Chapter 10 - The donor Victor rejected
Lucas was compatible.
Not perfect.
But medically plausible.
He was also a minor.
Doctors would never casually take a kidney from a seventeen-year-old for an adult parent when another suitable adult donor existed.
Victor knew that.
So perhaps the test meant nothing sinister.
Then we found something else.
Rita had also been tested.
Not compatible.
Victor had been searching for a donor long before I volunteered.
Why hide Lucas?
Because acknowledging him meant acknowledging the affair.
Then Victor learned I matched.
Convenient.
A wife.
No scandal.
No questions.
I asked Dr. Salcedo whether Victor had ever mentioned another potential donor.
“No.”
“Did he ever ask whether a child could donate?”
His expression changed.
“He asked general questions.”
“When?”
“Months ago.”
I felt sick.
Still not proof of anything beyond desperation.
Then hospital investigators found the person who accessed my oncology note.
Not Victor.
Not Dr. West.
A records technician named Marcy Hale.
She admitted receiving $5,000 to send copies of my medical reports.
From whom?
Martin Kline.
Kline claimed Victor instructed him.
Victor denied it.
Everyone pointed upward or sideways.
Nobody accepted ownership.
Then Kline finally offered full cooperation.
He admitted forging the property deed.
Helping secure the home-equity line.
Facilitating the life-insurance application.
“Why?”
“Victor paid me.”
“How much?”
“Nearly four hundred thousand over six years.”
Six years.
The affair had lasted three.
So the fraud started earlier.
“What were you doing before Rita?”
Kline looked at Helen.
“Moving assets.”
From me.
My mother’s inheritance.
Investment accounts.
Even portions of my pension contributions had been redirected through fees and joint entities.
Not enough for me to notice year by year.
Enough to become millions.
Then Kline said:
“Victor didn’t start because of Rita.”
“What started it?”
“He was losing money.”
Victor’s real-estate empire was far weaker than anyone knew.
Debt.
Failed projects.
Private loans.
For years, my stable assets had quietly supported him.
The house wasn’t a romantic gift to Rita.
It was collateral.
The life insurance wasn’t necessarily a murder plan.
It was a financial rescue if I died.
And Rita?
Part love.
Part fantasy.
Part person Victor could promise things he no longer owned.
Then Helen received a call.
Victor had finally arrived at what remained of the Brookline house.
Television cameras were outside because the fire had become public.
He expected to enter.
Instead, the locks had been changed under emergency property protection.
An investigator handed him paperwork.
His expression was captured by three news cameras.
Speechless.
Exactly as I once imagined.
But I felt no satisfaction.
Because Victor looked past the burned house and asked one question:
“Where’s Sarah?”
Not angry.
May you like
Terrified.
Then he collapsed.
