Chương 12
“You don’t always have to fix the first sound,” Josephine called.
He looked toward the kitchen.
“No coaching,” Patrice said.
“She isn’t coaching. She’s criticizing.”
“That’s how we used to communicate,” Josephine replied.
The boys eventually calmed.
Patrice wrote something else.
Bennett suspected it was not flattering.
He learned that Evan fell asleep faster if someone rubbed the bridge of his nose. Cole disliked peas but ate them if mixed with sweet potato. Both boys became quiet when the washing machine entered its spin cycle. Evan liked to bang plastic cups together. Cole could spend ten minutes opening and closing the same cabinet.
Bennett installed child locks in Josephine’s kitchen.
She removed two because he placed them on drawers she needed while cooking.
He reinstalled them differently.
She left those.
Their conversations moved around the case because the case occupied too much of the room already. They discussed formula shortages, a leaking bathroom faucet, Bennett’s leave from work, and whether the babies should hear music while sleeping.
Josephine preferred silence.
Bennett argued that silence made every small sound disruptive.
“You sleep with the television on,” she said.
“I used to.”
“You fell asleep during our honeymoon with a baseball game playing.”
“It was extra innings.”
“We were in Italy.”
“The game was still happening.”
For half a second, they shared the memory as if it belonged to people who still existed.
Then Cole dropped a spoon.
He cried.
Josephine picked it up.
Felicity’s criminal investigation moved slowly enough to become ordinary. Weeks passed between developments. Subpoenas went unanswered, records arrived incomplete, and lawyers argued about access to encrypted devices.
The missing process server became the weak point.
Aaron Pike contacted Winston after six weeks.
He did not confess. He asked for money.
Winston met him in the parking lot of a closed garden center under Grant’s supervision. Pike arrived wearing a hooded sweatshirt despite the heat. He looked less like a criminal fugitive than a man who had been sleeping badly in other people’s houses.
He claimed Felicity paid him to deliver documents, photograph Josephine, and coordinate with Leslie Voss. He admitted attaching Judge Ellison’s signature image to the emergency authorization but said Felicity’s assistant provided the file.
“Which assistant?” Winston asked.
Pike wanted immunity.
Grant could not promise it.
He left.
Two days later, photographs of Bennett holding Cole outside the pediatric clinic appeared on a celebrity news account. The caption claimed Bennett was preparing to seek sole custody.
Josephine canceled another visit.
Bennett called her.
“I didn’t leak the photograph.”
“I know.”
“Then why cancel?”
“Because someone followed us from the clinic.”
“I can increase security.”
“We’ve done this conversation.”
“I can use people who never worked for Felicity.”
“Your answer is always more infrastructure.”
“What is your answer?”
“Stay away for a few days.”
“That punishes the boys.”
“They’re nine months old. They don’t know the calendar.”
“I do.”
The desperation in his voice changed the silence.
Josephine spoke more quietly.
“You think every missed day is being taken from you again.”
“It is.”
“No. It isn’t the same.”
“It feels the same.”
“I can’t make parenting decisions based on what it feels like to you.”
Bennett sat at his old kitchen table, the one he had bought after Josephine took hers.
“What if I come without anyone?”
“No.”
“Patrice can be there.”
“No.”
“Then tell me what makes it safe.”
“I don’t know yet.”
He nearly argued.
Instead, he said, “All right.”
Josephine did not answer immediately.
“You’re not going to call Dana?”
“No.”
“Or Samuel?”
“Samuel doesn’t represent me anymore.”
“Who does?”
“Someone who has never answered Felicity’s hypothetical questions.”
A faint breath came through the line.
“That was almost funny,” Josephine said.
“It wasn’t intended to be.”
“That helps.”
The visit remained canceled.
Bennett spent the morning assembling two high chairs in his empty dining room, though the twins had never been there. He attached one seat backward, swore, removed it, and began again. Winston found him surrounded by bolts and cardboard.
“You know stores assemble these,” Winston said.
“I’m learning.”
“You’re holding the instructions upside down.”
Bennett turned the page.
Winston sat on the floor opposite him.
“Pike contacted Grant.”
“And?”
“He wants a formal agreement. He’ll turn over the device Felicity’s assistant used to send the signature image.”
“Which assistant?”
“Not an employee.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means someone used a contract-services account assigned to Danforth Strategic. The login traces to a laptop registered to Carter Vale.”
Bennett stopped tightening the bolt.
“Whose laptop?”
“Your father’s former estate counsel.”
The name arrived before Winston said it.
Martin Vale.
He was seventy-one, semi-retired, and had known Bennett since childhood. He had drafted the family trust. He understood the children’s provision better than anyone.
“Why would Martin help Felicity defeat his own trust?” Bennett asked.
“Maybe he didn’t.”
“His laptop sent the judge’s signature.”
“His laptop account did. The device was reported lost last year.”
“Was it lost?”
“His firm replaced it after he left it in a hotel conference room.”
“Which conference?”
“Danforth Logistics annual strategy retreat.”
Bennett set down the wrench.
Martin met with Grant voluntarily.
He admitted Felicity had returned the laptop to him after the conference, saying hotel staff found it. He had continued using it for several weeks before the firm replaced it due to security concerns. He denied sending the signature image and denied knowing the laptop had been copied.
Then Grant showed him a message from Felicity.
Need the Ellison page. Same format as before.
Martin asked for a lawyer.
The phrase “same format as before” created a new question.
Investigators reviewed older sealed family cases handled by Leslie Voss. Three emergency orders contained signature images with identical compression artifacts. In two cases, the orders had been corrected within days and attributed to clerical scanning errors. The third involved a mother who surrendered temporary custody before the error was discovered.
Felicity had not been involved in those cases.
May you like
Leslie had.
The court insider was not merely helping Felicity. She had operated a small fraud for years, expediting or delaying filings for private investigators, process servers, and attorneys willing not to ask questions. Felicity had found an existing weakness and paid to direct it.
