“Did your father pursue this matter for you, Rebecca?”
She scoffed. The idea! “He
“Thank you, Rebecca.” Donald looked over his shoulder at the older lawyer. “Frank? Your witness.”
Frank didn’t even get up from his table. He just sat back and muttered, “I have no questions, Your Honor.”
“She’s lying!” The ghoul came rushing up the aisle, past where Leah and her family were sitting, rushing the witness box in a rage. “This little slut is lying!”
The ghoul turned her fury on the lawyer for the state next. “Frank! Don’t you dare just sit there and let that little trollop get away with this!”
Donald Highbrow took a step back as the ghoul stomped toward the judge’s bench, banging her fist on front of it. “This is an outrage! This little whore is a flat-out liar! A
Donald gave a weary sigh. “Do you want to me to call the rest of the girls in, Your Honor? All of the girls in the hospital room with Mrs. Nolan who witnessed Mrs. Joan Goulden misrepresenting the documents she asked her client to sign?”
Judge Solomon looked from Rebecca, out into the courtroom to where Leah was sitting, and then back to the ghoul, who was still fuming and sputtering in front of him about sluts and whores and trollops and liars.
“That won’t be necessary.” The gavel came down, a sharp, sudden sound, making Leah jump in her seat. “This court rules for the plaintiff. Baby… Baby…” Judge Solomon looked down at his file. “Baby Grace shall be returned to her mother.”
The whole courtroom exploded in cheers-not just Leah and Rob and her mother and Erica and Clay, who were all hugging and laughing, but everyone who had been watching the drama unfold before them. Leah couldn’t believe it, feeling the finality of the judge’s statement in every cell of her body.
She turned to Rob, eyes bright, as if to ask, “Did you hear that too?” but the look of relief and joy on his face told her that he had heard it too-she wasn’t dreaming. Their daughter was coming home. She threw her arms around his neck, laughing and crying at the same time, and he rocked her, whispering words she couldn’t hear but she didn’t care. Grace was theirs, now and forever.
Grace was returning home.
Leah saw the ghoul out of the corner of her eye, storming over to where Frank sat with his head in his hands and they put their heads together, plotting she was sure of it, while the judge excused Rebecca as a witness. Leah looked up as she walked over, standing to take the girl’s outstretched hand.
“Thank you,” Leah whispered, still not quite clear on how Rebecca had gotten involved, but she had never been so grateful to someone in her life. “I don’t know how to thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” Rebecca gave a satisfied nod, glancing over at the ghoul. “She stole my baby too. Only she told me he was dead.”
“But you knew he wasn’t.” Leah’s eyes filled with tears at the thought.
Rebecca looked back at her, eyes softening. “A mother knows.”
They both smiled, an understanding passing between them that transcended hierarchy and class and judgment. They were both mothers, and they both knew exactly how that felt.
Donald came over, a giant grin on his face, and Leah hugged him without a second thought.
“I don’t know how you did that,” Leah said. “It was like magic. You pulled Rebecca out of your hat just like a rabbit!”
“Well don’t tell anyone but I was bluffing about all the other witnesses. Rebecca was our only trump card.” Donald laughed, hugging her back and planting a fond kiss on the top of her head before letting her go. “Well I had a fairy godmother. Erica and Clay helped me track her down. With Father Michael’s help. So it was magic, plus Nancy Drew and her Hardy Boy over there, with a sprinkle of divine intervention. And luck. Definitely a dash of luck.”
“I’m going to have to hear
“I interviewed the nurses,” Donald replied. “There was a young nurse named Cathy who remembered you, and she remembered Elizabeth too, but she couldn’t remember her real name, just her Magdalene name.”
The judge banged his gavel and the commotion began to die down. Judge Solomon banged it again, making sure they all knew he was serious.
“I have other cases to hear today,” the judge said. “Can we please have quiet in the courtroom?”
Leah was about to ask Donald what was next, how did they go about getting Grace back? But Frank took advantage of the opportunity to speak up.
“Your honor!” Frank stood, clearing his throat. “May I approach the bench?”
“No you may not.” Judge Solomon glared at the table where Frank and the ghoul sat. “And you’d better keep that harpy away from my bench if you know what’s good for you. She’s already looking at a perjury charge. I can add contempt to that faster than you can say Jack Robinson.”
Frank tried again. “There is still the matter of the child’s well-being to consider.”
The judge looked at the lawyer over his glasses, incredulous. “I’ve already considered it, Frank. I’ve ruled on the matter. The child is going to be returned to her mother.”
“Here we go.” Donald muttered, sliding into the seat on Rob’s other side. “The stalling tactics.”
“No,” Leah breathed, the tears she’d been holding starting to fall, dropping onto her skirt, leaving fat, round wet circles on the black satin.
“I’m sorry,” Donald whispered. “I told you she would try to pull this. It’s textbook. This is what they do.”
“Your honor, you seem to have overlooked the fact that this baby is very sick.” The ghoul stood beside Frank, who clearly wasn’t making the argument to her liking. “She’s all the way on the other side of the state. She can’t travel. And it’s likely she’s ill because her mother was taking drugs while she was pregnant with the poor little thing.”
The ghoul glared at Leah and she felt the hair stand up on her arms and on the back of her neck, a low buzzing sound beginning in her head. It was just how she felt before she’d gone after the ghoul in the restaurant, and she told herself to sit there, just sit there and let the lawyers handle it, but her hands were clenched into fists at her side and her breathing was so shallow she was beginning to see spots floating in her vision.
“I don’t care if that baby is on the moon, Lady,” the judge exploded. “I want her brought here-today, before…” He checked his watch. “Before five p.m. If that baby isn’t in her mother’s arms before then, I will hold you in contempt.”
The crowd cheered and clapped, but the judge frowned and banged his gavel for quiet.
The ghoul wasn’t giving up. “Your honor, that’s just not possible. Her foster parents are in no condition to-”
“Lady, you are pushing my very last button…”
Leah looked over at Donald, who gave her a smile and a thumbs-up, making her heart soar. Clearly this wasn’t standard procedure, and she was encouraged by her lawyer’s response. She glanced down the row and saw Erica, sitting next to Clay. Leah wondered how she had managed to track Elizabeth-Rebecca-down, but she knew it must have something to do with the Mary Magdalenes. How had Donald known she was in the room? Leah hadn’t even known!
There was a woman on the other side of Clay, an attractive older blonde, and they were whispering together. Leah hadn’t seen her come in and wondered who she was. The ghoul was still trying, interrupting the judge with an excuse every time he told her to bring Grace to his courtroom, and everyone was waiting for him to snap. She glimpsed Rebecca, sitting a few rows over, and smiled to see her holding her baby in her arms.
Leah felt tears stinging her eyes at the sight, her arms aching like they had for weeks, to hold her own baby.
Leah closed her eyes against it, now realizing her mistake during the questioning, telling Frank about the
