Bradford immediately cued into the change of expression. “Corbett! What is it?”
“Uh, there was an email that went out this morning...” he winced trying to work up the courage to continue. “And it was addressed to our entire internal mailing list... and CNN... and the Wall Street Journal... and the New York Times.”
“What did it say?” Bradford shouted, his cheeks glowing fiery red.
“I think you should probably read it yourself. It was a lengthy and, I’m quite sure, dishonest resignation letter.”
“Get out! I’ll deal with you later. You’re gonna take personal and public responsibility for this. Do you hear me?”
“Yes sir,” Corbett whispered ducking his head as he backed out of the room.
Bradford opened his email and clicked on the sent mail folder. Thirty minutes prior an email had gone out to all of the addressees Corbett had mentioned and more.
Dear All,
Recently my life flashed before my eyes, and I didn't like what I saw. In order to begin the process of making amends, I feel that I must first start by taking some responsibility for my actions.
First, I would like to apologize to RTJ. At the time you were identified as a top prospect for our initial public offering, you had two young, healthy parents. And while you have turned out to be every bit as extraordinary as we had hoped, I would like to apologize for any role I may have played in the untimely deaths of your parents.
To J (may you rest in peace,) I’m sorry. I sent you into a basketball game knowing full well that you may not live through it because of a potentially lethal heart condition. I did this because I wanted to profit from a multi-million dollar contract you were set to sign after the game. After you died, I donated my own money to your charity, only to give the impression that I had received a large malpractice settlement from The University of Chicago Children’s Hospital. I hadn’t.
Although I know there are many others I’ve hurt, I’d like to conclude by apologizing to BUTY. I funneled cash directly to your orphanage’s headmaster when you were only 13 years old, prior to your being adopted by Avillage, so that you could be subjected to a breast augmentation and tubal ligation without your knowledge.
I willingly accept the civil and criminal liability of my actions. I did all of this in the interest of generating profit. I hereby offer my resignation from Avillage, Inc.
Sincerely,
Aaron Bradford
Some of it was true. Some of it hinted at the truth, and some was off the mark, but the news outlets weren’t going to sit on this. Investigative reporters were probably already chasing down leads.
Avillage’s reputation to this point had never sustained a single blemish, and the company was viewed as a resounding success, even by most child-welfare advocates. Bradford kept his eyes trained on the end of the message, continuously shaking his head, contemplating how in the world he was going to deal with this.
When he finally looked up, still with no plan of attack, he started at the sight of his boss standing in his doorway. Prescott wore a disappointed but determined fatherly expression that read, “this is going to hurt me as much as it hurts it you.”
Bradford opened his mouth to speak first, but he couldn’t find the words.
“I’m sorry, Aaron. We’ve had a good run,” Prescott said matter-of-factly. “You know I couldn’t have built this company to where it is now without you. I will personally pay whatever legal fees you might run into.”
“What?” Bradford gasped. “That’s it? I didn’t write that email. James, come on. You know me.”
“I know you didn’t write it. But I need you to tell me that none of it’s true.”
Bradford huffed and puffed like a philanderer who’d been caught in the act. “James, this is my life! I’ve got nothing else.”
But he never said it was untrue.
“Put yourself in my position, Aaron. You know there’s only one way out here. No one’s bigger than the company.” Although his voice was calm, there was an inevitability in his tone that sent Bradford into a panic.
“James, look, I don’t know exactly what you’re going through, but you’re not gonna be around forever! There’s nobody else qualified to run this place!”
“Aaron,” Prescott sighed empathetically, knowing the day would come when he’d have to tell Bradford what he was about to say. “It was never going to be you. Avillage is my legacy. It was never going to leave my family.”
Was that a joke?
Prescott’s kids had never set foot in the building – not even for social visits. Shocked, humiliated, devastated, Bradford’s mix of emotion, for the first time in Prescott’s presence, bubbled to the surface as pure rage.
“You’ve lost it!” he shouted. “Almost thirty years of service, and you throw me out like a piece of trash at the first whisper of misconduct? The cancer’s gone to your brain! I’ll have you declared incompetent!”
“I’m sorry, Aaron,” Prescott replied steadfastly, with no change in his sympathetic expression. “This is a private company. You know there’s no board to appeal to. My decision’s final.”
Bradford slammed his fists down on his desk and started to rise from his chair, but just as he did, his spine arched and his arms and legs stiffened like a frozen corpse’s. His eyes remained open as his teeth clenched down involuntarily on his tongue, sending a rose-colored froth out of the corner of his mouth.
Prescott shouted for Bradford’s secretary to call 911. Thirty seconds of forceful, rhythmic full-body jerks were followed by quiet flaccidity. Bradford’s office chair slowly rolled out from behind him as his body sunk to the ground in a heap, his eyes still eerily open, his breath sounds sonorous, and his pants soiled.
Dillon couldn’t have scripted a more undignified departure from Avillage.
CHAPTER 14
“I don’t think I can do it,” Annamaria whimpered into her phone from the backseat of an idling cab.
“Yes you can,” Ryan shot back emphatically. “Trust me. I’ve seen the fire inside you. Let it out. You have
nothing
to fear. The fear, the shame, the regret – they all belong with him. Give them to him!”
She nodded her head and wiped the tears from her cheeks. “I know,” she said, still sniffling. “I know.” She took one last glance at the sign just outside her window that read, “Rainbow City 10 km,” firmed up her expression and then gave her driver the go-ahead.
~~~
Nerves weren’t an issue for Ryan, who calmly slid his phone back into his front pocket and leaned forward on the edge of his seat, resting his elbows on his knees and interlocking his fingers in front of him, staring determinedly out the plate-glass window of terminal A5 inside Boston’s Logan International Airport. For him the hardest part had been waiting.
Traveling outside the United States without Prescott’s permission had never been an option, until he’d turned eighteen six days prior. But it just so happened that the final spring break of his life conveniently fell within a week of his milestone birthday.
While he’d researched the trip obsessively, he hadn’t whispered a word of his plans to anyone – not his parents; not even Annamaria – until the week before, when he’d legally become an adult.
The Cayman Islands were a perfectly reasonable spring break destination for an eighteen-year-old with more money than he knew what to do with, and it actually would be nice to escape Boston’s subarctic version of spring. But this trip would be all business. Jared Ralston’s reckoning was long overdue.
~~~
A rush of emotion flooded Annamaria’s heart and mind, as she scanned the grounds of the orphanage. Everything was familiar. But different. The old dirt parking lot had been paved over with smooth asphalt; the uneven, muddy soccer field was now carpeted with lush green grass with real goals and bright chalk boundary lines; and the cage-like chain-link fence had been replaced by a white-washed wooden fence, accented with the children’s brightly colored handprints. She couldn’t see the children as she approached, but she could hear their telltale squeals and laughter.
After slowly making her way to the orphanage door, she paused for a full minute, her heart in her stomach, waiting for the surge of emotion that would compel her to throw the door open and storm inside. But it never came. And gradually, thoughts that she really might not be able to do this began to creep in.
She considered calling Ryan again, but he was probably in the air by now. And her cell phone wasn’t picking up any signal anyway.
She then thought about retreating to the parking lot, where she could see the cab driver napping in the front seat – all the windows down, his head leaned back against the headrest, mouth wide open and nose twitching perturbedly at a swarm of gnats.
But she was suddenly struck with a trivial curiosity. The sidewalk she was standing on used to end at the door. She remembered that distinctly. Now it continued on to the back of the orphanage.
Convincing herself that solving this puzzle was a valid alternative to barging through the front door, she decided to follow the path and see where it led. Surely she’d find the courage to burst through the door afterward.
As she tiptoed quietly toward the back corner of the building, ducking as she passed by the headmaster’s window, she was startled by a man’s voice behind her.
“May I help you?” the familiar voice asked in Spanish.
She froze, still a few paces short of the back of the building, every fiber in her body tensing.
“Ma’am,” the headmaster said a little louder. “May I help you?”
Annamaria straightened up her posture, threw her shoulders back with a deep breath in, and slowly turned to reveal her identity, staring directly in the headmaster’s eyes.
Carlos Villanueva gawked at her as if she’d just returned from the dead. “Annamaria!” he gasped, falling to his knees under the weight of her glare.
“How could you!” she screamed, her trepidation replaced by rage.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” he blubbered, making no attempt at denial, shamefully covering his face with his hands.
“I was just a little girl! I trusted you! And now I can’t trust anyone!”
He offered no excuses and no defense, as he sobbed on the ground in front of her.
“Get up, Carlos!” she demanded. “I want answers!”
Slowly he rose to his feet keeping his head down, trying to regain some semblance of composure. “Of course, of course,” he finally whispered. “Just not here. Not where the children might hear. Please, follow me.”
He led her into his cramped office, seemingly the only part of the grounds left unchanged from the day she’d departed six years earlier, and offered her a chair and a glass of water, both of which she hastily refused.
“I’ve thought about the day you might come back everyday since I sold my soul to the devil,” he started, his voice trembling. “First of all, let me say that what I did was wrong, and I will continue to pay for the decision I made for as long as I live.
“Now, you want answers, and you deserve them. Please, sit.”
Annamaria kept her glare on him, her face still flushed with anger. “Damn it! I don’t want to sit down!” she screamed.
“Ok, ok. I’m sorry,” Carlos continued nervously, “It’s been six years now since the earthquake. I took this place over just six months before that. I was only 24 years old at the time.
“After the quake hit, in the span of two days, our occupancy rate shot up from 25% to 200%. You were here. You remember.” Every memory he had of her was fond. He wasn’t aware that a smile had started to form on his lips as he took a moment to reminisce.
“Up to that point, I had always been more of a romantic than a realist. I took this job with dreams of cleaning the place up, filling it with light and laughter. Making something that felt like a home for the homeless. I converted the old headmaster’s huge office into a gameroom and moved my stuff into this cramped little space. I fenced in the yard, so the kids could play outside more. I spent every cent the state gave me on enrichment projects and lobbied for more.
“But I was learning on the job. When the earthquake hit, I was overwhelmed. I had no money in reserve. Then half our staff either cut back their hours or couldn’t work altogether because of injuries or damage to their homes.
“The government increased their allocation to the orphanage by 50%, but it wasn’t even close to enough. We were barely keeping food on the table. The kids with injuries were getting essentially no medical care, and we didn’t even have time to think about child enrichment. You were a godsend, Annamaria. I’ll never forget...”
“Don’t!” she warned. She didn’t want him toying with her emotions, and she wasn’t there for flattery.
“I’m sorry,” he stuttered, not entirely sure what he was apologizing for this time, and then continued on with his story. “One morning I was in my office, desperately trying to make the finances work when I came across a letter I’d actually meant to throw out from an American company by the name of Avillage. They said they were looking for orphans with ‘exceptional skills or talents.’
“These children, they said, would be adopted into hand-selected American families. And the referring orphanages would be eligible for a finder’s fee of sorts. They made it sound like a win-win situation.
“I was desperate. And you were the only child who came to my mind – beautiful, confident, responsible – so I sent off some pictures.
“I had just about forgotten about it when, after hearing nothing for months, Aaron Bradford showed up, on less than twenty-four hours notice.
“He was very slick. And pushy. Clearly adept at preying on the hopeless. An evil man. I should have sent him out immediately, but he understood how dire our situation was, and, in his brief encounter with you, I think he picked up on your compassion for the younger children.
“He told me what would need to be done to complete your adoption – and what the orphanage would get in return. I immediately refused, shocked and disgusted! But he persisted.
“Then he asked me a question that I’ve never stopped wondering about. He asked me, ‘What would she do?’
“I thought I knew the answer.
“So, reluctantly, I consented.
“I hurt you. I damned myself... And
you
saved the orphanage.” His voice trailed off, as he considered stopping there. But he couldn’t stop himself from trying to satisfy his curiosity. “If you
had
been given the choice... what would you have done?”
“I’ll tell you this,” she said, the fire in her eyes reduced to smolder. “If my family had been on the verge of starvation and my dad had asked me, at thirteen, to have surgery and be taken permanently from the only home I’d ever known to save my family, I would have done it in a heartbeat.
“But he never would have asked.
“He was a man. A leader. A protector. A father.” She shook her head disgustedly. “You aren’t any of those! You don’t deserve these children.”
“You’re right,” he said softly, too ashamed to raise his head to make eye contact with her. “I was your only defense from the Aaron Bradfords of the world, and I failed you. I’m so sorry.
“But if I were put in the same hopeless position again, I can’t honestly convince myself I’d do things differently.”
“Then I hope you enjoy your last day,” she said, turning for the door.
“Annamaria, wait! I understand if you never forgive me. I’ve got no right to ask for that. And I’ll accept whatever consequences come my way for what I did. But can I at least show you the good that has come from your success? You deserve that.”
~~~
Toward the end of the prior summer, Weinstien had called Ryan, and in typical fashion, was speeding through his third sentence before Ryan was entirely sure who it was.
“Your grandfather died of hypoglycemia – low blood sugar,” he’d blurted into the phone. “His blood sugar was eight! Under seventy-five’s abnormal! Anything under sixty is dangerous! I mean, he was essentially D.O.A.
“Anyway, he wasn’t a coroner’s case because he was a diabetic and generally didn’t take great care of himself. So, no autopsy. Cause of death on the death certificate: diabetes-slash-hypoglycemia. No foul play suspected. Case closed, right?
“Well, maybe not,” Weinstien teased after a dramatic pause. “I had a retired doctor friend of mine look over his records, and a couple of things jumped out to him. One: the only prescription he’d ever filled for his diabetes was a medication called metformin, and your granddad was only picking it up about every other month – i.e., he wasn’t taking it regularly.”
“But if he wasn’t taking his medication, how’d his sugar go
low?”
Ryan had asked. “Seems like it should’ve been through the roof.”
“Exactly! And on every other blood test he’d taken in the past three years, it had been! Three hundred, three-fifty, four hundred, three-eighty. Every one sky high. So the conclusion I came to was that he must’ve accidentally taken too much of his medication.
“But my doctor friend said his bloodwork didn’t really support that. Plus he tells me that metformin usually doesn’t tank your blood sugar – at least not to that degree.
“Now here’s the kicker: turns out his potassium had bottomed out along with his blood sugar. There’s really only one thing that saps your body of potassium
and
glucose at the same time.”
“Insulin,” Ryan had interjected, disappointed but not at all surprised at the ending of Weinstien’s story.
“How the heck do you know this stuff?” a flummoxed Weinstien had asked, mildly deflated that he hadn’t gotten to drop the bombshell he’d been building up to.
“It’s pretty basic human physiology,” Ryan had answered, before filling Weinstien in on the full details of J.R.’s state-license probation over a prescription he’d called in. For insulin. To a Seattle pharmacy. The day before his grandfather had died.
A week later, Weinstien had called back with J.R.’s address in Grand Cayman, and Ryan had begun planning his trip.
Now it would only be a matter of hours – a day at the most – before Ryan could confront him face to face, finally confident in the whole truth. He still wasn’t sure what he was going to say – or do – when he found him. But he hoped when the time came, he’d be able to summon a reasonable level of restraint
~~~
“You’ve got ten minutes!” Annamaria huffed, showing herself out of the headmaster’s office. Carlos scrambled closely behind her. As she exited, it dawned on her that the interior of the building was utterly unrecognizable. It no longer looked like a warehouse that stored children. A long central hallway with doors coming off either side every dozen feet or so led to the cafeteria at the other end of the building.