Chapter 6 - The Hearing
The courtroom was smaller than I'd pictured. Fluorescent lights, cheap carpet, a flag in the corner that needed straightening.
Renee sat at the table on the left with the attorney Agent Marsh had brought in — a woman named Adrienne Voss who wore no rings, no necklace, nothing, and spoke like every word came out of her own paycheck. I sat in the row right behind them. Marsh sat two rows back, and for the first time her phone was face-up on her knee.
Roland Pryce sat at the table on the right.
For two days I'd been building him in my head. Something you could spot from across a parking lot. Something that showed.
He was completely ordinary. Late fifties. Gray coming in at the temples. A charcoal suit that fit him right. He sat with his hands folded on the table and he did not look at Renee, and he did not look at me, and he did not look at the bassinet in the aisle — Adrienne Voss had arranged for Grace to be in the room, because the judge agreed the baby's presence was relevant.
His lawyer's name was Douglas Kerr. He stood first.
"Your Honor, my client is the victim here. His legal dependent was seized from his home in an armed operation with no warrant naming the child. The birth certificate on file lists Roland Pryce as sole guardian. The mother, by her own history, was not in any state to—"
"The mother," Adrienne Voss said, without getting up, "was not in a state to consent to anything, because she was locked in a house owned by your client, with no phone and no shoes."
The judge lifted a hand. "Ms. Voss. Mr. Kerr has the floor."
Kerr tugged his jacket straight. "The point holds, Your Honor. Whatever accusations are floating around about my client, the documentation is not in dispute—"
"The documentation," Voss said, standing now, "was filed while Kayla Ruiz was in labor. Without her knowledge. Without her signature. We have records from the private clinic your client paid in cash, and we have a nurse from that clinic who is prepared to testify — today — that Ms. Ruiz was sedated when that form was completed, and had no idea it existed until last week."
The room went very still.
Pryce's hands stayed folded. They didn't move.
Kerr came back fast. "Your Honor, these are allegations. Unproven and, frankly, designed to inflame—"
"We also have," Voss said, opening a folder, "a sworn statement from a woman named Denise Hartley, who worked in Mr. Pryce's business for eleven years, and who kept documentation across that entire period. Names. Addresses. Wire transfers. Emails he believed were deleted." She walked a thick stack up to the bench. "Ms. Hartley is prepared to testify in full, in person."
Kerr turned to his client. Pryce leaned over and murmured something to him, calm as a man ordering lunch.
Kerr straightened. "Your Honor, I'd request a short recess to—"
"Denied." The judge didn't look up. She'd been reading since the folder hit her bench and she hadn't stopped. "Give me a minute."
The courtroom waited. Somewhere a radiator ticked.
Grace made a small noise in the bassinet. Renee reached over without turning her head and laid two fingers on the edge of the blanket. The noise stopped.
Roland Pryce looked at the bassinet for the first time. Then he looked at my daughter.
Renee looked right back at him.
She didn't blink. She didn't shift in her chair. She just held his eyes with that same worn-down, patient stare she'd had on my couch — and after about four seconds, Roland Pryce was the one who looked away.
The judge set the papers down.
"Mr. Kerr. I'm granting continued emergency protective custody of the minor to the current placement, pending a full evidentiary hearing. I'm also placing a hold on your client's passport and travel documents while the court reviews what's been submitted this morning." She looked at Pryce over her glasses. "Mr. Pryce, I would strongly suggest you have a very honest conversation with your attorney before we're back in this room."
Kerr was already leaning toward him. Pryce didn't lean back. He was still looking at the empty chair where Renee had been sitting — she'd turned away, was murmuring to Voss now — and what was on his face wasn't rage.
May you like
It was arithmetic. A man running the numbers again.
That was when I understood he wasn't done.
