Chapter 14: Thursday at Nine

I found it at four on Wednesday morning, in the green notebook, under a pot of cold coffee.

The club card statement for March had a line I had asked Brock about once and then forgot.

A hundred and eighty-nine dollars, paid on March seventh, to a lab.

I had stapled the paper slip to the page.

Brock had written on it in his square print: truck parts.

I walked into the county courthouse on Thursday with that notebook against my chest.

The hallway outside the courtroom smelled of floor wax and wet coats.

Brock was already there, in the gray suit, with his lawyer and a Bible-black folder.

Rae stood next to him in the navy dress, with her hands folded.

She didn't look at me.

Gage stood on my other side in a borrowed white shirt, and he didn't say anything, and I was grateful.

The judge was a woman in her sixties with reading glasses on a chain.

She read the petition, and then she looked at Brock's lawyer over the top of her glasses.

"Counsel. You allege the mother has exposed the child to a convicted felon."

"Yes, Your Honor. Mr. Rutledge was released eleven days ago."

"And that he signed away his rights when he took a plea."

"He did."

"Show me the paragraph."

The lawyer turned a page.

He turned another.

"The plea agreement is a weapons charge, Your Honor. It has nothing about children."

"Then it signed away nothing."

"The petitioner's position is..."

"The petitioner's position is that a man on a birth certificate wins by default," the judge said. "Sit down, counsel. Mr. Kimmel, take the stand."

Brock rose and buttoned his jacket.

He took the oath with his hand flat on the book, and he gave the room a sad, brave smile.

Keep reading free with an account. Start He Cheated With His Ex, So the Club President Claimed Me from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.