Chapter 10 - THE SIGNATURE IN BLACK INK
"You signed it?" Emma asked.
Nathaniel set his phone on the kitchen counter between them. "I approved an emergency services agreement five months ago. Mom had just suffered her stroke. Victoria told me outstanding claims were piling up."
"And you never checked?"
"Our compliance team was supposed to audit the vendor."
"That isn't what I asked."
Nathaniel met her eyes. "No. I didn't check closely enough."
Emma wanted to blame him for every bill in the box, every treatment Mateo had missed, every night she'd heard her father trying not to groan in pain. But she could see the difference between a man owning his mistake and one looking for someone poorer to carry it.
"Then help me prove what happened," she said. "Don't buy my silence."
"I won't."
He called an outside lawyer, Dana Brooks, and asked her to preserve the foundation's emails, payment logs, and vendor contracts. Dana warned him that the board's Monday vote would transfer control of the patient fund to a new Langford-managed partnership.
"Once it's done," she said, "unwinding it could take months. We have until Monday at four."
Emma looked at the torn list again. In its margin Frank had written two small letters: C.W.
A woman called from St. Catherine's at that moment. Her name was Dr. Celia Wynn, former compliance officer of Mercy Bridge.
"I heard Frank's daughter was asking questions," she said. "He sent me a report last month. I buried it because I was afraid."
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"Where is it?" Emma asked.
Celia whispered, "Somewhere Victoria can't order deleted. But first you need to know who really called your father the night of his crash."
