Chapter 6 - Blue Harbor
"That can't be right," Julian said.
Mae looked at the screen.
"Call the accountant."
Elliot Price had handled the accounting for Lena's trust since Emma died.
He answered on the third ring, sounding as though Julian had interrupted a pleasant lunch.
"I emailed your monthly statements," Elliot said.
"To what address?"
Elliot read an unfamiliar account ending in wardfamily-care.com.
"Meredith said you wanted family paperwork separate from work."
Julian pressed his palm against his forehead.
He remembered approving a request to change the account's notification address.
He had done it in a grocery-store parking lot, with Lena coughing in the back seat.
"Send everything to my verified address," Julian said.
"And freeze discretionary payments until we review the documentation."
"Julian, some of those expenses were substantial."
"How substantial?"
Elliot sent a ledger.
The entries filled Julian's screen: respiratory backup units, emergency overnight aides, specialized filter shipments, transport fees.
Twenty-seven payments went to one vendor, Blue Harbor Clinical Supply, totaling $64,180.
Julian recognized none of the invoices.
"We have one prescribed machine," he told Mae.
"We borrowed a portable backup for three weeks. That's it."
Elliot sounded ill when Julian called again.
"You authorized these transfers electronically."
"I know. I should have read them. But those invoices may be fake."
"I'll preserve the records and report the concern to the bank."
Julian's first impulse was to demand an explanation from Meredith.
His second was to remember Lena staring at him after he struck her stepmother.
He forwarded the ledger to Rachel instead.
That evening, Rachel sent him a public business filing.
Blue Harbor Clinical Supply was registered to a man named Owen Fitch.
Mae went pale.
"I know that name."
"Who is he?"
She pulled up a photograph from Julian's wedding.
Beside Meredith stood a broad-shouldered man holding a champagne glass.
May you like
"Your wife introduced him as her cousin from Denver," Mae said.
"He's her brother."
