Chương 4
Dennis placed a form on the table. “I need a basic account of what happened in the corridor. This is an internal incident report, not a police statement.”
“Is Victoria still here?” Clara asked.
“She left before lobby security reached the elevator.”
“Of course she did,” Gwen said.
Dennis turned to her. “You said you were brought here under false pretenses.”
“Yes.”
“Did anyone threaten you?”
Gwen looked at Julian.
“Victoria,” Clara said.
“I asked Ms. Foster.”
Gwen adjusted the blanket near the baby’s cheek. “She said if I didn’t come, she would send the foundation records to the police before I had a lawyer.”
“Did she physically force you?”
“No.”
“Did she threaten the child?”
Gwen’s answer took too long.
“Not directly.”
Dennis wrote something down. “What does that mean?”
“She said social services doesn’t like mothers who steal.”
Clara’s stomach turned.
Dennis stopped writing. “Did she say she would make a report?”
“She said she wouldn’t have to. She said records speak for themselves.”
“That is not a direct threat.”
“I know what she meant.”
Clara pulled out the chair across from Gwen and sat. “Who is the baby’s father?”
Gwen’s lips pressed together.
“Clara,” Julian said quietly.
“No. We’re past protecting the shape of the lie. Who is he?”
“Marcus Bell.”
The name was familiar. Marcus had been Gwen’s boyfriend for three years, a high-school music teacher with a narrow face and a habit of bringing grocery-store cookies to expensive parties. Clara had liked him because he never seemed impressed by the Hale family.
“Does he know?”
“Yes.”
“Does he know you claimed Julian was the father?”
Gwen stared at the baby.
“He left before I gave birth.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“He knows.”
“And he believed you?”
“He knew the truth. He also knew about the money.”
Clara sat back.
The baby made a small grunting sound. Gwen rubbed his spine and whispered, “It’s okay,” though he had not woken.
“How much did Victoria pay you?” Clara asked.
“Twenty thousand.”
Julian looked surprised. “You told the accountant twelve.”
“Twelve went back into the foundation account. Eight went to my father’s facility.”
“So the thirty-two thousand was separate?”
Gwen nodded.
Dennis closed his pen. “This is moving outside the scope of a hospital incident report.”
“You think?” Clara asked.
He ignored her tone. “I’m going to document the corridor event. Whatever financial or criminal allegations exist need to go to law enforcement or counsel.”
“Not tonight,” Gwen said.
“It may not be your decision.”
“It is if I don’t make a statement.”
Clara studied her. “You came here ready to repeat the lie.”
Gwen’s eyes filled, but she did not cry. “I came here because my son is five weeks old and Victoria knows where I live.”
“You also came because you thought Julian’s report might disappear if you humiliated me in front of my mother.”
“No.”
“You stood there while she pointed at your baby.”
“I didn’t know what she planned to say.”
“But you knew she planned something.”
Gwen looked at Julian. “Tell her.”
He did not move.
“Tell me what?” Clara asked.
Gwen’s fingers tightened around the edge of the blanket. “Victoria said your mother was changing the trust today. She said if I helped her stop it, she would destroy the accounting files and leave me alone.”
Clara felt the room narrow.
“What trust?”
“The foundation voting trust.”
Thomas had mentioned simplifying documents. The unsigned power-of-attorney form had not been the only paper Victoria carried.
Gwen continued. “She said your mother was giving you control. She said once you had it, you’d audit everything.”
“I would.”
“I know.”
“And Victoria couldn’t allow that.”
Gwen gave a shallow nod.
Clara looked toward the observation window in the door. The corridor beyond it was empty except for a housekeeping cart.
The lie had not begun because Victoria hated Julian. It had begun because Clara had been named chair of the foundation’s clinical-grants committee eighteen months earlier. She had questioned why certain vendor payments lacked invoices. Victoria, the foundation’s executive director, had called the questions insulting. Two weeks later, the first screenshots of Julian and Gwen appeared.
The sequence had always been there. Clara had been too wounded to see it as anything but personal.
“What else is missing?” she asked.
Gwen blinked.
“From the foundation.”
“I don’t know.”
“That means you suspect more.”
“I saw transfers.”
“To where?”
“A consulting company. Bellweather Strategies.”
“Who owns it?”
“I don’t know.”
Julian answered. “A holding company registered in Delaware. The mailing address traces to Victoria’s former assistant.”
Gwen looked at him. “You checked?”
“Yesterday.”
Clara stood so quickly the chair legs scraped the floor.
“You knew this before you came here?”
“I learned it after the DNA result.”
“And you decided the right place to reveal it was outside my mother’s room?”
“I came because Victoria told me your father was removing you from the medical proxy.”
“You could have called.”
“I did.”
Clara pulled out her phone. Seven missed calls. Three from Julian, two from her clinic manager, one from an unknown number, and one from Victoria.
The device had been on silent since Margaret’s blood pressure spiked.
“That doesn’t excuse the folder,” Julian said.
“No.”
“I lost my temper.”
“You practiced losing it. You arrived carrying paper copies.”
He rubbed the bridge of his nose. “I wanted her to see the report before she could control the room.”
“So you controlled it first.”
His hand dropped.
Gwen watched them with the exhausted caution of someone sitting between two machines that might restart without warning.
Dennis picked up his form. “I’m going to give you ten minutes. Then this room needs to be available for patients’ families.”
After he left, Gwen said, “I’m sorry.”
Clara looked at the sleeping child.
“No, you aren’t. Not yet.”
Gwen recoiled.
“You’re scared. You’re trapped. You wish the consequences would stop. That isn’t the same as being sorry.”
“I lost everything.”
May you like
“You still have your son.”
The cruelty of the sentence registered as soon as Clara said it. Gwen’s face closed.
