ravelin.
But she also discovered something unrelated to me.
A folder named OLDCO.
Inside were records from Thain’s first failed venture.
The numbers suggested money had been moved out shortly before the company collapsed.
Not enough to prove theft.
Enough to raise questions.
“Where did it go?”
Lyra opened a spreadsheet.
A consulting entity named Meridian Strategy had received $310,000.
Daniel searched corporate records.
Meridian’s owner was Cynthia Hale.
Thain’s mother.
The same person he was currently trying to transfer startup shares to.
The pattern was no longer new.
It was old.
Very old.
Then Daniel noticed a date.
The Meridian account remained open for years after the first company collapsed.
One final payment had entered it seven years ago.
$75,000.
Sender:
Kala Winters.
My maiden name.
I remembered that money instantly.
It was the inheritance I had given Thain after our wedding.
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The money he told me became the seed capital for our future.
According to the records, it had gone to his mother instead.
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