Chapter 9 - THE RECORDING
“I was going to tell you.”
Khloe’s voice sounded tired before the conversation began.
Marcus set the phone facedown.
“Tell me now.”
“On Thursday, I went to the foundation office. Isabella wasn’t there. Adrian was.”
Rachel folded her arms.
“What happened?”
“I asked him about Bellwether.”
Khloe reached for water.
“He said I was embarrassing Marcus by bothering staff. He said I didn’t understand how large organizations worked.”
Marcus closed his eyes briefly.
Khloe continued.
“I started recording after he told me the families should be grateful for whatever they got.”
“Where’s the recording?” Rachel asked.
“On my phone.”
She found it.
Adrian’s voice filled the room.
You’re seeing isolated discrepancies.
Then Khloe’s.
Fourteen isn’t isolated.
Paperwork moves slowly.
These people need help now.
A chair scraped.
Then Adrian spoke more quietly.
You have a baby coming. Focus on that. Let Marcus’s real team handle the foundation.
Marcus’s jaw tightened.
The recording continued.
Khloe asked whether Marcus knew the payments were missing.
Adrian laughed.
Marcus signs what I put in front of him.
Then came a sound near the microphone.
Khloe gasped.
The recording stopped.
“He took my phone,” she said. “Deleted it in front of me. I recovered it afterward.”
“Did he hurt you?” Marcus asked.
“He squeezed my wrist.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Khloe looked directly at him.
“Because I knew what your first question would be.”
He didn’t ask what she meant.
He already knew.
What happened before that?
Are you sure?
Could you have misunderstood?
Rachel looked at him with open anger.
Marcus accepted it.
Ortiz arranged for the phone to be examined and the original file preserved.
The recording alone didn’t explain every payment, but it gave investigators another clear place to look.
That night, the hospital room finally went quiet.
Marcus slept in a chair near the door.
Khloe woke to an unfamiliar woman standing beside her bed.
Gray scrubs.
Visitor sticker.
A clipboard held against her chest.
“We need to move you for another scan.”
Khloe blinked.
“Where’s my nurse?”
“She asked me to bring you down.”
The woman reached toward the bed controls.
Khloe saw the visitor sticker again.
Not an employee badge.
A sticker.
Then she noticed what was printed on the clipboard.
The wrong last name.
Khloe pressed the call button and kept her finger down.
May you like
“Marcus.”
The woman stopped smiling.
