Five
Austin
On Wednesday evening, I snap my laptop shut, the click a full stop to another endless day. My gaze lifts to find Theo hunched over his desk in the next office, fingers knotted in his hair. In the other direction Rhys is pacing, phone pressed to his ear, voice barely a murmur.
“Hey,” I call when Rhys hangs up, pushing my chair back with a screech. “You guys up for some dim sum? My treat.” I add the lure of good beer, knowing it’s an offer neither can refuse after the days we’ve had lately. I know we’re still recovering from the meeting with Mason and Jim yesterday, and every moment that passes without news of Justin feels endless. “It’ll be better than the Waterbar lunch, I promise. We can eat in private at the loft.”
“You still have that?” Theo’s brow furrows.
I own a house across town, but the loft is my place to hide. “Yep. It’s worth it to have a place to take the ladies, and it’s private.”
Theo shakes his head. “Do you have a girl there now?”
“No. I don’t lock them up. I want to work out there in the morning, and I run around the Embarcadero, if you must know.”
“So you’re not going to have a booty call?” Rhys teases.
“Well, I didn’t say I wouldn’t be meeting someone later.” I grin.
“Man, you need to be careful,” Rhys counters.
“Trust me,” I assure him. “I’ve always got raingear.”
Theo shakes his head. “Are you ready to go now? We’ll meet you there.”
“Give me fifteen minutes,” I tell him. “But that sounds good.”
I reach out to Alison Hope, the personal assistant who organizes my life outside of the office and arrange for her to order and deliver dinner. As I hang up, I look over at Justin’s empty office. I miss him. The guy knew how to push my buttons, but he’s still my best friend.
I was rough on him the last time I saw him. But I can’t see how that would make him leave. I told him I was going to the board if he didn’t follow their direction, but he understood that business just works that way. Is this my fault? God, I hate this. Where the fuck could he be? And the money. Why would he take that money? He and Crystal have that and more in their own accounts. What am I missing?
The cold San Francisco air nips as I leave EnergiFusion’s office, but my loft isn’t far. I debate whether I want Steve to drop me off, but I may need the Lambo in the morning, so I drive myself.
When I get inside, I flick on the lamps and toss my jacket over a chair. Dinner sits in a bag on the table. Perfect timing.
“Make yourselves at home,” I say when the guys arrive. I busy myself pulling out beers and setting them on the table next to the takeout boxes. The smell of pork buns and shrimp dumplings fills the room.
We settle into my couch, plates balanced on knees. Between mouthfuls, silence stretches. Finally, Rhys sets down his chopsticks. “Okay. Let’s sort through this. Why would Justin leave?”
“He’d been acting strange,” Theo says. “But I thought it was something going on with Crystal. I know they’re doing the fertility thing.”
My eyebrows rise. I didn’t like Crystal at first, but we wouldn’t be where we are if she hadn’t helped get EnergiFusion off the ground.
“In addition to the big withdrawal from our reserves, there was a little over a half million moved in a transaction last month, and this seven-figure amount last week,” Rhys says. “When I asked Justin about the one last month, he said it was Mason’s suggestion. But none of it lines up, and Mason certainly didn’t act like he knew about it at lunch yesterday.”
“He said Mason told him to move money?” I probe, the dim sum turning to lead in my stomach. Justin learned the hard way not to make business decisions without the rest of us when he was trying to bring Crystal on board. I didn’t think he’d do that again. Could it be something personal? He certainly wasn’t a gambler.
“He did,” Rhys says, shaking his head. “And since then, I’ve been keeping a much closer eye on the accounts.”
“Could something have happened to him? Could he have been in trouble?”
A chill skitters down my spine. “Maybe Justin got too close to something. Maybe this mess with the batteries…” I trail off, not wanting to finish the thought. “We need to consider all possibilities,” I continue. “Justin wouldn’t just vanish. There’s no way he’d disappear. He loves Crystal, and he’s close to his mom. He wouldn’t leave by choice without a reason and without letting them know.”
“Agreed.” Theo leans forward, elbows on knees, his gaze intense. “Let’s keep his disappearance out of the press for now—at least for as long as we can. We don’t want to panic our customers. They’re already skittish at this point.”
“Right.” Rhys nods. “We’ll piece this together behind the scenes—for Justin, for EnergiFusion.”
“How was Gina today? You said you picked her up from the airport?” Rhys asks Theo.
He shakes his head. “She’s a wreck. He usually calls her every few days, and she didn’t hear from him last week.”
I shrink back in my chair. Did he run because I didn’t agree with his tactics? Was he being blackmailed? If he’s been kidnapped, wouldn’t we have heard from someone by now?
“How long is she in town?” Rhys asks.
“She’s hoping for the week. I dropped her off at the police station. She wasn’t happy with the progress they’ve made since the missing-person report.”
“Well, that was only yesterday,” I point out. “I don’t know how quickly things are supposed to move.”
Rhys and Theo nod their agreement. We continue eating in silence. Then, with a collective sigh, we rise, clearing away the remnants of our meal. There’s not much left to say.
“Thanks for the food, Austin,” Theo says, clapping a hand on my shoulder as he heads out the door.
“Anytime,” I reply.
The door clicks shut behind the departing guys, and I stand frozen until the weight of the day nudges me into motion. I flick off the lights, navigating through the familiar darkness of my living room. The city’s lights glow through the windows, casting shadows across the floor.
We joked about it earlier, but I don’t feel like having anyone come over. More than temporary companionship, I need to be alone to think. I stare out at the San Francisco skyline. It’s supposed to be inspiring, a testament to innovation and human achievement. But tonight, it’s just a jagged horizon of unanswered questions and gnawing doubts.
My mind circles back to my last conversation with Justin. We’d been yelling, words sharp as knives, slashing through the tension that had been building for weeks. He’s so passionate about the vehicle batteries—his vision to revolutionize energy storage—and I… I had to be the voice of reason. Or at least, what I’d thought was reason.
“ Justin, it’s too risky !” I’d barked, pacing the floor while he stood with fists clenched. “ We have responsibilities to our investors, to our team. We can’t stay stagnant. Someone else will come up with a way to replace lithium with sodium ion in all kinds of batteries !”
He’d shot back with equal fervor, eyes blazing. “ We don’t have it all nailed down yet. You’re moving too fast! It’s too soon to diversify. ”
“ It’s the future. And if we don’t grab it, someone else will !”
With that, he’d walked toward my office door to leave.
“ Damn it, Justin! Think about what this could mean to our bottom line. To our employees !”
“ Always the bottom line !” he’d yelled, frustration boiling over. “ We’ve made plenty of money. We need to be great at what we do before we move into other areas .”
Now that he’s gone, I wonder if those heated words were the final shove. Did I push too hard? Was it my refusal to see beyond the spreadsheets and brokerage accounts that sent him over the edge?
I rub my face with both hands. This isn’t like Justin. To leave without a word, to disappear… It’s out of character. Was there something else bothering him?
“Maybe I was wrong,” I mutter to the empty room.
But there’s more to it than just stubborn pride or clashing visions. The missing money, the erratic behavior… It’s as if Justin is tangled in something far more complex, something potentially dangerous. Could his disappearance be tied to the very thing he was fighting for?
Could it really be foul play?
I glance at the clock. It’s getting later, but sleep feels like a distant prospect. In the quiet, my thoughts spin, unruly and relentless. Part of me wants to reach out, to call Justin’s phone one more time, though I know it’ll go straight to voicemail.
Instead, I lean back, closing my eyes, and let the darkness envelop me. “Come back, Justin,” I whisper into the void.