Chapter 2 - The Card No One Was Allowed to Touch
The ambulance arrived twelve minutes later. I know because I counted every one while my mother negotiated with the venue manager about where the paramedics could park.
"Use the service entrance," I heard her say. "We have important guests."
The doctor in the blue jacket, whose name was Dr. Miles Rowan, stayed beside me and refused to let anyone move my leg. He told the paramedics what he'd seen, including the condition of my brace and the way I'd landed. When Sloane complained that the stretcher blocked the staircase, he looked up and said, "Then the wedding party can wait."
At the emergency department in Newport, a physician ordered scans and explained that my knee might have sustained new ligament damage. There was no obvious fracture. That was the first good news of the night. The second was that the numbness began to ease. The bad news was everything else.
I called Nia Shah, my business partner, from an exam room that smelled of bleach and warm plastic. Six years earlier, we'd started Harborlight Logistics in a rented office with one folding table. Now we coordinated emergency lodging and transportation for cities and private insurers. Our reserve card could place families in safe rooms when a normal purchase order would take too long.
"Tell me you authorized forty-two thousand five hundred dollars in Rhode Island," Nia said without hello.
"I didn't. Freeze the card."
"I already did. The charge is marked as an emergency room block. Merritt, we have eighty-three people waiting for hotel placement tonight."
"I'll cover the rooms another way. What merchant?"
"Atlantic Guest Services, operating under the same tax group as Whitcomb House Estate."
I could hear the anger she was holding back. We had rules about how company money was handled, and they applied to founders most of all.
"Someone used your card details," Nia said. "And someone submitted an authorization bearing your name."
"That's impossible."
"I wish it were. I've brought in outside counsel and a forensic accountant. Your access is temporarily restricted until we understand what happened."
It hurt. It also meant Nia was doing her job.
After we hung up, my mother appeared at the curtain carrying my purse. She asked whether I would be released by morning, whether I could skip the rehearsal dinner photographs, whether I would avoid mentioning Sloane to the doctor. She didn't ask if I was frightened.
"Mom," I said, "who paid for the reception?"
Her mouth tightened. "Why would you ask that now?"
"Because somebody put forty-two thousand dollars of my company's money on the bill."
May you like
My mother did not look surprised. She looked toward the corridor to make sure nobody had heard.
"Honey," she said softly, "your father was going to explain after the wedding."
