Chapter 11 - A Better Offer —
The fake email address explained why questions about payments had never reached me. Replies had gone to someone pretending to be me. The bank account behind Northstar was harder to untangle, but Ortiz had enough to seek more records.
For the first time, I slept for four hours without waking to check the door.
Then Victor called June.
He had hired a lawyer. He wanted to discuss “a practical resolution.”
“He’s offering to reimburse the foundation,” she told me. “He also wants confidentiality and a statement that the disputed paperwork resulted from administrative errors.”
“Errors with my signature on them.”
“Yes.”
“Tell him no.”
She did. No bargaining. No performance.
An hour later, Dorian sent me the message Victor had sent him: YOU CAN SAVE YOUR COMPANY OR YOUR MARRIAGE. STOP PRETENDING YOU CAN SAVE BOTH.
Under it, Dorian had written: June and Ortiz have copies. You should see it too.
I called him. “What does he have on the company?”
“The financing depends on confidence in our controls. A public fraud case will hurt.”
“And the review you authorized.”
“Yes.”
“Are you going to hide it?”
“No.”
The board met that afternoon. Dorian reported his own role and stepped away from decisions involving the investigation. An interim executive took over those matters. He told me afterward in a plain email, without asking whether I was proud of him.
Mara came by with soup. She set it down and stayed standing.
“There’s something I should have told you.”
My hands went cold around the spoon.
“The settlement paid my debts. I signed a statement saying my concerns had been resolved. They hadn’t. I was scared, and I signed anyway.”
“Did you lie about me?”
“No. I didn’t know about you then. But I helped them make the complaint disappear.”
She waited for me to tell her to leave.
“Tell Ortiz,” I said. “All of it. Even what makes you look bad.”
She sat down slowly.
“I kept the cover letter. Victor wrote that I’d get the final payment after returning the audit binder.”
“What binder?”
“Adrian’s paper reconciliation log. The one connecting Northstar’s invoices to the actual patient grants.”
“Where is it now?”
May you like
Mara looked at June.
“In the storage facility listed on the work order they sent to Alina’s apartment.”
