He Toasted His Mistress at My Shower, So I Killed His App novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Clause Nine

Bea shows Cora the license is a kill switch, the investor Patrick Ansley offers a partnership, and Cora schedules the revocation for five o'clock and drives home to Marilyn's car in her driveway.

Bea Okafor was in the back booth of the diner at ten to eight, with two coffees and a legal pad.

She had been my college roommate and my maid of honor.

She was also the only guest at my wedding who refused to give a toast.

"I'll give it at the divorce," she had whispered to me then.

I had thought she was joking.

Now she turned the pages of the license agreement slowly, and her smile made the waitress step back.

"Cora. Do you know what this is?"

"A license."

"It's a kill switch." She tapped clause nine. "You own the core code. You can revoke Alden Technologies' access on forty-eight hours' written notice for any breach of good faith."

She looked up.

"Cheating on you, and planning to take your child by calling you insane? That is a breach of good faith. It's a breach of everything."

I put my hand on my stomach.

"What happens when I revoke it?"

"Littlebird goes dark. Four million users. And Bradley's Series C round, the one that closes on Friday, dies with it." She sat back. "Alden Technologies becomes a very expensive logo."

My stomach turned over.

"Four million parents use that app, Bea. They log fevers at three in the morning."

"Then don't let it die. Move it."

She slid a matte black business card across the table.

Patrick Ansley. Ansley Ventures.

"Somebody has been trying to buy Littlebird for two years," Bea said. "Bradley keeps refusing him. I think you should meet him."

I knew the name.

Every tech magazine did.

The investor who never gave interviews, who once walked out of a deal because the founder was rude to a waitress.

"Why would he help me?"

"Ask him yourself," Bea said. "He's in the booth behind you."

I turned around.

A man in a dark sweater was already standing, a coffee in his hand.

He was tall and still.

His gray eyes stayed on my face and did not drift to my stomach.

"Mrs. Alden," he said.

"Lindell," I said. "Cora Lindell."

Something that looked like approval crossed his face.

"Ms. Lindell. I've read your code. The first version, from the MIT competition nine years ago. I was one of the judges."

He sat down across from me, and Bea moved over to make room.

"You should have won it," he said. "Your husband walked up to the podium to present it instead, and nobody in that room asked who wrote it. I have been waiting for the real author to walk into a room ever since."

My throat closed.

For nine years, every person who mattered had treated that code as something Bradley made.

This stranger was the first one who had said it out loud.

"I'm not here to rescue you," Patrick said. "I don't think you need rescuing. I'm here to offer a partnership. Your code, my servers, your name on the door."

"I'm seven months pregnant and I haven't slept."

"I noticed."

"Give me two days."

"Take what you need."

"I don't have long," I said.

Bea was already opening her laptop.

"Clause nine says written notice," she said. "I can draft it in ten minutes. It goes to Bradley, to the company, and to every investor in the Series C."

"Not now."

She raised an eyebrow.

"If it lands today, he has time to fix it with a lie. If it lands at five this afternoon, he will be at home, with his mother and his mistress, and every lawyer he owns will be away from their desks."

Bea laughed out loud.

Patrick did not laugh.

He looked at me a moment longer than he needed to.

"Schedule it," Patrick said quietly. "Make it send at five."

Bea typed.

I read it twice, and then I pressed the button myself.

SCHEDULED: 5:00 P.M.

My hand did not shake.

Bea put a card with a family lawyer's name on top of the table.

"She'll take your call at noon," she said. "Tell her everything. Don't leave out the part where Bradley's mother has a key."

I stood up carefully, with one hand on the table.

Patrick stood too.

"Ms. Lindell," he said. "Whatever you decide, don't go back alone."

"It's my house," I said.

"It's also where they're building the story."

On the drive home I called the family lawyer from the car and told her everything.

She said two things.

"Don't sign anything."

And, "Start recording."

The afternoon was gray.

I turned into my own street at a quarter to five.

Marilyn's silver Mercedes was parked in my driveway, with its engine still ticking.

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