Chapter 4 - The Storage Locker With My Name
The storage unit was rented under Madeline’s maiden name.
She had opened it four months earlier.
Inside were three boxes.
One contained old family photographs.
One held copies of Richard’s financial records.
The third had my name written across the lid.
I opened it.
Inside were documents from my company.
Carter Medical Holdings.
My family business.
I didn't understand.
Madeline had no formal role there.
Why was she secretly collecting corporate records?
Then I saw payment reports.
A consulting company called **Beaumont Clinical Strategies** had been receiving money from us for nearly three years.
$18,000.
$27,000.
$44,000.
Different amounts.
Every month.
Total payments exceeded $1.3 million.
I had never heard of Beaumont Clinical Strategies.
The name Beaumont hit me.
Claire Beaumont.
I called our CFO, my older brother Harrison.
“Do we pay a company called Beaumont Clinical Strategies?”
Silence.
“Harrison?”
“Where did you hear that name?”
My stomach dropped.
“Answer me.”
He sighed.
“Yes.”
“For what?”
“Research consulting.”
“What research?”
“Preston, this isn't a conversation for the phone.”
Wrong answer.
I searched the box.
Madeline had anticipated that too.
There were corporate authorization forms.
Some bore my electronic signature.
I had never approved them.
My name had been used.
Then I found an email printed on paper.
Harrison to someone identified only as **S.C.**
**Preston never reads secondary vendor reports. Keep Beaumont under research development and he won't notice.**
I felt sick.
My own brother was hiding payments under my authority.
Then another email:
**Madeline is asking questions. Serena needs to contain Claire before this reaches Preston.**
Serena.
I returned to the hospital furious.
I showed her the paper.
“Explain S.C.”
She looked.
Then laughed once.
Not happily.
“That's not me.”
“Your initials are Serena Cole.”
“My last name isn't Cole.”
I stared.
“What?”
“Serena Cole is the name I use socially.”
“What is your legal name?”
She swallowed.
“Serena Beaumont.”
Everything stopped.
Claire Beaumont’s niece.
Serena Beaumont.
Then who was **S.C.**?
Serena pointed at the signature line.
“Look at the email address.”
The account initials were **scarter**.
Carter.
There was one person in my family with those initials.
My mother.
**Sylvia Carter.**
I sat down.
“No.”
Serena nodded.
“Your mother has been paying Claire for years.”
“For what?”
“She wasn't paying Claire.”
“Then why use her name?”
“Because Beaumont Clinical Strategies isn't Claire’s company.”
“Whose is it?”
Serena stared at the unconscious Madeline through the glass.
“Your father's.”
My father had been dead for seven years.
I thought Serena had finally lost her mind.
Then she explained.
My father had formed the company before his death.
Ownership later transferred.
Secretly.
To Sylvia and Harrison.
They kept using Claire's surname as camouflage.
“Why?”
Serena’s voice lowered.
“Because Claire knows what your father did.”
My chest tightened.
“What did he do?”
Serena looked at me.
May you like
“He built the first part of your family's medical fortune on a clinical trial that should never have happened.”
And Madeline had apparently found the surviving participant records.
