Chapter 16 - The Missing Ledger
Police found no obvious connection between Marcus Vale and the break-in.
Marcus also had an excellent explanation.
He had been attending a medical finance conference in Chicago.
But Naomi discovered something more important on Nora’s flash drive.
A spreadsheet referenced a document called the Central Ledger.
It appeared to contain the true distribution of every fraudulent payment.
No copy was on the flash drive.
Nora remembered seeing the ledger only once.
Marcus had kept it inside an old records room beneath St. Augustine’s administrative building.
The problem was that the basement archive was scheduled to be cleared in five days.
Gerald contacted investigators handling the reopened fraud inquiry.
A warrant was requested.
Meanwhile Marcus’s attorney sent Megan a letter.
It accused her of harassment, interference with hospital operations and attempting to revive allegations already resolved by Jack’s conviction.
The final paragraph contained a warning.
Any public statement by Ms. Carter concerning Mr. Vale will result in immediate legal action.
Megan handed the letter to Gerald.
“He’s nervous.”
“He’s also powerful.”
“So was Jack.”
Gerald smiled slightly.
“That is precisely why I worry when you say things like that.”
The warrant was approved the following afternoon.
Investigators entered the basement.
The room Nora described was nearly empty.
Someone had cleared it early.
Rows of shelves remained, but dozens of archive boxes had disappeared.
The Central Ledger was gone.
Marcus claimed the destruction was routine.
Then an investigator noticed something on an inventory sheet.
The missing boxes had not been destroyed.
They had been transferred.
Destination:
Hale Pediatric Storage Annex.
Megan recognized the building.
Her father had donated it to St. Augustine fifteen years earlier.
And the foundation—not the hospital—still owned the property.
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Marcus had moved the evidence into a building controlled by Megan.
He had hidden it in the one place he assumed nobody would search.
