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The office was overflowing with paper——on top of the desk, on the floor, on the shelves, on the credenza, and even in the seat of the single guest chair facing the desk.
I waited inside in one of the few open spaces that wasn't in the direct path to his desk. This man didn’t seem interested in recycling.
Ryan Westerly appeared from around the corner. His nametag said onlyDr. Westerly. Everybody else’s I’d come across, including the guard’s, had their first name, but not his.
“I've got it from here, Wanda,” he said to my diminutive escort.
She seemed uncertain whether it was safe to leave me alone with the boss or not. “But, Dr. Westerly, the manual says——”
“Wanda, I told you I’ve got it.”
Seeming to sense it wasn't wise to argue with the founder, Wanda retreated.
Westerly extended his hand. “Mr. Quigley, nice to meet you. Why don’t we use the conference room? It’s a little less crowded in there.”
I shook his hand. “Sure. Please call me Liam.”
I followed him around the corner into a conference room with a large table and a whiteboard full of scribbles in red, black, and blue.
He didn’t offer to have me call him Ryan. He took a seat on the long side of the table near the corner and motioned for me to take the seat at the end. Another unusual move. The heads of these companies invariably chose the power seat, the one at the head of the table, but Ryan Westerly did the opposite. I liked him already.
He checked his watch. “You've got two hours. I don't normally talk to investors; I can't spare the time. It’s Anton's job to talk to you guys and raise the appropriate money. My job is to move our technology forward as fast as possible. Talking to people like you is a waste of my time and sets the whole company back.”
I’d understood from our previous phone conversations that Westerly was a no-nonsense man. He didn't mean to be rude; he was merely trying to be efficient. Laying out ground rules for a discussion was his way to focus our time.
“Thank you for taking the time, Dr. Westerly. I appreciate it, and I hope this can lead to a productive investment for me, and provide capital to allow you to accelerate your projects. A win for both of us.”
“To be frank, Liam, the reason we're talking is I found your thoughts on osmotic filtration from our last discussion to be useful.”
That was quite a compliment. Ryan Westerly was not only at the top of his field, he was probably several steps ahead of anybody else. He did Nobel Prize-caliber work, except he might not ever be recognized for it because he refused to publish. As he saw it, publishing took time away from his experiments. I’d probed his thoughts on problematic areas of his work, which had led to a discussion in which I suggested a few different alternatives he might consider.
I checked my watch and started the timer. If Westerly said he would allocate only two hours, he meant it, and I'd have to be cognizant of the time if I wanted to cover all of my subjects.
“Shall we start with the area of organometallics?” I suggested.
“I'd rather spend a few minutes on osmotic filtration again,” he said. “And then move on.”
Westerly ended up giving me exactly the two hours he’d promised. He was an exacting perfectionist if nothing else, and a driven workaholic if ever I'd seen one.
As I exited the building, Wanda returned my phone as promised. The meeting at Chameleon had gone well——actually better than that, exceedingly well. I was more sure than ever that Ryan Westerly and his crew were on to something big. Equally important, he seemed at ease with me, thanks to my technical background. It helped that I had reviewed several recent papers on osmotic filtration in the last few days.
I scanned the log again as I signed out.
On a previous page were the entries I'd been searching for. Two people from the Winterbourne firm had visited, including Damien Winterbourne himself. Not good news for me. They were the one local competitor I thought might be brave enough to separate from the pack and consider Chameleon. They had screwed up several other deals for me in the last six months.
Fuck.
Now we crossed paths again.
Chapter 13
Amy
The doorbell rangas I was preparing for the dinner with Liam and the Schmulians.
I checked my watch. Four-twenty. Fuck, he was early, and I wasn’t ready yet.
“Just a minute,” I yelled as I tightened up the bathrobe I had on to do my makeup.
