“I got it,” he muttered, giving it a yank.
“You’re welcome,” Reno said dryly.
Hank scowled back. “Thank you.”
Across the aisle, Lorraine had a tissue clutched in her left hand, which shook visibly. Six weeks, he thought automatically, gauging how long she’d been clean this time. Maybe seven. Just long enough to look sober. Short enough that one afternoon and a bottle of gin would put her right back in her preferred state of oblivion.
She glanced over every minute or so at Madison. Her gaze could pass for sympathy, love, and maybe sorrow if a person didn’t know Lorraine well. But he wasn’t fooled by her wistful, longing mother act. He just prayed the judge wasn’t taken in by it.
Her attorney was paging through a stack of files with enough bored familiarity that this was clearly just another Tuesday in family court for him.
A man in a uniform stepped into the room from a side door. “All rise.”
Judge Marisol Ramos came in briskly. She took her seat and gave everyone a look that said she had no time or patience for shenanigans in her court. She nodded at the lawyers and everyone sat.
Hank said a quick, fervent prayer for the judge to see Lorraine for who she really was and for the Lord to look out for his baby girl. To put Madi in a safe, loving home away from her erratic, destructive mother.
Lorraine’s lawyer put her on the witness stand. He asked a set of clearly rehearsed questions, guiding her through clearly rehearsed answers. She missed her daughter. She’d made a mistake letting their family situation escalate. She hadn’t understood at the time that Madison’s choice to “leave for a visit” with her father’s people in Bozeman was Madison saying she was unhappy.
That made Hank snort. Madison hadn’t left for any visit. She’d run away from home. Snuck out of the house and bought a bus ticket from Sarasota, Florida to her grandparents’ house in Bozeman, Montana.
Loraine’s performance droned on. She wanted to fix things between her and Madison. She understood how hard it was to be a teenager these days. She’d been working—she said the word with careful emphasis that set Hank’s teeth on edge—to be the mother her daughter needed and deserved.
It was a good performance. Not her best, but not bad. He kept his face neutral and didn’t look at Madison, whom he heard breathing too fast and shallow beside him.
Reno stood up, looking totally at home in the courtroom. “Your Honor.” He gave the judge a pleasant nod.
He turned to Lorraine and said in a friendly voice, “Ms. Stanley. I have a few quick questions for you. Shouldn’t take but a minute.”
The tension around Lorraine’s eyes and mouth eased slightly.
Reno began. “I assume you’ve communicated with Madison since she left home. Is that correct, ma’am?”
“Yes.”
“By phone or by text?”
“Text. She won’t answer my calls.”
“When was the most recent communication you had with your daughter?”
“A few weeks ago.”
“A few weeks. Help me out, ma’am—is that two weeks? Four? Six?”
“Four, I think. Maybe.”
Reno opened the first of the three folders and produced three stapled packets. He laid one in front of Lorraine’s lawyer, another in front of the judge, and handed the third to Lorraine.
“Ms. Stanley, I would like to show you Petitioner’s Exhibit A. Phone records, for your cell phone from last November 1st through May 31st of this year.”
Her lawyer shot up out of his chair and started to object, but Reno cut him off, saying smoothly, “I obtained a warrant for these records from a judge in Apple Pie Creek, Your Honor.” He reached into the folder for another piece of paper and started to hold it out.
“I believe you.” the judge replied. To Lorraine’s lawyer, she said dryly, “Overruled.”
Lorraine made a show of going through the stapled sheets of paper as she visibly and frantically scrambled to think up a good excuse for the question she knew was coming next.
Reno said pleasantly, “Take your time, ma’am.”
