Chapter Twelve

Yesterday slipped by with every pain and rage, and it seemed the new day was about to deepen yesterday's emotions when Kayla sat at the table in her office, paying full attention to a twenty-year-old Madison who was a speaker of ASL, interpreting her dumb mother’s bodily signs. Her first mute client… God help her.

“Except your daughters, are there more witnesses or evidence that can help us through the case?” Kayla asked Monica Smithfield, Madison's mother.

Monica nodded briskly, self-assured. She reached for a tote bag which sat on her legs, her hands trembling as she took a pile of documents out from the bag and set them on the desk. Monica's restless and shaky movements had almost got Kayla begging her to relax.

Monica's little daughter, Sophia, who stood beside Monica, sadly, if not angrily, dimmed her eyes at her mother's uneasiness. “I need you to calm down, Mommy, you’re scaring me. I don’t want you to leave Maddie and I like daddy did,” she sniveled.

Moved by her daughter’s