Chapter 3: What the Photograph Meant
The man in the photograph was my father.
He was standing outside a building I didn't recognize, next to a man I did — Dr.
Gerald Shepherd, Bianca's father and the longest-serving member of the St.
Jude hospital board.
They were shaking hands.
Both of them were smiling.
"Where did you get this?" I said.
"It doesn't matter where I got it."
"It matters to me."
Christopher leaned back in his chair.
"Your father has been a silent financial partner in a private cardiology billing company for eleven years.
That company has been processing a portion of St.
Jude's cardiology claims — my department's claims — at a markup that doesn't appear in any official hospital record."
The room felt very still.
"You're saying my father is involved in insurance fraud."
"I'm saying that if your inspection flags my department right now, the billing irregularities surface.
And when they surface, the auditors don't stop at the hospital.
They follow the money.
All the way to the company.
All the way to every name on the incorporation documents."
I looked at the photograph again.
My father's face.
Relaxed.
Pleased.
The handshake of a man who believed he was completely safe.
"You've known about this for how long?" I asked.
"Long enough."
"And you married me knowing."
He didn't answer that.
"Christopher." My voice came out steadier than I expected.
"Did you marry me to keep this quiet?"
"I married you because I wanted to." He paused.
"But I won't pretend the timing wasn't useful."
I picked up the photograph.
He didn't stop me.
"So this is what the four years were for," I said.
"Not love.
Insurance."
"Isabel—"
"And Bianca?
What is she?
The replacement policy?"
His jaw tightened.
"Bianca has nothing to do with your father."
"But she has everything to do with Gerald Shepherd.
Who is on the board.
Who controls your department's budget.
Who could protect you if the audit goes badly." I set the photograph back down on his desk, face-up.
"You didn't just marry me for cover.
You're building a second layer.
A board member's daughter carrying your child.
That's not an affair, Christopher.
That's a strategy."
He stood up.
"You're smarter than this," he said.
"You know what happens if this goes public.
Your father's name is on those documents.
Your career is in healthcare oversight.
How does it look when the inspector's own father is named in the fraud she failed to report?"
There it was.
"That's a threat," I said.
"It's a reality."
I picked up my bag from the chair beside the door.
"I need you to think carefully before you walk out of here," he said.
"I've been thinking carefully for four years." I turned the handle.
"I just didn't know what I was thinking about."
I walked out of his office and down the corridor and through the glass doors into the cold Minneapolis morning.
I sat in my car for a long time without starting the engine.
My father's face in that photograph kept coming back.
The easy smile.
The handshake.
Eleven years.
I had one call to make before I decided anything.
May you like
I needed to know if Christopher was telling the truth.
I needed to hear it from my father himself.
