Chapter 3 - The Phoenix Children’s Fund
Our family ran the Phoenix Children’s Recovery Fund.
My grandfather created it after surviving leukemia as a child.
The foundation paid for rehabilitation, housing, and transportation for families with seriously ill children.
My mother chaired the board.
My father managed investments.
Dylan handled development and donor relations.
I served as financial compliance director.
Nora organized public events.
From the outside, we looked like the perfect charitable family.
Inside, the numbers had begun to rot.
Six months before the anniversary dinner, I noticed repeated payments to a consulting company called Red Canyon Strategies.
The invoices described donor outreach and community partnerships.
No reports were attached.
No employees appeared on public records.
The address led to a mailbox store.
The foundation had paid Red Canyon nearly nine hundred thousand dollars.
Every transfer had been approved by Dylan.
When I asked him, he smiled.
“You’re reading too much into routine expenses.”
“Then show me the work.”
“You don’t trust me?”
“I trust documentation.”
His smile disappeared.
That evening, my mother called.
“Your brother says you’re harassing him.”
“I asked for invoices.”
“Dylan raises the money that keeps this family respected.”
“The foundation doesn’t exist to keep us respected.”
Her silence was warning enough.
I kept investigating.
Red Canyon transferred money to another company.
That company purchased a condo in Scottsdale.
The owner was Nora.
The down payment came directly from foundation funds.
I confronted her the night of the anniversary dinner.
She pulled me into the hallway near the stairs.
“You don’t understand,” she whispered.
“Then explain.”
“Dylan borrowed the money.”
“You don’t borrow from sick children.”
“He was going to repay it.”
“With what?”
Her face hardened.
“You’ve always wanted him to fail.”
“No. I want him to stop stealing.”
Then Nora said something strange.
“You already took enough from him.”
Before I could ask what she meant, Dylan called her name.
May you like
She walked toward the staircase.
Ten minutes later, she was lying at the bottom.
