Chapter 10 - THE NAME ON MARK’S DONOR LETTER
For twenty-four hours, I hated Richard for putting doubt into Mark’s final act.
Organ donation had been the purest part of those terrible last weeks.
Mark talked about it openly.
He said if death was coming anyway, he wanted life to continue somewhere.
Richard had contaminated even that.
I called Dr. Harris.
“Did Mark choose who received his organs?”
“No.”
His answer came immediately.
“Allocation doesn’t work that way.”
Relief hit me.
“Then what did Richard mean?”
Harris was silent.
“There was one person Mark knew was waiting for a transplant.”
“Who?”
“I can’t disclose recipient information.”
“I’m not asking who received anything.”
Another pause.
“Mark knew someone who needed a transplant before he became ill.”
My heart started pounding.
“Who?”
Harris sighed.
“Ask Evelyn about a man named Peter Cole.”
I drove to Evelyn’s house.
She closed her eyes when I said the name.
“Peter was Mark’s childhood best friend.”
“Why have I never heard of him?”
“They stopped speaking.”
“Why?”
“Because Peter’s father worked at Plant Four.”
Peter developed severe heart disease years after his father died from cancer.
Mark believed the Cole family had been abandoned by Bennett Industrial.
He quietly paid some of Peter’s medical bills.
“Was Peter waiting for a heart?”
“Yes.”
“Did Mark think Peter would get his?”
Evelyn shook her head.
“He knew he couldn’t control that.”
Then she handed me an old letter.
Mark had written Peter before his death.
Pete,
I don’t know who gets anything from me.
Maybe nobody we know.
That isn’t mine to decide.
But I need you to know I’m sorry I waited so long to believe your dad.
There it was.
Richard’s manipulation unraveled again.
Mark had not donated for one specific recipient.
But Peter had influenced his decision.
“If somebody gets another birthday because of me,” Mark wrote, “I want you to celebrate it even if it isn’t you.”
I cried.
Not from sadness alone.
From pride.
Then Evelyn’s phone rang.
Daniel.
The board meeting had been moved up.
Richard was trying to force an emergency vote before Evelyn’s authority could be recognized.
We raced to Bennett headquarters.
By the time we arrived, lawyers were everywhere.
Richard stood at the head of the conference table.
He looked at me.
Then Evelyn.
Then Daniel.
“This company is mine.”
Evelyn placed Mark’s trust documents on the table.
“No.”
Daniel added his proxy.
“It isn’t.”
The corporate secretary reviewed the numbers.
50.6 percent.
Enough.
Richard’s face drained.
But before the suspension vote began, his attorney stood.
“There is a problem.”
He held up a document.
“Mark Bennett signed an agreement six years ago restricting transfer of his voting shares.”
Rachel took it.
Read it.
And went pale.
If the agreement was valid, Evelyn’s voting control might disappear.
May you like
Richard smiled.
“I told you Mark didn’t know what he was doing.”
