Chapter 7 - The Foundation Accounts and the Missing Children Nobody Counted
Agent Reyes asked me about the clinic.
I remembered its blue waiting-room chairs.
My mother had brought me there on Fridays.
Children drew pictures while she worked.
The clinic closed after the fire.
Victor claimed funding had disappeared.
But the bank records told another story.
Donations continued for years.
The clinic's name appeared on invoices.
So did dozens of invented patients.
I sat with Mara for hours.
We matched dates against photographs.
I recognized a nurse named Pauline.
She had once braided my hair.
Agent Reyes found her in Albany.
Pauline remembered Evelyn.
She remembered Victor visiting after dark.
And she remembered a boy who disappeared.
His name was Daniel Price.
He had witnessed a payment exchange.
“Did they hurt him?” I asked.
Pauline shook her head.
“I helped him leave.”
She had kept his letters.
One letter named an accountant.
Another described a black car.
A third mentioned a ledger hidden beneath a floorboard.
I asked to see the letters.
Pauline handed them to Reyes.
That mattered.
Evidence needed a chain of custody.
I was learning the difference between justice and revenge.
That night I returned to my apartment.
My door had been opened.
Nothing expensive was missing.
May you like
Only the birthday card from my mother.
Someone knew exactly what could hurt me.
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