Chapter 10 - THE JUDGE WHO OWED MARCUS
Dana attacked the emergency custody order before sunrise.
Judge Mills claimed he had been given information suggesting I posed an immediate threat to the child.
The source?
Dr. Warren Pike.
Again.
But there was a problem.
Judge Chen’s order already prohibited Marcus from interfering with my medical care or pursuing custody without notice.
Judge Mills had ignored it.
Or never been told.
Dana believed the second possibility was impossible.
My father believed the first was worse.
By 7:00 a.m., the chief judge suspended Mills’s order.
By 8:00, reporters knew.
By 9:00, Hale Communities stock had begun falling.
Marcus was finally bleeding somewhere money mattered.
Then another blow hit.
Gregory Sloan resigned as Marcus’s attorney.
Live television showed him leaving the courthouse alone.
A reporter shouted,
“Did your client commit crimes?”
Gregory stopped.
“I can’t discuss privileged communications.”
“Why did you resign?”
He looked straight into the camera.
“Because there are limits to what a lawyer can ethically defend.”
Marcus was alone now.
Almost.
At noon, federal investigators entered Hale Tower.
By evening, Robert Crane had been placed on administrative leave.
Dr. Pike’s medical license was temporarily suspended pending investigation.
It should have felt like victory.
It didn’t.
Because my contractions kept coming.
At 11:47 p.m., my daughter was born five weeks early.
She weighed five pounds, one ounce.
Tiny.
Furious.
Alive.
The nurses placed her on my chest for three minutes before taking her to neonatal care.
I cried harder than I ever had in my life.
My father stood beside the bed.
“What’s her name?”
I looked through the glass toward the NICU.
“Grace.”
Elias smiled.
“Your mother would’ve liked that.”
“I know.”
For two days, I believed the worst was behind us.
Then Claire disappeared again.
This time there was blood in her apartment.
No body.
No note.
Only one message written on her bathroom mirror.
STOP DIGGING.
Police immediately looked at Marcus.
He had an alibi.
He had been at home.
With private security.
Six cameras.
Four witnesses.
Perfect.
Too perfect.
Dana came to the hospital.
“We’re missing someone.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
“Someone else inside the network?”
“Yes.”
“Someone Marcus doesn’t control?”
“Or someone who thinks Marcus is about to expose them.”
That possibility was worse.
Marcus’s records contained dozens of powerful people.
If one of them feared Claire might testify, they had motive.
My father looked at the old files again.
Then he froze.
“What?”
I asked.
He held up a photo from my mother’s investigation.
Richard Hale.
Robert Crane.
Warren Pike.
And a fourth man.
Younger then.
Standing partly in shadow.
My father whispered his name.
“Thomas Vale.”
Dana went still.
“Senator Vale?”
The current governor.
My father nodded.
May you like
And suddenly the case was no longer about one abusive husband.
It was about an entire system that had protected him.
