My daughter asked me to watch her kids — then went dark for ten days and came home cradling a newborn that couldn't possibly be hers

His name was Roland Pryce.

Agent Marsh came back inside about twelve minutes later and gave us that much. She set her phone face-down on my table, which I was learning meant the news was bad.

"His attorney filed an emergency motion two hours ago," she said. "He's claiming Grace was removed from his home illegally. He's arguing our operation trampled his rights as a property owner and a parent."

I looked at her. "His rights as a parent."

"He has paperwork." Marsh's tone stayed flat. "Falsified, we're confident. But paperwork. A birth certificate that names him as Grace's sole legal guardian. Kayla's name isn't on it anywhere."

"How does that even happen?"

"He filed it while she was still inside that house. She never knew it existed." Marsh sat back down. "And his lawyer is expensive and good. This is not getting settled tonight."

Renee had gone very quiet next to me.

"So where does that leave Grace?" I asked.

"For tonight, she stays here with you. We have an emergency protective hold in place." Marsh looked at Renee. "But his attorney will come after that first thing in the morning. I need you ready for a hearing. Could be as soon as the day after tomorrow."

"I'll be there," Renee said.

"One more thing." Marsh laid both hands flat on the table. "Roland Pryce is not a first-timer. We've had an open case on him for fourteen months. Kayla is not the first woman."

The kitchen felt like it shrank.

"How many?" Renee asked.

"Two others we can name. We think there are more." Marsh kept her voice even, like she was reading a grocery list, and I understood she did that on purpose. "He looks for women with no support system. No family, no money, nowhere to land. He moves them in, cuts them off from everyone, and once there's a child, the child becomes the thing he uses to keep them in line. When they stop being useful to him—"

She stopped.

"He has a routine."

I thought about Kayla naming her baby Grace through the wall of a locked room.

"Where is he right now?" I asked.

"In custody. But his lawyer's already pushing for bail, and he's got a good argument on paper. He owns a business. Owns his house. Coaches a rec league on weekends." Marsh's mouth twisted slightly. "On paper he's a pillar of the community."

"And off paper?"

She didn't bother answering that.

Renee stood up and went to the window. She stood there with her arms crossed, looking out at the two squad cars still sitting in my driveway.

"He came into that alley on purpose," she said. "He knew my car. He'd clocked it days ago."

"We think so, yes."

"He wanted to scare me off the house."

"Yes."

Renee turned around. "It didn't work."

Marsh almost smiled. "No. It didn't."

And I looked at my daughter standing in my kitchen — wrecked clothes, bruised wrist, six nights in a car — and under all the fear of the last ten days, something else moved in me.

I was proud of her.

Then Renee's face changed.

"Agent Marsh," she said. "You said his lawyer filed two hours ago."

"That's right."

"We've been back in town for less than an hour."

Marsh went still.

"He knew where I was going," Renee said. "He knew I'd bring her here. To my mother's house."

Marsh picked her phone back up off the table.

"I need to make another call," she said, and went out the back door again.