Chương 3
Marcus’s attention returned to her.
“She was abandoned, Marcus. She’s malnourished. We do not know who has legal custody.”
“She comes home with me.”
“That is not automatically your decision.”
“She says I’m her father.”
“She is six.”
“She has my daughter’s face.”
“I have eyes.”
“Then use them.”
Dr. Shah’s expression did not change.
“I am using them. I’m also using a medical license I would prefer to keep.”
Emma froze with the spoon halfway to her mouth.
Marcus lowered his voice.
“Not in front of her.”
“You brought this into the room.”
He glanced at Emma. The girl stared into the applesauce cup.
Lily moved closer to her.
Dr. Shah stepped into the hall with Marcus. Leon ended his call.
“We found a Karen Vale,” Leon said. “No current Illinois address. Last driver’s license was Michigan, expired eight months ago. There’s more.”
“Later.”
Dr. Shah crossed her arms.
“I am contacting child protective services.”
Marcus looked toward the examination-room door.
“I can provide a safe placement.”
“You can provide armed security and a house with more cameras than a casino. That is not the same thing.”
“You know how I care for Lily.”
“I know you love Lily. I also know love does not erase procedure.”
Marcus’s nostrils flared.
Dr. Shah continued before he could answer.
“If Emma is biologically yours, emergency kinship placement may be possible. But someone has to establish identity. Someone has to document her condition. Someone has to find the adult who left her under a tree.”
Leon said, “We can find her.”
Dr. Shah looked at him.
“That sentence is exactly why I’m making the call myself.”
Marcus could feel Leon waiting for instruction. A few years earlier, a bureaucratic obstacle had been something to remove. A person could be persuaded, frightened, paid, or replaced.
Behind the door, Lily laughed quietly. Emma said something too soft to hear.
Marcus touched the metal watch on his wrist.
Grace had given it to him the night Lily was born. Not in the hospital, as he often told people, but three days later in their kitchen. She had been barefoot, exhausted, and angry because he had missed the first diaper change to deal with a shipment problem. She fastened the watch around his wrist and said, “Now you can see exactly how late you are becoming the man you promised to be.”
He had worn it every day since.
“Make the call,” he told Dr. Shah.
Leon’s head turned.
Marcus ignored him.
The child welfare investigator arrived ninety minutes later. Her name was Carla Mendes. She wore a tan coat, carried a scuffed leather bag, and showed no sign that she recognized Marcus until she saw the tattoos on his hands.
Then her gaze lingered for half a second too long.
She interviewed Emma alone with Dr. Shah present. Marcus objected. Carla explained the policy. Marcus objected again, less politely. Lily stood beside him in the hall and asked why adults kept saying the same thing after everyone had already heard it.
“Because they think repetition makes them right,” Marcus said.
Carla, opening the door, replied, “Sometimes it makes the record clear.”
Emma emerged holding the bear and Marcus’s jacket. She went directly to Lily.
Carla asked Marcus for identification, Lily’s birth certificate, Grace’s death certificate, proof of residence, and contact information for his attorney.
“You want my attorney?”
“I want the name of whoever will receive notices.”
“That’s my attorney.”
“Then yes.”
Marcus gave her the number.
Carla studied the girls. “Emma says her birthday is March fourteenth.”
Lily’s mouth fell open.
“That’s my birthday.”
“I assumed it might be.”
Marcus said nothing.
Carla continued. “She does not know the year, but her age appears consistent. She says she lived with Karen Vale in several places. The most recent may have been a motel. She remembers a red number seven on the door and a vending machine that made a grinding noise.”
Leon typed the details into his phone.
Carla noticed.
“No one from your organization approaches Karen before law enforcement or my office does.”
Leon looked at Marcus.
Marcus said, “Understood.”
It was not a promise. Carla knew it.
“There is a second issue,” she said. “Emma told us Karen was afraid of a man named Mr. Adrian.”
Marcus felt the corridor narrow around him.
Leon stopped typing.
Adrian Rourke had served as Marcus’s chief adviser for eleven years. He handled legitimate businesses, legal retainers, political donations, and the quieter arrangements that kept Blackwell interests out of court. He had stood beside Marcus at Grace’s funeral. He had carried Lily down the cathedral steps when Marcus could no longer feel his hands.
Carla watched both men absorb the name.
“Do you know an Adrian?” she asked.
Marcus’s voice remained level.
“Yes.”
“Full name?”
“Adrian Rourke.”
“What is his relationship to your family?”
Marcus looked through the examination-room window. Emma was showing Lily a loose seam on the teddy bear’s ear.
“He works for me.”
Carla wrote it down.
“What kind of work?”
“Business management.”
Leon coughed once into his fist.
Carla glanced at him.
Marcus said, “Complicated business management.”
“That sounds like the sort of answer people give before my day gets longer.”
“It’s already going to be a long day.”
She closed the notebook.
“Emma will need emergency placement tonight. Given the apparent sibling relationship and her reaction to Lily, I’m willing to request provisional placement in your home if several conditions are met.”
Marcus waited.
“A child welfare worker stays on-site. Emma receives follow-up medical care. You submit to immediate DNA collection. No unsupervised contact between Emma and any employee named Adrian Rourke. No attempt to interfere with the investigation. And every firearm in the residence is secured according to state requirements.”
Leon looked at the ceiling.
Marcus said, “Done.”
Carla narrowed her eyes.
“People usually argue.”
“I’m not people.”
May you like
“That may be the problem.”
The DNA technician arrived after dark. Marcus gave a cheek swab. Emma cried when the sterile cotton touched the inside of her mouth, not loudly, but with the exhausted tears of a child who had been handled too many times in one day. Lily insisted on providing a sample too, though the technician explained it was unnecessary.
