Chapter 16 - The Board Member Who Sold Tomorrow
Victor asked them to meet at a police station.
That frightened Claire more than if he had requested a restaurant.
People chose police stations when they believed somewhere else was unsafe.
Marissa attended with Claire.
Roman waited nearby but did not join the meeting.
Victor looked terrible.
His expensive coat was wrinkled. His hands trembled.
“I didn’t know they would threaten your family.”
Claire sat across from him.
“What did you know?”
He closed his eyes.
“That they wanted control.”
“Control of what?”
“The program.”
“You gave them donor lists.”
“Yes.”
“Expansion plans.”
“Yes.”
“Insurance information.”
Victor nodded.
Claire’s voice remained quiet.
“What else?”
He pushed a flash drive across the table.
Marissa did not touch it.
An officer collected it for proper handling.
Victor looked at Claire.
“Mercer approached me almost a year ago.”
Long before the forged contract.
Long before the threats.
Long before Claire knew she had an enemy.
“He said Community Access was financially vulnerable,” Victor continued. “He said nonprofit growth always outruns donations eventually.”
Claire hated that the statement contained truth.
They had struggled.
They still struggled.
“He offered a partnership,” Victor said. “Fleet financing. Insurance support. Regional contracts.”
“In exchange?”
“Preferred access to our data and operating systems.”
Claire’s stomach tightened.
“Patient data?”
“I said no.”
“Did you give them any?”
“No.”
Marissa leaned forward.
“Did anyone else?”
Victor hesitated.
“I don’t know.”
Claire’s pulse quickened.
“What does that mean?”
“There’s another person.”
“Who?”
Victor stared at the table.
“Someone inside Community Access.”
The room went still.
“Name.”
“I don’t know the name.”
Claire stared.
“You gave information to people you couldn’t identify?”
“Mercer’s team told me they already had an internal source. Someone sending monthly reports.”
Marissa asked, “What kind?”
“Ride volume. Route density. Driver staffing. Grant schedules.”
Claire felt sick.
Those reports were not publicly available.
Someone had been watching from inside for months.
“Why tell us now?” Claire asked.
Victor laughed bitterly.
“Because they stopped protecting me.”
“They were protecting you?”
“My pharmacy company has debt.”
There it was.
Mercer had refinanced part of it through an affiliated lender.
When Victor hesitated about supporting the acquisition, the lender threatened to call the loan.
“When I gave them information, they extended terms,” he said. “When I stopped, they accelerated everything.”
“So you sold pieces of my organization to save yours.”
“Yes.”
Claire wanted to hate him.
She mostly felt tired.
Victor looked up.
“I told myself nobody would get hurt.”
“People always say that after they decide the harm won’t happen to them.”
His eyes filled.
Claire did not comfort him.
By the time she returned to Community Access, investigators were preparing a formal digital review.
Nobody could know who the internal source was.
That meant nobody could be automatically trusted.
Claire gathered the staff.
Forty-two people filled the dispatch floor and adjoining hallway.
Drivers.
Coordinators.
Case managers.
Schedulers.
Administrators.
People who had attended Lucy’s birthday parties.
People who had brought meals after her birth.
People Claire had hired herself.
Her throat tightened.
“I need to tell you something difficult.”
She explained the security review without naming Victor’s cooperation or compromising the investigation.
Someone inside the organization might have shared confidential operational information.
Shock spread across the room.
Then fear.
“Are we shutting down?” a driver asked.
“No.”
“Are jobs being cut?”
“No.”
“Are you checking our phones?”
“No,” Claire said firmly. “We will follow legal procedures. We are not turning this place into a prison because one person may have betrayed us.”
A young dispatcher named Marisol raised her hand.
“Can I ask something?”
“Always.”
“What if the person did it because somebody threatened them?”
Claire paused.
The question changed the room.
People looked at one another differently.
Not less suspicious.
More human.
“If anyone has been pressured, threatened, bribed, or manipulated,” Claire said, “tell Marissa. Tell me. Tell the investigators. Whatever happened, hiding it will only give someone else more power.”
Marisol looked down.
Claire noticed.
So did Elaine.
After the meeting, they waited.
Ten minutes.
Twenty.
Thirty.
At five forty, Marisol knocked on Claire’s office door.
Her face was pale.
“I didn’t give them patient names.”
Claire’s heart sank.
“Sit down.”
“I swear.”
“Sit down, Marisol.”
She did.
Tears spilled instantly.
“My brother owes money.”
Claire closed the office door.
Marisol explained.
Her younger brother had borrowed from an online lending company after losing his job.
The company turned out to be tied to one of Mercer’s finance subsidiaries.
A man contacted Marisol.
He knew where she worked.
He knew her brother’s debt.
At first they requested harmless information.
How many rides each week?
How many vehicles?
Which grants renewed soon?
Then the requests changed.
Insurance contacts.
Passwords.
Administrator schedules.
Claire whispered, “Did you give them access to our security system?”
Marisol began sobbing.
“Once.”
Eight minutes.
Claire thought of the dead kitchen cameras.
Her daughter’s yellow backpack.
“Did you give them my home information?”
“No.”
Marisol shook her head violently.
“I swear. Never.”
Claire wanted to believe her.
May you like
Then Marisol said something worse.
“The man who met me already knew where you lived.”
