Chapter 12 - The Woman at the Clinic
The clinic's records did not immediately reveal who had impersonated me.
The receptionist remembered the appointment only vaguely.
The woman had arrived wearing sunglasses, paid an administrative fee, and declined follow-up contact.
Maya secured preservation of available surveillance footage and registration materials through proper legal channels.
The coat alone could not identify the visitor.
But the records showed something stranger than a borrowed garment.
The purported evaluation had been scheduled by an assistant working for Richard Vale.
The assistant's name was Andrea Sloan.
Andrea had also been responsible for sending materials to the anniversary ballroom's audiovisual staff.
For the first time, the false medical story and the fake foundation announcement shared a direct organizer.
Maya asked whether Andrea would speak voluntarily.
At first she declined.
Then she learned that Richard's lawyers had submitted her name as the person responsible for verifying the disputed evaluation.
She called back.
We met her in a neutral conference room with counsel present.
Andrea was younger than I expected, with tired eyes and a precise way of folding papers.
"I thought the appointment was for a relative who needed privacy," she said.
"Who told you that?" Maya asked.
"Mr. Vale."
Andrea explained that Natalie had requested the clinic appointment under my name.
She did not claim to have watched Natalie enter the building.
She supplied messages arranging the appointment, however, and one message from Natalie specifically asked whether the coat would make the visitor look like me on camera.
My stomach tightened.
Even now, with the evidence spread across the table, I found myself hoping there was some harmless explanation.
There was not.
Andrea also told us she had been asked to revise a presentation file for the anniversary venue.
Richard's instructions said the file should appear after a particular phrase spoken into the microphone.
The phrase was, "This time, I won."
Natalie had delivered that line exactly.
The spectacle had not merely been rehearsed.
It had been timed to coincide with a financial transfer and a coordinated assault on my credibility.
When I left the meeting, I felt the cold air strike my face like a release.
I called Leah and asked how the independent review was progressing.
She said auditors had traced the questionable vendor payments to three groups of invoices.
One group was connected to genuine work, though the rates needed review.
One was unsupported.
The third had been paid using donor restrictions that required an entirely different purpose.
That third group worried me most.
Donor restrictions were promises, not accounting decorations.
Richard had tried to turn promises into cash.
At home, Celeste was facing her own reckoning.
She called to say Richard had threatened divorce and financial ruin unless she retracted her account of the travel expenses.
"I don't know if I can do this," she admitted.
"You don't owe me a performance," I said. "You owe yourself an honest choice."
She was silent.
Then she asked whether I would meet her adult daughter, Sophie, who managed a portion of the family's charitable giving.
Sophie knew something about Richard's accounts.
May you like
And Celeste believed she was finally ready to talk.
