Chapter 13 - WHAT DANIEL SIGNED
The hearing took place the next morning.
Daniel wore the same suit he had worn to the donor breakfast.
There was dried coffee on one sleeve.
Rachel offered to have someone bring another.
“No.”
Victor arrived looking rested.
He touched Daniel’s shoulder outside the courtroom as if cameras were watching.
Daniel stepped away.
“Don’t.”
Victor lowered his voice.
“You’re making this worse.”
“For who?”
“You think loving them now fixes what you signed?”
Daniel had spent most of the night reading.
Some signatures were forged.
Others weren’t.
He had approved budgets without asking why administrative costs kept rising. He had let Victor present summaries in place of full accounts.
Children’s programs had lost money while his brother bought another house.
“I’ll answer for what I signed,” Daniel said.
Victor’s expression changed.
He had expected denial.
Shame.
Something he could use.
Inside, Rachel opposed Victor’s request and asked the court to appoint an independent custodian for the foundation’s records.
“No records should remain under either brother’s sole control,” she said.
Daniel saw Victor turn toward his attorney.
That was the moment his brother understood.
Daniel was willing to lose control to preserve the evidence.
The judge ordered the records secured and barred both men from deleting, moving, or altering them.
Outside the courtroom, Victor cornered Daniel near an empty conference room.
“You just handed strangers our family.”
Daniel stopped.
“No. I handed them the books.”
“You don’t understand what Dad left me to clean up.”
“Then tell them.”
“I kept this family alive.”
Daniel looked at him.
“My family was alive in a third-floor apartment while I visited their graves.”
Victor’s mouth tightened.
For a second, the older brother Daniel had known disappeared.
Something meaner stood in his place.
“She could have stayed quiet.”
Daniel felt his hands curl.
Instead of swinging, he stepped back.
Rachel was already approaching.
Victor adjusted his cuff and walked away.
An hour later, a forensic accountant working with the preserved records found payments to the van’s registered owner.
Rachel called Daniel.
“There’s enough here for the police to move.”
“On Victor?”
“On the people who approached Noah. Victor depends on what they tell us.”
Daniel returned to the hospital.
Caroline was standing with a nurse’s help.
Noah grinned.
“She walked all the way to the door.”
Then Ruiz called.
May you like
The woman in the borrowed scrubs had been found.
And she was ready to name the person who hired her.
