Chapter 5 - Secrets Behind St. Jude’s Gates
The next forty-eight hours moved with the silent, terrifying efficiency of a military siege disguised as corporate accounting.
While Maya slept in the guest wing of my penthouse—the first full, warm night of sleep she had experienced in six months—David Nolan’s team of forensic accountants worked in twelve-hour shifts inside my private conference room. By Thursday evening, they had decrypted three dummy servers linked to Oakhaven Capital.
The paper trail was an atrocity of greed.
Arthur Vance hadn't just drained his brother’s estate; he had used David’s signature, forged posthumously using high-resolution digital stamps, to transfer ownership of thirty-two patents for seismic building stabilization directly to a European consortium. The proceeds—nearly forty-five million dollars—had been routed through St. Jude’s own capital improvement endowment to wash the tax liability.
"He used the school as a money-laundering clearinghouse," Nolan said, dropping a three-inch binder onto my desk on Friday morning. "The headmaster, Dr. Julian Croft, signed off on the internal transfers. Arthur promised Croft an endowed chair at Columbia University once the transaction cleared."
"So Croft isn't just an educator turning a blind eye," I said, looking through the wire confirmations. "He's an active co-conspirator."
"Which explains why the school’s private security was patrolling three blocks outside their legal jurisdiction," Nolan noted. "Croft was terrified Maya would reach an honest faculty member before Arthur could sweep her into an asylum."
At noon, a knock sounded on my office door.
Sophie walked in, holding Maya’s hand.
I stopped breathing for a fraction of a second. The battered teenager with duct-taped shoes and a dirty jacket had vanished. In her place stood a tall, poised young woman wearing an emerald-green cashmere sweater and tailored dark trousers that my personal stylist had delivered that morning. Her dark hair was neatly brushed, her posture upright, her jaw set with the quiet, aristocratic dignity of her father’s lineage.
Beside her, Sophie beamed with unbridled pride, wearing her St. Jude’s uniform.
"Look, Dad!" Sophie declared, twirling in front of my desk. "Maya helped me memorize all my multiplication tables up to twelve! I didn't miss a single one!"
"Every single one?" I asked, a genuine smile breaking through my fatigue.
"Nine times eight is seventy-two," Sophie announced instantly. "Seven times seven is forty-nine. And math isn't scary anymore because it's just building blocks with rules!"
Maya offered a modest, slightly embarrassed smile. "She had the logic down already, Mr. Harrison. She just needed someone to show her where the foundations connected."
I stood up, walking around the desk to face her. "You have your father's gift, Maya. David had that same ability to explain the most complex structural physics as if he were simply describing the morning weather."
May you like
Maya looked down at her polished leather boots, her throat working. "He always told me that if an idea is true, it shouldn't need a shouting match to be understood. Truth stands up on its own weight."
"Tonight," I said quietly, "we're going to test that theory."
