Chapter 15
“It's yours.”
Inside was a six-page letter.
Margaret had written it seven months before she died.
The beginning was simple.
Dear Iris,
There are things I should have said while I still had the courage to say them aloud.
I sat on the porch steps.
Ethan sat several feet away, giving me privacy without leaving.
Margaret wrote that she had discovered the original notebooks years earlier among documents Jason stored temporarily at the family home.
She knew enough about the company's history to recognize my handwriting.
She confronted Jason.
He told her the matter had been resolved.
She did not believe him.
But instead of coming to me, she copied the notebooks and asked Michael Brooks to preserve them.
Another person trying to protect me without speaking to me.
I almost stopped reading.
Then I reached the final page.
There is one more thing you deserve to know.
Jason did not empty the marital accounts because he intended to leave you penniless.
I read the sentence again.
I learned before my death that he moved the money into an escrow structure connected to a confidential settlement obligation.
My hands trembled slightly.
That made no sense.
The accounts contained millions.
Why would Jason secretly move them into escrow?
The letter continued.
I do not know the full reason. Jason refused to tell me. But I know the transfer is connected to a patient-assistance fund created after an early Mitchell Medical product recall.
I looked up at Ethan.
“Did you know about this?”
“No.”
At the bottom of the letter was a bank name.
An account reference.
And four words underlined twice:
Ask about Eleanor Price.
I had never heard the name.
That changed the following morning.
Daniel's investigators found her.
Eleanor Price was not an investor.
Not an employee.
Not an attorney.
She was a retired physical therapist living two states away.
And twenty-two years earlier, long before Jason and I ever met, Eleanor had been my mother's closest friend.
When I called Mom, she became completely silent.
“Mom?”
Still nothing.
“Who is Eleanor Price?”
I heard my mother sit down.
When she finally answered, her voice was barely above a whisper.
“She is the reason you became interested in rehabilitation medicine.”
“I thought you were the reason.”
“I was part of it.”
“What does that mean?”
Mom began to cry softly.
Not dramatically.
Not in fear.
In the exhausted way people cry when they realize a truth they have carried too long is finally coming due.