Chapter 12
Forty-Three Names
Harbor House stood near the waterfront, a brick clinic with a playground painted yellow. Sofia had opened its doors to women who couldn't afford a doctor and children who needed a safe place to sleep. Alessandro had kept sending checks after her death without once checking who cashed them.
Its director, Dr. Miriam Solis, greeted him without a smile.
“You know we almost closed in February?” she asked.
“I approved the funding.”
“Somebody approved taking it away.”
Miriam spread out invoices from North Harbor Advisory. They listed repairs that had never happened, transportation for patients who had never ridden a bus, and staff salaries for people nobody knew. Forty-three families had been billed for temporary housing while receiving nothing.
“Where did the money go?” Alessandro asked.
“To accounts we don't control.” Miriam looked him in the eye. “Your wife built this place so children weren't punished for what adults did. And your people have been draining it.”
“Not my people anymore,” he said.
“That sentence won't pay for the medicine we owe.”
He deserved that. He called his bank and arranged an independent emergency grant, with oversight by Miriam and Grace. No publicity. No name on the door.
Rosalie arrived carrying a folder of her own. She had worked at Harbor House before coming to the mansion. “Sofia helped my little brother when he was sick,” she said. “That's why I stayed after she died. I thought somebody should remember what she wanted.”
Miriam showed them one last invoice: a charge for secure document disposal dated the morning Sofia died. The signature authorizing it belonged to Enzo.
May you like
The address for the disposal service was the same warehouse where Jonah Pike had once worked.
