Eleanor Price had been Naomi's closest colleague and the clinic's volunteer medical director. According to Alma, she disappeared from Willow Street two years earlier after accusing Daniel of moving restricted donations. Daniel told the staff she had accepted a position overseas. Her email stopped working. Someone later circulated a memorial notice, saying Eleanor had died in a car crash outside the country. Alma had cried over it and never thought to question the source.
The envelope contained a recent postcard with no return address, along with a copy of an insurance claim that listed Eleanor as alive. On the back of the postcard, Naomi had written: "Find her before they make her story mine." Caroline read it twice. The handwriting suggested Naomi knew Eleanor was being misrepresented, but it did not reveal why Eleanor had disappeared or where she had gone. Martin warned them not to build a theory from a sentence alone.
Victor traced an old phone number on one of the clinic's payroll forms and found a forwarding contact for Eleanor in another state. He left a careful message explaining that they were reviewing documents associated with a charitable trust and hoped she would speak voluntarily. By evening Eleanor returned the call. She sounded tired, angry, and unmistakably alive. She asked if Lily was safe before asking anything about the money.
Eleanor said she had resigned after finding that grant reimbursements were submitted for appointments that had never occurred. When she challenged Daniel, he told her she misunderstood the billing system and threatened to accuse her of professional misconduct. She left, then began receiving anonymous threats at her new workplace. The memorial notice was news to her. She had not spoken to Naomi during the final months because every message seemed to disappear.
Caroline put the call on speaker only after Eleanor agreed. Martin asked whether she had kept documentation. Eleanor said she had a box of records, but the important proof was not there. Naomi had recorded a meeting with Daniel and the bank officer who arranged the transfers. Eleanor knew because Naomi had asked her how to preserve the recording. She did not know where Naomi stored it.
What mattered next was whether anyone would look closely enough to notice. Still.
After the call, Caroline remembered the flash drive from Alma's envelope. Victor had not opened it yet, waiting for a forensic copy. He promised to examine it the next morning. That night, as Caroline tried to sleep, a different possibility kept returning. If Eleanor had been pressured into disappearing, perhaps Naomi's death had been surrounded by more lies than the family knew. In the morning, a message from Daniel made that fear impossible to dismiss.