Leverage in Death: An Eve Dallas Novel (In Death #47)(24)

“It seems like a stupid way to do business.”

“Playing in the margins is a gamble,” he acknowledged. “But can lead to profit. And you can use margins to create leverage.”

“Like an advantage?”

“It can be. In this case, leverage is taking on debt.”

Now she wanted to pull at her hair. “Who wants to take on debt? People want to get out of debt.”

“You take on debt to make profit.” He all but saw her eyes glaze, had to smile. “It’s why loan companies exist—taking on debt to make profit. Investors, serious ones, look at a company’s leverage, do an analysis. At this time, after the bombing, investors—those who either aren’t serious or simply panic—sell off rather than hold and wait.”

“People dump the stocks so the price goes down. More people see the price going down, and they dump. That doesn’t benefit the heirs, or anybody holding the stocks.” She frowned at the board. “So what’s the point?”

“What people sell, others buy. In a matter of hours stocks that were worth—to keep it simple again—a hundred a share are now selling for fifty. Buy them at fifty, wait until the dust settles and the merger goes through, sell them at a hundred, or likely more.”

“If it doesn’t go through, you’ve lost fifty bucks—more if you worked the margin. Right?”

“True enough, but it will go through. I’d wager quite a few representatives from both companies will issue statements either by end of business today or first thing in the morning stating just that. Someone taking advantage of this window—someone expecting this window to, let’s say, blow open? They’ll make a pretty pile in a short time.”

She shoved up. “All of this?” She swung a hand at the board. “To play the fucking stock market?”

“All of this, if this was the goal, to make a considerable amount of money in a short amount of time.”

“How much? Ballpark it.”

“I can’t say how much these people had to invest, but it’s a deep dive indeed. The sort where, say, a hundred thousand as a stake might turn intoa million or more, and in the margin, considerably more.”

“So we need to pursue the angle of investors. Look for people who plunked down investments when the stock took that dive.”

“And good luck with it as both companies are global, and so are their investors. Add such things aren’t readily available, or can be done under various covers and through shells. It’s a bloody clever scheme, if it follows those lines.”

“It’s a goddamn con, is what it is.” And at least she understood a con. “Nothing but a goddamn con that took twelve lives, put eight more in the hospital, and scarred a kid and her mother.

“Why didn’t they kill them, the kid and her mother?” she added. “Why leave witnesses? It doesn’t matter they can’t describe you, they’re loose ends. If you were going to kill them if Rogan balked, why leave them alive once it’s done?”

She turned back to Roarke. “Unless they weren’t going to kill them. That’s one. Or they’re too arrogant and cock-fucking-sure of themselves to think we’d get anything from the ones they let live. Hell, maybe both. I need to talk to Mira.”

She walked to her skinny window, stared out. “What you laid out here, this theory? It makes the most sense of anything I’ve played around with in my head. It’s cold and it’s ugly, and it makes sense. How long to you figure before the stock goes back up?”

“It depends.”

She turned quickly, shook her head. “Fuck ‘depends.’ You’re the expert. If you were playing the game, when would you figure to cash in?”

“It should start to climb once the companies announce the merger’s going through. It’s late in the day for it to recover altogether before the closing bell. But if the companies issue statements, if Pearson’s wife, son, daughter make them personally—which the board of directors will certainly push for—Quantum will start recovery. The same with Econo. And if they announce the merger as done, the stocks will rise as quickly and dramatically as they fell. The stock market runs, in large part, on emotions, feelings.”

“So a big profit within about twenty-four hours.”

“Yes. Unless all this is bollocks and someone inside one of the companies created all this for some sort of vendetta, and has a way—I can’t think of one at the moment—to stop the merger altogether.”

“I was leaning that way. We’ll keep it in the mix. I need to process this, and I’m probably going to have more questions on market bullshit. Do you want to talk to Callendar?”

“I’d like to, yes.”

“She’s in the EDD lab, or was. Feeney and McNab are on this, too—and whatever other geeks he’s pulled in. A lot of e’s to sift through.”

“I can lend a hand there until you’re ready for home.”

“Feeney’s eyes lit up when I said you were coming in. He’ll be glad to have you. So am I.”

He stood, walked to her, cupped her face in his hands. “The dead weigh on you. Twelve with one blow, it’s a great deal of weight.”

“It’ll make locking the cage on these two more satisfying. With you? I’ve got leverage.”