Chapter 7 - THE DEBT NO ONE UNDERSTOOD
Lauren stared at David as if he had spoken another language.
“You saved my life?”
“I paid for the transport.”
“Why?”
David looked at me.
Because the answer involved me.
I could feel it.
“I don’t know,” I said.
“Yes, you do.”
“I don’t.”
David leaned against the table.
“Your husband discovered the fraudulent property transfers months before Lauren got sick.”
Richard frowned.
“That timeline doesn’t make sense.”
“It does if Thomas didn’t report me immediately.”
I looked at him.
“Why wouldn’t he?”
“Because he needed money.”
My anger flared.
“Thomas was not corrupt.”
“I didn’t say he was.”
David reached into his coat.
Ethan immediately stepped between him and Lauren.
“Slowly.”
David removed an old folded receipt.
He placed it on the table.
A medical transport invoice.
$18,700.
Paid in full.
The payer listed was Mercer Holdings.
Lauren covered her mouth.
“Dad knew?”
David nodded.
“He came to me after the hospital told you the treatment could not arrive quickly enough.”
I remembered Thomas disappearing for almost an hour that night.
He told me he was calling hospitals.
Maybe he had been begging David.
“I paid,” David continued, “and Thomas promised me nothing in return.”
Samuel looked confused.
“Then why help?”
David’s face changed.
For the first time, the arrogance slipped.
“Because my daughter died in the same hospital three years earlier.”
Silence filled the room.
“She was six,” he said. “They couldn’t get what she needed in time.”
Lauren’s anger softened for only a moment.
“That doesn’t erase what happened to my dad.”
“No.”
“Did you kill him?”
“No.”
“Did someone?”
David looked toward Evelyn.
She stiffened.
“I don’t know.”
Richard stepped closer.
“Stop lying.”
“I’m not.”
“Thomas’s tape says someone in my family protected you.”
David nodded.
“He was right.”
Richard’s eyes narrowed.
“Who?”
David looked at Samuel.
Samuel’s face turned white.
My stomach dropped.
“No,” Samuel said.
David reached into his pocket again.
This time he removed a tiny memory card sealed inside plastic.
“I kept this because one day I knew someone would decide to blame me for everything.”
Ethan frowned.
“What is it?”
“A digitized copy of an answering-machine recording.”
“Whose machine?”
“Mine.”
David placed the card beside the cassette.
“The night before Thomas died, someone called me.”
Samuel whispered:
“Don’t.”
Every person in the room turned toward him.
David looked almost sad.
“You should have told them years ago.”
Richard stared at his brother.
“Samuel?”
Samuel backed toward the wall.
David continued.
“The voice on that recording told me exactly where Thomas would be the next morning.”
Lauren whispered:
“Why?”
May you like
David looked directly at Samuel.
“Because Richard’s brother wanted Thomas stopped before he exposed Halcyon.”
