Chapter 15

Callie's POV

The judge did not raise her voice.

She did not need to.

"Counsel." She looked at Derek's lawyer with an expression that had left warmth somewhere far behind. "Approach."

The room went very still.

My lawyer's pen was already in her hand. She stood and walked to the bench and Derek's lawyer followed and the three of them spoke in voices too low for the room to hear but not too low for the room to feel.

Derek sat at the table.

He had seen the look on his lawyer's face when he was called forward. He had followed the direction of attention to his phone on the table. He had read the screen.

He did not look at me.

His jaw was set and his hands were flat on the table in front of him and he stared at a fixed point on the wall with the expression of a man who was recalculating something very fast.

The judge returned to her position.

"This court has become aware of communication that raises questions about the motivations behind this custody petition," she said. "Specifically whether this filing was submitted in genuine concern for the minor child's welfare or whether it was coordinated as a strategic action."

Derek's lawyer opened his mouth.

"I have not finished," the judge said.

He closed it.

"These proceedings are delayed pending further review of the petition's origins and the communications surrounding its filing." She looked at both tables. "Temporary custody remains with the mother. No changes to existing arrangements are to be made until this court reconvenes." She gathered her papers. "We are adjourned."

The gavel came down.

---

The hallway outside the courtroom was wide and mostly empty.

Derek came through the doors forty seconds after I did. His lawyer was beside him speaking quickly and quietly and Derek was not listening. He was looking at me.

I turned toward the elevator.

His hand closed around my arm before I reached it.

Not a tap. Not a touch. A grip. Four fingers and a thumb finding the soft part of my upper arm and holding in a way that was designed to communicate something very specific about who was in control of this hallway.

I went still.

"You think this is over." His voice was very low. Just for me. "You think one text message and a delayed ruling means something." His grip tightened. "It is not over. None of this is over."

"Derek." My voice came out steadier than I felt. "Let go of my arm."

He did not let go.

"You have nothing," he said. "No money. No family. No support system that I have not already started dismantling. Whatever you think you have built in that courtroom today I will take apart piece by piece and you will not see it coming each time—"

"Let go of her arm."

Michael's voice.

Not loud. Not aggressive. The specific tone of someone who has assessed a situation completely and arrived at a decision.

He was standing three feet away with his eyes on Derek's hand and his expression completely calm in a way that somehow made it worse than anger would have been.

Derek looked at him.

Something passed through Derek's face that I had not seen there before. Not quite fury. Something underneath fury. Something that looked like a man seeing the shape of what he was losing and not knowing how to stop it.

He let go of my arm.

"You have nothing to do with this," Derek said to Michael.

"I have everything to do with this," Michael said. "I am the doctor trying to keep his daughter alive while you file paperwork against me." He did not move. He did not raise his voice. "And right now I am the person standing in this hallway watching you put your hands on her mother in front of three witnesses including your own lawyer."

Derek turned.

His lawyer was standing six feet behind him with an expression that had gone carefully neutral. The particular neutrality of a professional who has just witnessed something he will need to decide what to do with.

Two courthouse security officers appeared at the end of the hallway.

They had been called by someone. A clerk maybe. Someone who had seen through the glass.

Derek straightened his jacket.

He looked at me one more time.

Then he walked toward the security officers before they reached him. Like it was his choice. Like he was leaving because he had decided to and not because the hallway had run out of options for him.

I watched him go.

My arm was already bruising. I could feel it without looking.

Michael turned to me.

"Are you hurt."

"I am fine," I said.

He looked at my arm briefly and said nothing else because there was nothing to say that the bruise was not already saying.

---

The security officers walked Derek to the building exit.

I stood in the hallway and watched through the glass doors until his car pulled away from the curb and disappeared into the street and the afternoon went back to being ordinary around me.

My phone buzzed.

Unknown number. No name. Sent thirty seconds ago.

I opened it.

A photograph.

Lily. Asleep in her hospital bed. Mr. Rabbit under her arm. The blinds half open. The shot taken from outside the window at an angle that meant whoever held the camera was standing where the visitors path ran along the outside of the building.

No caption.

No words at all.

Just my daughter sleeping.

And someone standing outside her window in the dark taking pictures of her through the glass.