Chapter 8 - The Black Ledger
The yacht captain kept two sets of books.
Official expenses.
And a black notebook for cash transactions David never wanted in the accounting system.
Captain Luis Ortega handed it to investigators.
The ledger showed vendor executives paying cash and gifts to win contracts with Vance Meridian.
Medical equipment.
Temporary staffing.
Pharmacy services.
Millions.
Those inflated contracts flowed into employee and patient costs.
The company we had built to make care cheaper was being hollowed out quietly.
One line in the ledger carried the initials J.P.
Julianne panicked.
Luis shook his head.
“Justice Partners.”
A lobbying firm.
Not her.
The fraud was bigger than the affair.
Then David called Julianne from detention.
The call was recorded.
He tried to calm her.
Then threatened her with her mother’s house if she cooperated.
Julianne went silent.
Finally she asked, “Did you read the hospital voicemail?”
David said nothing.
She asked again.
“Yes.”
My hand went numb.
Julianne whispered, “And you stayed?”
“I didn’t know she was dying.”
“You knew she was in ICU.”
“I thought Maya was making it dramatic.”
Julianne ended the call.
Then she threw up into a trash can.
I wanted to hate her cleanly.
Captain Luis told investigators David often tipped crew in cash and then made them sign inflated expense receipts.
One deckhand refused once.
David called him ungrateful and cut his hours.
Tiny abuses rarely stay tiny when nobody challenges them.
That detail never made the indictment headline.
It stayed with me anyway.
I had spent years believing David's worst flaw was arrogance.
Arrogance was only the door.
That became harder.
She had helped him hurt me.
He had used her too.
May you like
Both were true.
