Chapter 11 - The Envelope in Paris
On their final morning in Paris, Megan was helping Sophie close an overstuffed suitcase when someone knocked on the hotel door.
A young employee stood outside holding a cream-colored envelope.
“This was left for you at reception.”
There was no return address.
Only her name.
Megan Hale Carter.
Inside was a photograph.
Jack stood outside St. Augustine Medical Center beside a man Megan recognized immediately.
Marcus Vale.
The hospital’s chief financial officer.
The photograph had been taken almost four years earlier.
On the back, someone had written:
North Meridian was not Jack’s idea.
Ask Naomi about Reserve 47.
Megan read it twice.
A second sheet contained a bank transaction showing $186,000 transferred from a restricted pediatric reserve to a company called Orchard Clinical Services.
The date made Megan’s stomach tighten.
It had happened almost a year before Jack supposedly gained expanded authority over the foundation.
Someone had been moving money before Jack’s scheme officially began.
Megan immediately called Gerald.
He listened without interrupting.
“Do you recognize Orchard Clinical Services?” she asked.
“No.”
“What about Reserve 47?”
Another silence.
Then Gerald said something that erased every trace of peace Megan had felt that morning.
“Your father created Reserve 47.”
Richard Hale had established it for emergency pediatric surgeries shortly before his death.
Only three people had possessed the authority necessary to access it.
Richard.
Megan.
And the hospital finance office.
Megan looked down at the photograph of Marcus Vale standing beside Jack.
“Call Naomi.”
“I already am.”
“What do I tell the children?”
“Nothing yet.”
Megan folded the papers back into the envelope.
Across the room, Sophie was attempting to sit on her suitcase to make it close while Ethan laughed.
For one moment Megan watched them.
She had promised herself that Paris would be the end of Jack’s shadow.
May you like
Instead, someone had just shown her that the shadow had begun long before Jack.
And perhaps extended far beyond him.
