Jimmy folded his tree-trunk-like arms. “And the local police are compromised, right?”
“Everyone knows there’s a mole in the Pelican Harbor department,” Hez admitted. “That’s why Hope is handling the investigation without them.”
Jimmy sighed. “Hope is great, but the DA’s office isn’t set up to investigate crimes. They rely on the police to do that—and you know it better than me.”
Hez set his mug on the desk and stood. “Look, Hornbrook is a dangerous guy. I don’t want any of you getting hurt.”
Simon stirred. “Did he kill my mom?”
The room went silent. Hez turned toward Simon. The boy leaned forward, every muscle in his little body taut. The icy focus in his eyes was a carbon copy of his mother’s stare. Hez held the boy’s gaze. “I don’t know.”
Determination filled Simon’s voice. “I’m going to find out.”
A chuckle rumbled in Jimmy’s chest. “Seems like everyone here is on the same page except you, Hez.”
Hez glanced around the room and shrugged. “Okay, I guess the Justice Chamber is going after James Hornbrook.” He waggled a finger at Simon and the Willards. “But we’re going to be very careful about it, and you kids can’t be directly involved. In fact, you can’t do any Justice Chamber work at all unless I have your promise to do only what I tell you and nothing more.”
“We promise,” Simon said without hesitation. Jack and Olivia nodded.
Hez wished he could trust Simon to keep his word.
“I’m sorry.” Scott Foster held his hands palms up. “I wish I had better news for you two.”
This was not what Hez wanted to hear from the family law expert he and Savannah had hired, but it wasn’t a surprise.Hez had done some legal research on his own and knew things didn’t look good. He’d hoped Scott would tell him he was wrong and there was some obscure statute or judicial rule that would let them keep Simon, but he hadn’t counted on it. Still, a black fog shrouded his heart when he heard Scott’s words, and he reached to take Savannah’s hand.
“B-but Erik is a criminal.” Savannah’s voice shook as she spoke. “And he has affairs with students—we caught him on video. Doesn’t any of that matter?”
Lines of compassion creased the weathered skin around Scott’s eyes. “It matters outside of the courthouse in the real world. It matters a lot. But it won’t be enough in court. Alabama law is very protective of parental rights, and terminating them is hard.”
Her eyes flashed and she tilted her chin up. “What about Simon? Isn’t the judge supposed to consider what’s best for him?”
Scott nodded, his fading reddish-brown hair turning almost yellow in the afternoon light coming through the wooden blinds of his office in Pelican Harbor’s French Quarter. “Yes.”
She leaned forward. “So the judge should give Simon to us. We’re best for him. Erik doesn’t care about Simon at all. He didn’t even know he had a son until a few months ago. You know what the first thing he did was? He threatened Simon and me. And then he vanished until he smelled money. How can it be in Simon’s best interest to live with someone like that?”
Scott’s expression grew grim and his thin face looked skeletal. “Did he ever put out a cigarette on Simon’s face because the boy talked back to him?”
Savannah gasped. “What? Of course not!”
“Or routinely lock him in a closet whenever Erik needed to go to work?”
“No.”
“Did Simon almost die from an asthma attack because Erik took money that was supposed to buy inhalers for his son and used it to buy fentanyl?”
“No.” Savannah’s face was pale. “D-does that kind of thing happen around here?”
Scott nodded and seemed to age a decade. “All the time. Those are the sort of custody-termination cases judges are used to hearing.”
Savannah went white and bit her lip. “I didn’t know.”
Scott sighed. “We live in a very broken world.”
“That I did know.” Savannah squared her shoulders. “And we’re going to do everything we can to protect Simon from it. We have to at least try to get custody of him.”
Hez cleared his throat. “Let’s game that out, Scott. Before we could get custody of Simon, we’d have to terminate Erik’s rights. We’d need to show that he’s an unfit parent, and we’d need to do it by clear and convincing evidence, right?”
“Right. And we wouldn’t have the type of evidence the judge is used to seeing—serious physical abuse, long-term incarceration, obvious abandonment, and so on.”
