Chapter 10
The supervisor replied, "The original recipient listed on the donation form was Ethan, the donor's own brother."
Oliver's fingers tightened around his phone.
"But later, the recipient's name was changed," the supervisor continued.
"Who did it change to?" Oliver asked.
"Grace Clark," the supervisor replied.
Oliver was standing by the window in his office when he heard that name, and a chill ran down his spine.
"Who changed it?" he asked.
The supervisor replied, "The system shows the change was made the day after Luna passed away.
"The person who signed off was a woman. The signature was pretty messy, so I had a colleague try to figure it out."
The supervisor paused.
Then he continued, "It was Vivian Brown."
Now, Oliver stood in the corner of the banquet hall, watching Vivian hold Grace's hand, beaming as she accepted all the congratulations from the crowd.
He looked down at his orange juice.
He hadn't taken a sip. His mind was elsewhere.
When I was alive, I scrimped and saved for three whole years, hoping to pay for Ethan's cornea transplant. Even after all that, I was still eleven thousand dollars short.
After I passed away, I had filled out a cornea donation form, meant for Ethan.
The day after I died, someone went in and changed the recipient's name on the form.
Ethan's was erased, replaced with Grace's.
My eyes, the only thing I'd spent three years saving for, the only thing I could leave behind for Ethan after I was gone.
But they were taken from me.
And they were handed over to Grace in the spotlight, basking in everyone's applause.
Oliver set his orange juice down on a nearby table.
He didn't go talk to Derek right away.
There was still one last thing he needed to confirm.
He needed to know if Vivian had signed off on it herself, or if someone else had instructed her to do so.
He needed proof.
The party was still in full swing. Someone was playing the piano, and people were clinking glasses.
Grace's laughter drifted through the air like wind chimes.
Oliver stepped out of the banquet hall.
He almost bumped into someone in the hallway. It was Eleanor.
Eleanor wasn't a guest. She was filling in as temp cleaning staff.
The hotel was short-handed, so her company got called in at the last minute.
She stopped short when she spotted Oliver.
Oliver blinked in surprise, too. He said, "Eleanor?"
Eleanor was carrying a trash can, her work uniform sleeves rolled up to her elbows.
She said, "Hi, Oliver."
Oliver glanced down the hallway. No one else was around.
He said, "Eleanor, can I ask you something? You've been with the company for eight years. Did you ever see Luna those few times she came to the office?"
Eleanor nodded.
Oliver asked, "What kind of person was she?"
Eleanor paused, her voice dropping to a hush.
She replied, "I'm not much for talking, but she wasn't anything like what Derek and the others made her out to be.
"Whenever she came by, she was so quiet, always sneaking in through the back door, making sure nobody noticed her.
"One winter, she brought over some clothes, wearing a flimsy jacket.
"I asked why she didn't bundle up more, and she said the warm coat was for her brother."
She paused.
Then she continued, "One time, I bumped into her in the restroom. She was on the phone. I didn't mean to overhear, just happened to catch it.
"She called the person uncle. Her tone was super polite but also really close, like family. The guy on the other end called her Miss Jones, not Luna.
"From her tone, it felt like she was speaking to someone with real status."
Oliver's fingers twitched.
He asked, "Do you remember what she called him?"
Eleanor shook her head and replied, "I don't remember exactly. Just felt like that call was different, you know?
"But I didn't really think much about it. Her business, not mine."
Oliver thanked her and walked away.
He walked to the end of the hallway, pushed open the fire exit door, and stood in the stairwell for a while.
He recalled what Eleanor said just now.
'She was living in a basement, barely surviving on 270 dollars a month. But she actually had a contact like that in her phone?' he thought.
Oliver pulled out his phone and tried searching for every possible combination of my name.
Still, nothing came up.
He switched tactics. He searched for "Jones" and paired it with the last names of a few major local business families.
He found an old news article from fifteen years ago.
The headline read, "Local Business Tycoon, Ryan Jones, Passes Away After Illness. Known for Generous Philanthropy, Donated Over Ten Million Dollars to Education."
There was a blurry photo in the article. A middle-aged man stood at the entrance of an elementary school, smiling warmly.
Oliver stared at the name, Ryan Jones.
'Luna and Ethan are both Jones,' he thought.
He kept digging, but there was barely any info on Ryan.
Ryan died fifteen years ago, and after that, it felt like someone had gone out of their way to make him disappear, not a single article, not a whisper about him anywhere.