The Missing Heir novel · Chapter 8 of 24

Chapter 8: The Condition

"Name it," I said.

Dalton Everhart looked out at the parking structure.

"Mr. Doe leaves Pittsburgh.

The Erie position is real, the pay is real, and the Foundation will see that he's looked after."

"Why do you care where he goes?"

"A man with a head injury and no memory is easy to take advantage of."

"I understand that you've formed an attachment.

I understand the position that puts you in."

My face went hot.

"You've been talking to someone."

"Hospitals gossip, Doctor.

I'd hate to see it reach your board."

I stared at him.

It was the quietest threat I had ever received.

"The check is waiting," he said.

"The condition is a plane ticket.

Think it over."

He walked away, and his shoes made almost no sound.

The next morning, a courier handed Bev a sealed envelope at the ED desk.

Bev slit it with her thumbnail and read it over her glasses.

"It's the pledge letter," she said.

"Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars."

"Read it out loud."

"Gwen."

"Out loud, Bev.

Please."

She cleared her throat.

Half the night shift was still in the hall for report.

Bev read the first paragraph in a flat voice.

Then she got to the second and her voice went flatter.

"'This gift is conditional on the relocation of the patient identified as John Doe to the Foundation's Erie facilities, to be completed within seven days.'"

Nobody said a word.

A resident's pen stopped moving.

"So the Everhart Foundation," I said clearly, "wants to buy an adult man and ship him two hours north."

"That's what it says," Bev said.

"He isn't a patient.

He isn't a minor.

He isn't anyone's property."

I took the letter from her hands.

"If this fund wants to pay for care it already owes us, it can pay it.

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