Chương 3
Bennett stepped away from the deputy.
Grant obtained Felicity’s agreement to leave the property and not return that night. The attorneys drove her away in their rental sedan. The black SUV remained where it was until a tow operator arrived to document the tire marks and inspect the vehicle.
Before Felicity got into the sedan, she looked at Bennett.
“You should ask Josephine why she never called you herself.”
Josephine’s face did not change.
Bennett’s did.
Felicity saw it and gave the smallest nod, as if confirming a calculation.
Then she left.
The babies began crying after the cars were gone.
Not loudly. Cole made a tired, broken sound against Josephine’s neck. Evan followed because Cole had. Josephine rocked them in place, turning slightly from side to side while Maribel held the porch door open.
Bennett stood in the gravel with his hands useless at his sides.
Josephine walked past him.
“Josephine.”
She stopped at the first porch step but did not turn.
“There’s a hearing listed for tomorrow morning,” Bennett said. “Nine-thirty.”
“I know.”
“You knew about the petition?”
“I knew someone had entered something under seal. My legal-aid attorney saw the case number this afternoon. The clerk wouldn’t give her the affidavit.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
That made her turn.
Dust had settled in the loose strands around her face. Her eyes moved over his navy suit, white shirt, dark tie, silver watch. He saw himself as she did: a man dressed for authority, asking why a homeless woman had failed to keep him informed.
“I didn’t have your number,” she said.
“You’ve always had my number.”
“No. I had a number Felicity answered.”
Bennett opened his mouth.
Josephine continued before he could speak.
“I had an email address your office filtered. I had a lawyer who sent three certified letters and got one response saying all communication had to go through Danforth Strategic. I had a hospital social worker who told me your representative had requested no contact unless I surrendered the babies for testing. I had a man come to my apartment with an envelope and photographs of me leaving a pediatric clinic.”
“I never authorized any of that.”
“I know that now.”
The word now carried nine months inside it.
Bennett lowered his voice. “You could have gone to the police.”
“I did.”
“What happened?”
“They asked whether anyone had threatened to hurt me. No one had used those words. They asked whether the photographs were taken from public property. I didn’t know. They asked if the man had touched me. He hadn’t. Then my landlord sold the building to a company that gave us thirty days to leave.”
“A company owned by Felicity.”
“I learned that today.”
Bennett looked toward the road where the sedan had disappeared.
“You should come with me,” he said. “Tonight. I have security.”
Josephine’s laugh was brief and without humor. Cole lifted his head at the sound.
“Your security let her answer your phone.”
“That won’t happen again.”
“You don’t know what will happen again.”
“I can put you somewhere she can’t reach.”
“You still think the problem is the room I’m standing in.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Nothing tonight.”
“Josephine—”
“Nothing.” She adjusted Evan on her hip. “You found us four hours ago. You learned their names four minutes ago. Don’t turn that into authority.”
He felt the instinctive answer rise—They are my sons—but managed not to say it.
She saw the effort anyway.
“They are,” she said quietly. “That doesn’t make you safe yet.”
Maribel touched the doorframe with two fingers.
“We need to bring the babies inside.”
Josephine went through the door.
Bennett remained on the porch after it locked behind her. A moth struck the yellow light above his head, fell, and tried again.
Winston arrived forty minutes later in a dusty gray pickup that looked older than both of Bennett’s companies. He stepped out wearing khaki pants and a dark jacket, carrying a paper cup of coffee and an evidence envelope.
He was fifty-two, broad through the chest, with thinning gray hair and the patient eyes of a man who had spent much of his career waiting for other people to lie badly.
“You tore the petition,” he said.
“It was a copy.”
“That’s what Grant said.”
“She told you?”
“She called me an idiot on your behalf.”
Bennett looked through the shelter window. The blinds were closed.
“How did you find the payment?”
“Slowly.”
“Winston.”
“I found a vendor approval in a private holding-company account Felicity used for personal projects. The recipient company was formed six weeks before Josephine delivered. Its registered agent is the brother-in-law of a woman who supervised patient access at St. Vincent County Medical.”
“And the petition?”
“The electronic filing fee was paid through a virtual card tied to the same account.”
“Then why isn’t Felicity in custody?”
“Because a payment record isn’t a confession, an account can be accessed by multiple people, and the petition was submitted through a law-office portal.”
“Whose?”
Winston drank his coffee.
“That’s the part you’re not going to enjoy.”
“I’m not enjoying any part.”
“Carter Vale.”
Bennett stared at him.
Carter Vale was the firm that handled his family trusts, real estate, corporate disputes, and most of the private legal matters he had spent twenty years avoiding personally. His father had hired the founding partner. Bennett had retained the firm out of habit after the funeral.
“My firm filed the petition?”
“Someone using a Carter Vale credential did.”
“My signature?”
“Digital image pulled from a property authorization you signed last year.”
“Who had access?”
Winston did not answer.
May you like
He did not need to.
Felicity had access because Bennett had given it to her. Not formally at first. She had begun by reviewing travel releases and charitable pledges when his assistant was out sick. Later she coordinated his father’s estate cleanup, then his household insurance, then the private matters that Bennett found distracting. At some point, Carter Vale had added her as an authorized point of contact.
