Without a Net Read Online Free PDF Page A

father sympathize with your situation, but they can’t commit to making any offer on Roger’s share of the company until a formal valuation is done. And they can’t do a formal valuation until the claim that they filed with the SIPA trustee is adjudicated. Apparently Roger invested some of the company’s loose change in Blackwell a couple years ago. It’s not clear how much of that original amount they’ll be able to recover. Even if they manage to get their entire net equity back, they’ll still be out whatever interest that money could have earned elsewhere.”
    “What about the personal money Roger put into their current project? Can they at least cash that out?”
    “I’ve asked. Zach says not until they reach a certain critical mass in terms of condo sales and long-term retail space leases. But I’ll continue to press, Eva, believe me. Tom’s a nice guy. It’s his son who wants to play hardball.” She resumed eating. “Too bad Roger withdrew so much personal money based on fabricated profits. Would have saved you a whole lot of grief if he’d just kept the funds where they were. Or better yet, not cleaned out all your savings to invest in Blackwell Securities at all.”
    Even though Eva had thought the same thing many times since this whole nightmare began, hearing it from her sister stung. “It wasn’t his fault,” she said. “If the SEC didn’t catch on to the fraud for years, despite however many audits, how could Roger have known?”
    Angie raised a brow. “You’re defending him? After everything he did?”
    Eva frowned. She should have expected this. Confiding in her sister was always a risky proposition. Sure, Angie was fiercely loyal and protective of her family, as well as anyone lucky enough to be considered a friend. But she could also be incredibly judgmental. The problem was Angie had caught her at a weak moment, when Eva felt trapped by Roger’s illness in a marriage that she’d just discovered to be based on a lie.
    On the surface, they’d been the perfect couple. Ambitious general contractor-turned-real estate developer, and his graceful artist-turned-homemaker wife.
    She’d been twenty-three when they met. Barely out of college, highly impressionable, and eager to please. She could count the number of boyfriends she’d had on one hand and still have fingers left over. Roger had been in his prime, ten years older, his body honed by construction work. He’d been known to strip to the waist and pitch in right alongside his crew. This was before he and Tom hit the big time, before they’d started buying and developing commercial real estate. Back then they were just a couple guys flipping houses.
    Eva had fallen hard and fast. How could she not? Roger was smooth, sexy, confident, a ladies’ man even then—something she recognized only in hindsight. He’d swept her off her feet, barely giving her a chance to catch her breath. Within two years, they were married and Eva was pregnant.
    If he hadn’t been the most attentive husband, or the most doting father, she brushed it off, made excuses. He had a business to grow, new projects to design and build. While she stayed home, caring for their son, and later volunteering her skills and time, he went out to conquer the world. Or at least to reshape it into something slicker, glitzier, more profitable, taking advantage of the ever-upward spiral of the southern California real estate market. He and Tom bought up prime beachfront property and transformed it into planned developments, with luxury condos and shopping meccas for people whose only goal in life seemed to be the acquisition of more and more. In a culture of conspicuous consumption, Roger and Tom were happy to fuel the frenzy.
    The travel was all part of the job: networking, bringing in new investors, attracting corporate tenants and private buyers. Eva never dreamed there could be another, hidden, purpose to the trips.
    Later, after he’d cleared his conscience by dumping