The Surrogate Wife novel · Chapter 8 of 16

Chapter 8: The Girl With the Broken Arm

I read the article sitting on the edge of the mattress with Noah asleep beside me.

The boys had come home with me at three the day before.

Ethan had run the length of the school parking lot.

Lucas had brought his night light in his backpack.

Now all three were asleep in the bakery apartment, in one bed, in a heap.

The article had everything.

The Boyle case. A six-year-old girl. A judge who sent her back to her father.

A broken arm three weeks later.

It had a quote from an unnamed family friend.

She hid this from the people who loved her. What else is she hiding?

It did not say that I was the one who found out the caseworker had faked her visits.

It did not say that I reopened the case myself at ten o'clock at night.

It did not say that I drove to the house behind the police car.

Isaac came at seven with coffee.

He read it standing at my window.

"Elaine," he said.

"Tusk was Walter's lawyer for thirty years. He knows every reporter in the state."

"The judicial council will call Harriet by nine."

"I know."

"There'll be cameras on the steps."

"I know that too."

He set his cup down.

"You don't have to walk past them."

"Yes, I do. That's the only way anybody's ever believed anything."

His sister came up and took the boys downstairs for cinnamon rolls.

I put on the grey dress again.

When I got to the courthouse, there were four cameras and a dozen reporters on the steps.

They saw me get out of Isaac's car and came down in a wave.

"Judge Thurston, did you hide the Boyle case from your husband's family?"

"Did you step down because you were forced out?"

"Should you be ruling on custody when a child was hurt on your watch?"

Keep reading free with an account. Start The Surrogate Wife from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.