Richard had found grieving families, invited them into an elegant room, surrounded them with performers, and asked whether they possessed evidence.
Jessica had arrived carrying an ache that made him seem like a rescuer.
Daniel understood the method.
He still did not understand why Richard had kept the cedar box after the affair began.
If the photographs were harmless, why had he refused to return them?
The missing cassette offered a possible answer, but no one could yet prove who had put it in the shipping packet.
Caroline obtained a meeting with Everett Hale’s former accountant, Daniel Frost, who had retired to a small coastal town.
Frost had managed the trust’s charitable distributions for nearly two decades.
He was unwilling to disclose private beneficiary records without legal authorization, but he explained the structure of the old witness-support payments.
Some went directly to counseling providers.
Others passed through an outside firm that recruited legal consultants, translators, and case coordinators.
Frost had raised concerns when that firm’s invoices became unusually vague after the fire.
“Were you ignored?”
Caroline asked.
“I was told the lawyers had approved the arrangement,” Frost said.
“I should have asked which lawyers.”
He remembered Richard personally requesting a summary of former residents and their surviving documents many years after the case closed.
Frost thought the request was for a memorial project.
When he asked to see the project budget, Richard said the effort was confidential because several families did not want public attention.
Frost had accepted the explanation, then regretted it when the same names appeared years later in a private expense category.
Mara asked Frost to preserve his notes and direct any relevant financial records through proper procedures.
She did not want the investigation to rely on an accountant’s memory alone.
Caroline thanked him and left without promising that the foundation would survive intact.
Frost asked her to remember that some programs did genuine good.
Caroline said she would, but doing good elsewhere could not excuse concealing facts about Saint Alden.
Richard’s response became more aggressive when the old accountant began cooperating.
He appeared on a local business program and described the renewed inquiry as a vindictive effort by estranged spouses to damage a respected charity.
He did not name Jessica, but referred to a former employee who had fabricated a personal story to improve her career.
Daniel watched the broadcast with Luis and felt his jaw tighten.
Richard’s accusation was designed to make the affair the headline and the documentary questions seem like emotional retaliation.
