Her father gave her a look.
“What? It does.”
Mercer almost smiled, but he couldn’t sustain it.
“Four years ago, your father came to me,” he told Julian. “He thought equipment donations involving Westbrook students were being mishandled.”
“What did you do?”
“I gave him access to records.”
“So you helped him.”
“At first.”
The last two words changed the room.
Mercer looked at me.
“Then Mobility Bridge’s director threatened to terminate the school’s assistance program if I continued cooperating.”
Rebecca’s expression hardened.
“Victor Lane.”
Mercer nodded.
I remembered the name from charity brochures.
“He told me Thomas was creating problems that might cost dozens of children access to equipment.”
“And you believed him?”
“I wanted to.”
Mercer’s voice cracked slightly.
“We had families on waiting lists. Parents calling me every week. Children whose insurance companies had rejected claims. Mobility Bridge filled gaps nobody else filled.”
