30: Accounts Closed (Donovan Price)

Donovan went to the wall and stopped in front of the portrait of his great-grandfather, Archibald Price. He carefully took it down, revealing a hidden safe with a small camera. He held still until the camera finished scanning his iris, and the safe popped open.

He reached inside and removed a very large, very old ledger, and set it on his desk. Donovan carefully leafed through it, taking note of all the items that had been struck out with red lines. At long last, he came to a page with an unmarked item. “Xian Street Shelter Fire,” it read.

Donovan turned back to his computer screen and checked the spreadsheet. Eventually he found a listing for “Father Xian Missions,” with an outstanding balance of $472.59--well under this month's donation, he thought. He took a red pen from his desk and carefully struck through the corresponding line on the ledger.

He flipped through a few more pages, but didn't find any more unmarked items before coming across a thick, black line that divided a page horizontally. The last listed item before that line was in 1942, the year of Archibald Price's death.

Price touched a button on his desk phone. “Sandra?” he said, not waiting for an answer. “Phase out the donation to the Father Xian Missions, and keep it quiet. Start one up in the same amount for the Educational Renovation Project.” He pressed the button again to hang up, then returned the ledger to its place in the safe.

Once the safe closed, he did not return the portrait of his great-grandfather to its original place. Instead Donovan carried it to a closet, where he switched it with another, somewhat more recent portrait in a thick frame. This one he hung on the wall over the safe, and he found himself staring into the iron-gray eyes of his grandmother, Virginia Price.

Donovan sighed as he stared at her. She seemed more domineering in the portrait than she had in life, if such a thing was possible. Her hard face would be keeping watch over the office for a long time.

After her, there were still three more portraits in that closet. If he lived long enough, he could pay for all their sins.

Then he would have to find a way to pay for his own...