Chapter 7: The Marked Deck

"That's not true," I said. "None of that is true."

"I know," Mr. Pierce said. "But it's a doctor's signature. Judges trust signatures."

I stood in the hangar parking lot with the wind whipping my hair across my face.

"I saw her six times," I said. "When I was nine. She gave me stickers."

"Then we need to find her. Before Tuesday."

We found her Saturday.

Dr. Lena Moss had closed her practice eight years ago.

Mitch's assistant tracked her down to a lake house in Door County, Wisconsin.

She didn't answer her phone. She didn't answer emails.

On Sunday I drove up there myself in Mitch's car, with Mitch in the passenger seat answering his own emails.

A gray-haired woman opened the door in gardening gloves.

She looked at me for a long moment.

"Molly Granger," she said. "The girl with the cards."

I went cold.

"You remember me?"

"You told me your mother cheated at a birthday game," she said. "I believed you. I told her so. She never brought you back."

I held out the statement.

She read it on her doorstep.

Her mouth went thin and white.

"That's not my signature," she said. "I've never written the word lifelong in a child's file in my life."

Tuesday morning, Courtroom 1804 was half full.

Word had gotten out. Two of the people in the back row were holding phones up.

Mom and Dad sat at the front table with their lawyer, a silver-haired man with a gold pen.

Sadie sat behind them, in a soft pink sweater, the sapphire on her hand.

She was already dabbing at her eyes.

Judge Harriet Cole looked over her glasses at all of us.

"Mr. Granger. Your petition says your daughter is not competent. Make your case."

Keep reading free with an account. Start They Made Me the Knight, But I Became My Own Princess from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.