The report went up the chain to Warren Aldridge, Meridian’s founder, forty-six in 1994, a former IBM salesman turned entrepreneur, charming, meticulous, and beneath that, ruthless. “Aldridge called in Ryan,” Whitfield said. “I don’t know what happened exactly. But Ryan resigned soon. A month later, he married. And days after that, he was dead.”
“Except he wasn’t,” Dellray said. Whitfield nodded slowly. “Ryan came to me in September ’94, before the wedding. He was scared. He said Aldridge had told him that if he went to anyone with what he knew, the consequences wouldn’t fall on Ryan. They’d fall on everyone around him. He’d been shown those weren’t empty words.”