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"In fact," Dave said, his voice soft. "We stopped new outreach and have focused on existing funders, to gauge their support."
"Why did you stop new outreach?"
"Our volunteers were getting hung up on and doors slammed in their faces at an unprecedented rate as soon as the title of the Foundation was mentioned. We had to stop sending them out. They get disheartened when they have to face that kind of rejection."
"What the hell happened?" I rubbed my forehead, a slight headache percolating.
"I guess that tell-all in the press about you and your father's foundation really did it. People hear Dr. Morgan and right away think of you. Even when we say you're no longer on the board of directors, the fact that you started the foundation gets in the way."
I sighed heavily. "What percent of our funding do we still have?"
Dave flipped some papers and then cleared his throat. "Thirty-five percent."
"Thirty-five percent?" I was shocked. That was a lot of money lost.
"Yes, we had to cancel about a dozen existing and future projects as a result."
I closed my eyes. "What's your recommendation, Dave? What should I do?"
There was a silence on the line for a moment. "I'd close it down. If you want, we can start another charity offshore that is in no way connected to you or Liam and still do the same work but you won't get the tax benefits of doing it in the US. But this way, you won't be named or involved other than as an anonymous funder."
I sighed. "Okay. Do what you have to. I don't care about the tax benefits. I just want to carry on what my father started. Do it. I'll be anonymous but will provide the lion's share of the funding to start. I want the foundation to do the same work that my father's did. You'll be in charge."
"Consider it done. It'll take a few months to get everything shut down at the foundation and restarted in a new charity."
"That's fine. I have nothing but time, considering I'm not working."
I hung up, and when Kate came back into the room, she looked so pleased that I didn't want to tell her the content of the conversation with Dave. I'd tell her later, when the time was right.
Finally, Karen arrived and took Sophie for the afternoon.
"We're going to walk through Central Park for some fresh air and when we get to my place, she'll have a sleep. I'll bring her back before supper."
"Sounds good," I said and waved at Sophie when the two of them left the apartment. Kate went into the office to get a few items she needed for the painting and then she was gone as well.
I was left alone, but try as I might, sleep eluded me. Instead, I lay on my back on the sofa and worried about the future, uncertain whether our lives would ever truly recover from this whole mess, and most of all, I was deeply saddened that I had to close the foundation. It kept my father's name alive but now, my name -- and my connection with the whole Lisa Monroe case -- had destroyed both.
Kate
Of course, as soon as I got to the studio, I put on my small television so I could watch the news coverage of the trial. While it was good that Drake had decided not to follow the trial anymore because of his concussion and the stress doing so would cause, I couldn't stay away. I needed to know what was being said about Drake in the press so I could know how to deal with Drake and any fallout.
At the top of the hour, the image was displayed as the announcer went over the contents of the video, talking about how the video would seem to support Lisa Monroe's contention that she was an abused woman who had been controlled by two abusive older men.
How could they get it so wrong?
If anything, it was Lisa who manipulated Derek and Drake to get what she wanted. Lara had done some sleuthing about Lisa's past and family life. She wanted to be with rich older men who could provide her with the lifestyle she wanted. Her uncle was a police officer in the NYPD, but her mother had been divorced and impoverished, who traded on her beauty to find a man who would support her. Lisa wanted to find a rich man, and while she had ambitions to be a surgeon, they were more the result of her experiences with Drake than some inherent desire. She was smart enough to make it into medical school, and then be accepted into a neurosurgery residency, but her unstable mental health, her erotomania, got in the way.
According to police reports, Lisa and
Jones kidnapped and held Derek prisoner with the idea of taking as much of his wealth as they could so they could live the way they wanted. The only thing that stopped Lisa from realizing her plan was her hatred and jealousy of me and her momentary loss of control when she struck me with the rental car. Sure, she had planned on it from the time she learned that Drake had gone to the administration about her, wanting to harm him through me, but until then, she really honestly thought she could coerce him into having a relationship with her. When she realized she couldn't she turned to plan B, which was to extort money from Derek, or worse, steal it outright and then kill him, covering up his death by making it seem he'd left the US for Singapore - which he had spoken to friends about doing anyway.
Based on what the homicide detective told Drake, when Drake contacted Derek about Lisa, concerned about her behavior towards him and that she was mentally unstable, Derek had reconnected with Lisa out of concern for her. Lisa tried to get back together with Derek because she felt she was making no headway with Drake. She and Derek had become involved again briefly, but when Derek began having problems with her accepting their new relationship, he had tried to break up with her.
In testimony given before his suicide, Jones said that Lisa had lured Derek out to the cabin and she and Jones kept him tied up and forced him to provide Lisa with his bank account information so she could transfer money to her accounts. When he tried to escape, Jones had fought him and that was the act that led to his death, with both of them attacking him with knives and a hammer. But she had been planning to stage his move to Singapore and had sent texts from his cell to his lawyers and accountant to that effect. She had always planned on killing him and when Derek finally realized it, he fought to save his own life but had ended up losing it instead.
Then, when Jones flipped on her, testifying against her, she coerced him into killing himself, encouraging him to do it.
That was the prosecutor's theory of the case, which the police detectives in charge of the case shared.
