“Can you call her tonight?”
“Yes.” He hesitated.
“There’s something else you should probably know before you speak with her.”
“Tell me.”
“I spoke with Mia after you left.
She said there’s more to the placement situation than I told you.
She said Cassandra’s father didn’t just make a call on Nathan’s behalf.
He made a financial contribution to the hospital foundation.
A significant one.
Timed with the placement approval.”
I sat down in Nathan’s desk chair.
“That’s not just a favor,” I said.
“No,” Daniel said.
“If it can be documented, it could be a serious problem for Nathan’s license.
Before he even starts.”
I looked around the study.
The lecture notes.
The framed copy of Nathan’s acceptance letter to medical school, the one I had framed myself and given to him as a gift.
The small plant on the windowsill that I watered every Thursday.
“Tell your sister I’ll call her at nine tomorrow morning,” I said.
“I’ll let her know.”
I hung up.
I looked at the prepaid phone again.
Then I looked at the acceptance letter on the wall.
I had been so proud of him.
The front door opened.
Nathan’s key in the lock.
His footsteps in the hallway.
He stopped in the doorway of the study and looked at me.
Then he looked at the prepaid phone on the desk between us.
His face went very still.
He didn’t sit down.
He stood in the doorway with his jacket still on, his graduation gown gone now, and he looked at the prepaid phone on the desk the way a person looks at something they had been certain was hidden.
“Where did you find that?” he asked.
“Does it matter?”
“That’s my private property.”
“So is the joint account you emptied to buy an apartment with her.” I kept my voice even.
“Sit down.”
He came into the room but didn’t sit.
He stood on the far side of the desk, which put the prepaid phone between us like an exhibit.
