She read aloud: “April 1–22, 1984; May 6–28, 1984; June 21–July 14, 1984.” She looked back up at Andrew, confused, because they knew all of this, too. Queller had been gaming the system. Patients who stayed at the facilities for longer than twenty-three days were considered long-term patients, which meant that the state paid a lower daily rate for their care. Martin’s way around the lowered rate was to kick out patients before they could hit the twenty-three-day mark, then re-admit them a few days later.
Jane said, “This is going to be released after Chicago and New York. Nick has the envelopes ready to go to the newspapers and the FBI field offices.”
Andrew laughed. “Can you really see Nick sitting around stuffing almost one hundred envelopes? Licking stamps and writing out addresses?” He pointed to the file in Jane’s hands. “Look at the next page.”
She was too stressed and exhausted to play these games, but she turned the form over anyway. She saw more dates and summed them up for Andrew. “Twenty-two days in August, again in September, then in . . . Oh.”
Jane stared at the numbers. The revulsion she had felt for her father became magnified.
Robert Juneau had murdered his children, then killed himself, on September 9, 1984. According to the information in his file, he’d continued to be admitted and re-admitted to various facilities for the next six months.
Queller facilities.
Her father had not just exploited Robert Juneau’s injuries for profit. He had kept the profit rolling in even after the man had committed mass murder and suicide.
Jane had to swallow before she could ask, “Did Laura know that Father did this? I mean, did she know before Oslo?” She looked up at Andrew. “Laura saw these?”
He nodded.
Her hands were shaking when she looked back down. “I feel like a fool,” she said. “I was guilty—feeling guilty—this morning. Yesterday. I kept remembering these stupid moments when Father wasn’t a monster, but he was—”
“He was a monster,” Andrew said. “He exploited the misery of thousands of people, and when the company went public, he would’ve exploited hundreds of thousands of more, all for his own financial gain. We had to stop him.”
Nothing that Nick had said over the last five days had made Jane feel more at peace with what they had done.
She paged to the back of Robert Juneau’s file. Queller had made hundreds of thousands of dollars off of Robert Juneau’s death. She found paid invoices and billing codes and proof that the government had continued to pay for the treatment of a patient who’d never needed a clean bed or medication or meals.
Andrew said, “Turn to—”
Jane was already looking for the Intervening Report. A senior executive had to sign off on all multiple re-admissions so that an advisory board could convene to discuss the best course of action to get the patient the help that he needed. At least, that was what was supposed to happen because Queller Healthcare was allegedly in the business of helping people.
Jane scanned down to the senior executive’s name. Her heart fell into her stomach. She knew the signature as well as she knew her own. It had appeared on school forms and blank checks that she took to the mall to buy clothes or when she got her hair cut or needed gas money.
Jasper Queller.
Her eyes filled with tears. She held up the form to the light. “It must be forged or—”
“You know it’s not. That’s his signature, Jinx. Probably signed with his special fucking Montblanc that Father got him when he left the Air Force.”
Jane felt her head start to shake. She could see where this was going. “Please, Andrew. He’s our brother.”
“You need to accept the facts. I know you think that Jasper’s your guardian angel, but he’s been part of it the whole time. Everything Father was doing, he was doing, too.”
Jane’s head kept shaking, even though she had the proof right in front of her. Jasper had known that Robert Juneau was dead. He’d talked to Jane about the newspaper stories. He’d been just as horrified as Jane that Queller had so spectacularly failed a patient.
And then he had helped the company make money off of it.
Jane grabbed the other files, checked the signatures, because she was certain this had been some kind of mistake. The more she looked, the more desperate she felt.
Jasper’s signature was on every single one.
She worked to swallow down her devastation. “Are all of these patients dead?”
“Most of them. Some moved out of state. Their patient credentials are still being used to charge for treatment.” Andrew explained, “Jasper and Father were running up the numbers. The investors were getting antsy that the public offering wasn’t going to be as much.”
The investors. Martin had taken them on a few years ago so he could buy out the competition. Jasper was obsessed with the group, as if they were some sort of all-seeing monolith who could destroy them on a whim.
Andrew said, “Jasper has to be stopped. If the company goes public, he’ll be sitting on millions of dollars in blood money. We can’t let that happen.”
Jane felt a quiver of panic. This was exactly how it had started with Martin. One bad revelation had followed another bad revelation and then suddenly Laura Juneau was shooting him in the head.
Andrew said, “I know you want to defend him, but this is indefensible.”
“We can’t—” Jane had to stop. This was too much. All of this was too much. “I won’t hurt him, Andy. Not like Father. I don’t care what you say.”
“Jasper’s not worth the bullet. But he has to pay for this.”
“Who are we to play—” She stopped herself again, because they had played God in Oslo and none of them had blinked until the second it was over. “What are you going to do?”
“Release it to the newspapers.”
Jane grabbed his arm. “Andy, please. I’m begging you. I know Jasper hasn’t been the perfect brother to you, but he loves you. He loves both of us.”
“Father would’ve said the same thing.”
His words were like a slap. “You know that’s different.”
Andrew’s jaw was set. “There’s a finite amount of money in the system to take care of these people, Jinx. Jasper stole those resources to keep the investors happy. How many more Robert Juneaus are out there because of what our brother did?”
She knew he was right, but this was Jasper. “We can’t—”
“It’s no use arguing, Jinx. Nick’s already put it into play. That’s why he told me to come here first.”
“First?” she repeated, alarmed. “First before what?”
Instead of answering, Andrew rubbed his face with his hands, the only sign that any of this was bothering him.
“Please.” She could not stop saying the word. Her tears were on an endless flow.
Think of what destroying Jasper will do to me, she wanted to say. I can’t hurt anyone else. I can’t turn off that switch that makes me feel responsible.
Andrew said, “Jinx, you’ve got to know that this decision is not up to us.”
She understood what he was telling her. Nick wanted revenge—not just for the bad things that Jasper had done, but for snubbing him at the dinner table, looking down his nose at Nick, asking pointed questions about his background, making it clear that he was not one of us.
Andrew reached into the metal box again. Jane cringed when he pulled out a bundle of Polaroid photos. Andrew took off the rubber band and snapped it around his wrist.
She whispered, “Don’t.”
He ignored her, carefully studying each photo, a catalog of the beating that Jane had endured. “I’ll never forgive Father for doing this to you.” He showed her the close-up of her pummeled stomach.
The first time, not the last time, that Jane had been pregnant.
“Where was Jasper when this happened, Jane?” Andrew’s anger had sparked. He could not be talked down. “I own my part. I was stoned. I didn’t give a shit about myself, let alone anybody else. But Jasper?”
Jane looked into the parking lot. Her tears kept falling.
“Jasper was home when this happened, wasn’t he? Locked in his room? Ignoring the screaming?”