“He told me that the FBI has been investigating the firm for over a year. Shortly after their stock went public, they got a tip that the market listing was fraudulently overstated in connection with the IPO.”

“I don’t know what that means,” I say.

“It means The Shop thought the software would be ready earlier than it was. So they went to market too soon. And then they were stuck, pretending they had functional software when in reality they couldn’t sell it yet. So to compensate, and keep the stock prices high, they began falsifying their financial statements.”

“How did they do that?”

“So they have their other software, video, apps, their bread-and-butter business. But their privacy software, the game changer Avett was touting, wasn’t functional yet, right? They couldn’t start selling it. But it was far enough along that they could do demos for potential large buyers. Tech firms, law offices, that sort of thing. And then when those companies showed interest, they put it down as a future sale. Max says it’s not dissimilar to what Enron did. They declared they were making all kinds of money on future sales, to keep the stock price rising.”

I’m starting to understand where she’s driving.

“And to buy themselves some more time to fix the problem?” I say.

“Exactly. Avett wagered that the contingent future sales would turn into actual sales as soon as the software was functional. They were using the faux-financials as a stopgap to keep the stock nice and healthy, until the software was fixed,” she says. “Except they got caught before they got it there.”

“And there’s the fraud?” I say.

“And there’s the fraud,” she says. “Max says it’s massive. Stockholders will lose half a billion dollars.”

Half a billion dollars. I try to wrap my head around that. It’s the least of it, but we are large shareholders. Owen wanted to put his faith in the place he worked, in the software he was working on. So when the company went public he held on to all of his stock options. He even purchased more stock. How much were we going to lose? Most of our savings? Why would he put us in the position to lose so much if he knew anything bad was going on? Why would Owen invest our savings, our future, in a faulty operation?

It gives me hope that he didn’t.

“So if Owen invested in The Shop, that must mean that he didn’t know, right?”

“Maybe…” she says.

“That doesn’t sound like maybe.”

“Well there’s also the possibility he did what Avett did. That he bought the stock to help inflate the value with the idea that he’d sell before anyone found out.”

“Does that sound like Owen to you?” I say.

“None of this sounds like Owen to me,” she says.