Chapter 6 - THE SCHOLARSHIP THAT NEVER EXISTED
Three days later, Evelyn arranged a meeting with the foundation's independent trustees.
We gathered in a conference room overlooking the Chicago River.
There were seven trustees in total.
Three had served since my mother's death.
Two were former scholarship recipients.
The remaining two were independent financial professionals.
I placed the suspicious statements on the table.
"I believe funds intended for students may have been diverted."
Silence.
One trustee, Professor Helen Morris, leaned forward.
"How much?"
"We don't know yet."
Another trustee frowned.
"Are you accusing Derek?"
"I'm asking for an independent investigation."
The room went quiet.
Then Helen nodded.
"I support that."
Within an hour, the board voted to commission a forensic accounting review and suspend further payments to Aster Lane pending verification.
I felt relief.
Then dread.
Because the investigation would expose more than my husband's affair.
It would expose the extent of my own failure to ask questions.
The first major discovery came from a scholarship recipient named Maya Thompson.
Maya was eighteen.
She lived on the South Side with her grandmother and had been accepted into a nursing program.
The foundation's records showed she'd received $42,000.
But Maya had received only $8,000.
When Helen contacted her, Maya was confused.
"I thought the scholarship was supposed to cover everything."
Her grandmother had taken out a loan to pay the difference.
I sat in the meeting listening to the recorded interview with Maya's permission.
My hands trembled.
My mother had spent her life helping children whose families couldn't afford opportunity.
And now money donated in her name had apparently been withheld from a young woman who wanted to become a nurse.
I went into the hallway and cried.
Not quietly.
Not elegantly.
I cried until I couldn't breathe.
Evelyn found me.
She didn't tell me to stop.
She stood beside me until I could speak.
"I should have checked."
She looked at me.
"Then check now."
I wiped my face.
"What?"
"You can't undo the past eighteen months. But you can help establish what happened and repair what can be repaired."
I nodded.
She continued.
"And Claire?"
I looked up.
"Don't confuse trusting your husband with authorizing theft."
I swallowed.
Then returned to the conference room.
By the end of the week, investigators had identified at least fourteen scholarship accounts containing discrepancies.
Some awards had been overstated.
Others appeared to have been recorded as paid even though students hadn't received the full amounts.
Several payments had been routed through Aster Lane.
The company claimed to provide verification and administrative services.
But its invoices lacked adequate documentation.
Evelyn cautioned us not to jump ahead of the evidence.
Still, the pattern was becoming difficult to ignore.
Then the forensic accountant found something worse.
A set of internal approvals carried my electronic signature.
I stared at the screen.
"That's impossible."
The accountant looked at me.
"Do you recognize these authorizations?"
"No."
He enlarged the signature.
It was mine.
Or rather, it looked like mine.
I swallowed.
"I never approved these."
The accountant nodded slowly.
"Then someone may have used your credentials."
I felt cold.
Because Derek knew every password I'd ever used.
May you like
And if he had used my identity to authorize the transfers, he wasn't simply stealing from the foundation.
He was preparing to make me responsible.
