Dale accepted the keys but staggered toward the sanctuary. A pair of ushers stood by the doors. As soon as Marcus introduced him, the ushers were vying over which hand Dale would shake first. Others were called out from the sanctuary, where the choir and music director were busy warming up the crowd. People saw the gathering by the rear doors and moved close. Dale’s name was passed around. More smiles and hands extended toward the confused man.
When Marcus finally managed to pry him loose, Dale asked, “What was that all about?”
“A lot of families here live off New Horizons paychecks. I should have warned you.”
“But I’ve been fired.”
“They know what you tried to do in there. It means a lot.”
The music and the shouting and the applause did not seem to bother Dale nearly as much as the welcome. When the minister invited the congregation to offer one another Sabbath greetings, Dale shrank inside his own skin. People gave no sign of minding either his manner or his dress. They didn’t turn from him until the next chorus began.
Marcus noticed Omar Dell only after the service ended. The young man wore a collage of dark gray—gabardine suit, slightly darker shirt, finely patterned tie. He worked his way smoothly toward Marcus, doing the easy greetings of one known and liked by many. When he finally stood before Marcus he said, “I’d heard about you hanging with the home crowd.” He motioned to where Dale was trying his best to reach the outer doors. “But how come you didn’t take him someplace tamer, you know, so he could mellow with the vanillas for Jesus crew?”
“Now is not the time or the place, Omar.”
“That’s where you’re wrong.” Omar steered them over to the side aisle. “This is what you might call a very private heads-up.”
“Call my office tomorrow.”
“You just hold tight and listen. I’m doing this as a favor to a mutual friend.” He moved in closer still. “Yesterday evening, papers were filed by Health and Human Services, requesting an emergency hearing first thing Monday morning.”
“What about?”
“They aim on declaring Dale Steadman an unfit parent.”
Marcus backed against the wall, but was unable to find a handhold. “That’s insane.”
Omar grinned, satisfied with the impact of his news. “Makes you wonder, don’t it.”
“Dale doesn’t even have possession of the child.”
“Sounds to me like people in the know are trying for another of these end runs around you and your client.” Omar shifted so that he was right in Marcus’ line of sight. “Now you got to promise me, you come up with another headline, you call me first.”
Marcus pushed past the reporter. “I have to find Dale.”
Dale had thought getting outside would bring safety. But the heat formed a thunderous din in his head, worse even than the church’s echoes. He held to a steady gait across the parking lot, though it would have been more comfortable to fall to all fours and crawl. It was not the drinking that left him so devastated. Or at least, not that alone. The church’s welcome had been crippling, a smiling condemnation of everything he had failed to achieve at New Horizons. As if he needed another reminder.
His cell phone pinged as he was opening the passenger door. He had carried it with him constantly since the night. Another symbol of futile hope. Dale waited until he had started the engine and turned the a/c on full before answering. “What now?”
A heavily accented woman’s voice said, “I am calling for a mutual friend.”
The words were enough to push him into high gear. Forget the heat and the hangover and the gripping misery of compounded defeat. “What?”
“Someone connected to you by the one who is now gone.” She spoke with the dull rote of one reading from a page. “Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“This party, they now have the child.”
“Where are you?”
“Never mind. She is hidden. Make any move, take any action at all, and the child will never be found. Speak one word and all will be lost to you. The party says, they have nothing else to lose.”
“What do you want?”
“Five million dollars.”
“All right.”
“Five million dollars,” the woman repeated. “Or the child disappears.”
“I said I’d pay you.” Marcus appeared at the side door. Dale reached over and hammered down the door lock so hard he ripped the skin. He pressed his palm into the sweatpants to stem the blood. “What do you want me to do?”
“You will stay in North Carolina. They will have you watched. Believe me. They will know.”
Dale turned away from Marcus’ stare. “I understand.”
“The blond one. The troublemaker. You know who I mean?”
“Kirsten Stansted.”
“She will be the go-between.”
“Give me five days.”
“You have forty-eight hours.”
“I can’t get the money—”
The line was dead. Dale cupped the phone to his chest. Took three deep breaths. Then reached over and unlocked the door.
Marcus clambered inside. “What is going on here?”
“Something’s come up.” Dale struggled to bring his heart back under control. “I have to get back to Wilmington.”
“Did you hear about HHS?”
“What?”
“Health and Human Services. They’re lodging a complaint against you.” Marcus pointed at the phone. “Is that what this was all about?”
“Just drive, okay?”
Marcus remained as he was. “It’s vital that you show up for the hearing with Judge Sears tomorrow morning.” When Dale did not respond, he asked again, “What’s going on?”
Dale could not bring himself to meet his attorney’s eye. “Maybe a miracle.”
CHAPTER
———
40
MARCUS DID NOT CALL BACK until late that afternoon, which meant Kirsten had yet another day for circular condemnation. Not that talking with him helped anything. Every conversation with Marcus became a struggle with herself. And they were growing worse, not better.
She wanted him so bad the hunger seared her chest and turned her bones to kindling for her heart’s flames. For years she had assumed her earlier experience had cauterized all desire, all hope for ever knowing a normal relationship. No question about it. She was terrified of this man.
Now here he was again. Hurriedly Marcus described how it had taken him almost a dozen calls to arrange a meeting with Evelyn Lloyd. Kirsten was to meet her the next morning for the introduction inside the Met. Then he raced through other things he needed her to check on. But his impatience was evident. Hurriedly he concluded that portion, then began spelling out the latest developments. As though only now could they be sorted out, here while she was listening. “Dale agreed to the ransom amount without a quibble. He’s gone down to sell his house and his boat. Apparently a local agent has made a cash offer for the house, the boat, the works.”
“Five million dollars,” she repeated, thinking this was not what she wanted to be talking about. The awareness of where she wanted this conversation to go left her cheeks flaming. No matter they were in the middle of a murder-one case, not to mention a kidnapping and a ransom situation where she was to act as go-between. Her breath seared her nostrils with internal heat.
“It’s going to wipe Dale out, putting this amount together at short notice. Suggesting we get the police involved almost got me fired. Ditto for trying to talk them down. All he can see is, this is the only chance he has of getting his child back.”
“Marcus, we’ve got to talk.”
“What do you call what we’re doing now?”
“No, I mean …” She could not believe this was happening. But the hunger gnawed away at everything. She wanted to talk about what she wanted. Which was him. She wanted to know this man. She wanted to brand him with her love. Her impatience to move forward ate at the barriers she had spent years
building, the silence and the reserve and the distance and the reasons why she could never love any man.
“Kirsten?”
There was only one way this was going to work. She didn’t know how she knew, but she knew it was not just true, but real. She had to talk. She had to tell him why she battled so against him, and even more, against herself. “Marcus, I have to tell you something.”
He caught the change. “Honey, what’s the matter?”
She wanted to curse him. To rage at him like she should at all men for their macho ways and their ability to hurt and crush and blind. But she couldn’t. Past wounds were no longer enough to bind her. The words rushed out like lava. “Everything I told you about myself is a lie. But that’s not for now. I don’t know if I can ever …”
She stopped to pant, squeezing the receiver so hard her ear felt mashed to a pulp. “I was raped.”
He moaned in the manner of one who did not know he had even breathed, much less spoken.
“I was seventeen. There were three of them. I was drugged. It was on a boat. But that doesn’t matter. After that I went a little crazy. Not right then. Later. But I did. I tried a lot of things, Marcus. None of them worked. Every time I was … with a man, all I saw was the smoke. And the stars.” She knew that would make no sense to him. But the further she went, the less she could say for whom she spoke. “So I stopped caring. I stopped feeling. I stopped everything. It was better that way. Safer. And it worked. Then you came along. And it doesn’t work anymore. I can’t stand this, Marcus. I can’t stand it. I can’t keep myself trapped away. I can’t …”
She slammed the phone down. Rose to her feet. Walked from the bed to the window to the door and back. Passing the mirror over the desk she caught sight of herself.
She was amazed to find her face drenched with tears.
The phone rang. She stared at it. The phone rang seven times. Then stopped. Kirsten could not unlock her chest. Her need for air was a burning fury, almost as strong as her desire to hear him speak to her. About love and healing and comfort and sharing. The phone started ringing again. If she could make her chest move she could reach for the phone. The phone stopped once more.
The silence. Not breathing, not really even thinking. Not letting anybody touch her in this sterile little cocoon. Trading one tight little cage for another. Going through life with no change. Nothing moving, especially not inside herself. Flying all over the globe, going through the motions of having a life. But held by the safety of empty silence. Just like now.
She did not lower herself so much as crash to the floor. Crawled across to the bed. Knelt there waiting. When the phone rang again, she made the grab before the first ring was through, not giving herself time to enter lockdown again.
Marcus started speaking. He said the words. She felt them cascade over her but she could not actually hear what he said. All she could make out was the tone, the message of concern and love and acceptance. It broke her entirely.
CHAPTER
———
41
WHEN MARCUS ENTERED the courtroom early Monday, Hamper Caisse was seated in the first public row. Hamper gave a little double take at Marcus’ appearance. Marcus was too preoccupied to take much pleasure in turning the tables. The conversations with Kirsten and her revelations had left him utterly drained. He had also spent futile hours trying to track down Dale. Under any other circumstances, he would already be headed to Wilmington.
Judge Rachel Sears offered Marcus a tight smile of approval as he set his briefcase upon the table. “Are we alone this morning, Mr. Glenwood?”
“Apparently so, your honor.” Marcus turned to inspect his new foe. Opposing counsel’s table was occupied by a Health and Human Services lawyer. This one was white and male and had a slick nervous sheen to his skin. He wore a button-down Oxford blue shirt with a stained wool tie. Normally the HHS attorneys were the least prepared of all local counsel. They generally worked between fifty and seventy active cases at any one time. Their paperwork was notoriously shoddy. Family court judges usually granted them enormous leeway. If an HHS attorney requested a stay, that was generally enough for the court to require a medical assessment. Where children were concerned, most judges preferred to err on the side of extreme caution.
The HHS attorney opened with “Your honor, we have learned over the weekend that Erin Brandt has died. We are here to request that her child immediately be made a ward of the court.”
Marcus demanded, “Let’s get this straight. You’re pointing the finger at my client? You are? Or Hamper Caisse?”
The HHS guy kept his gaze locked on the judge. “Your honor, we have reason to believe that Dale Steadman has proven himself to be an unfit father. The father is under indictment for the murder of his former spouse. Plus there are numerous other issues that raise warning flags.” He fumbled with his own case and drew out three bound portfolios. “We have prepared a brief outlining our concerns.” He plunked a copy on Marcus’ table and walked forward with another.
The judge eyed his work with consternation. She flipped through the pages. She looked at him. “What is your caseload at this time?”
He struggled with the knot of his tie. “Hard to say, your honor.”
“Ballpark figure.”
“Around three hundred. Of which about fifty are active.”
“Three hundred cases.” She rifled through the pages. “How many staff?”
“Just me and my secretary.”
“And you put together a brief that runs to,” Judge Sears checked the top of the last page. “Two hundred and twelve pages?”
“We are aware that the child is about to come home, your honor.”
“Is that so? And just exactly how did you learn this?”
Marcus could hear the guy swallow from across the room. “It stands to reason, judge. The mother is dead, the child has nowhere else to go. We are asking that the baby be made a ward—”
“Hold that thought. First I want to get a fix on what’s brought us to this point.” She crossed her robed arms over the closed brief. “In all my time on the bench I’ve never seen anyone from HHS come in here so prepared. Normally I have to be satisfied if you’ve bothered to interview the neighbors to either side. When did you have time to prepare these documents?”
“Yesterday.” He swiped at his hair. “As I said, your honor, we are deeply concerned about this boy’s well-being.”
Judge Sears slowly repeated, “This boy.”
The lawyer almost turned to where Hamper had taken a choke hold on the railing. He caught himself just in time. “Did I say that? Sorry, your honor. I meant the girl.”
“Are you sure? What is the child’s name?” She halted his motion with a tightly aimed gavel. “Don’t you open that brief, sir. Anybody who’s gone to all this trouble over a weekend is bound to at least know how the child is called.”
The lawyer was caught flat-footed. Judge Sears let the silence hang a moment, then said, “You may open your brief if need be.”
The young man almost dove for the pages. “Celeste, your honor. Celeste Steadman, no middle name. Sorry, it just slipped my mind there.”
Judge Sears shot Marcus a silent heads-up, then asked the young attorney, “I assume you have included the child’s birth certificate?”
“Ah …” The attorney’s search of the pages became more frantic. Hamper looked ready to explode from his seat.
“That’s all right.” Sears at her mildest. “No doubt you have a copy in your files.”
When the attorney’s search through his briefcase came up with nothing more than sweat and bumbling fingers, Hamper Caisse sifted through his own papers, then reached forward and rammed it into the HHS lawyer’s outstretched hand. The HHS attorney spun about and announced, “Here it is, your honor.”
Marcus was already rising to his feet. “Your honor, I feel it is in the court’s interest to know what else Mr. Caisse has in his briefcase.”
Hamper gave his best imitation of a man sev
erely electrocuted. “What?”
Sears gave him a tiny nod of approval as Marcus continued, “If Mr. Caisse has an attorney-client relationship here, he has to assert it. Otherwise, he’s just a witness. If he’s a witness, I want to call him to the stand.”
Hamper bolted to his feet. “Judge, I protest! There’s nothing more sinister here than a lawyer who’s been hooked up with this case for weeks now, worried about this child.”
Sears aimed the gavel at his face. “What I see is an individual on the wrong side of the bar addressing this court.”
“But—”
“Either sit yourself down and be quiet, or come up before me here and declare yourself!”
When Hamper reluctantly forced himself back down, Marcus announced, “Your honor, I ask that you issue a bench subpoena. Mr. Caisse must not be permitted to leave the courtroom until the subpoena is served.”
A bench subpoena would act as a search warrant on Hamper’s person and his briefcase, granting the court power to seize any documents deemed pertinent to the case. Another brief nod told Marcus he had handed Judge Sears the ammo she required. “Step forward, Mr. Caisse.”
Hamper was loath to move. “Do I need to have the bailiff assist you?”
When Hamper stood before the judge’s podium, Judge Sears used both hands to pull her hair back in a gesture of tight animosity. “All right, give. What’s your role in this petition?”
“Interested third party, your honor.”
She turned to Marcus, inviting his response. “I’m here about the child, your honor. Everything else is secondary. Including whatever tricks opposing counsel is up to now.”
“Your honor, I object in the strongest possible terms!”
Marcus continued to address the judge. “This child is a United States citizen. She has the right to grow up here among her people. Right now she’s lost to us. First her mother abducted her. Then she hid her away somewhere. She obviously was planning something. I want to know what. I want to know why.”
Winner Take All Page 28
