Sweetest Kisses: A Single Kiss Part 37

The judge was watching Grace, probably to see if Henry was tailoring his story to her cues. When Hannah turned around to look, Grace was curled up in Trent's arms, her face against his shoulder.

"Judge?" Henry put the question quietly.

"Son?"

"We're making Grace cry, just like Larry did. Can we stop now?"

The judge rubbed a hand over his face and looked at Hannah for the first time.

"Ms. Stark, would you like to have your daughter removed from the courtroom while we finish this up?"

"We'll wait outside with the child."

The voice belonged to Louise Merriman, of all people, and Dan Halverston was standing with her. James scooped Grace up and joined the judicial procession leaving the courtroom.

Hannah could not comprehend why two sitting judges should offer to care for her child, and hoped they weren't simply trying to make it easier to hand Grace off to DSS at the close of the hearing.

"Hannah?" Mac laid a hand on her arm. "Is there anything else I should ask Henry?"

She scribbled a note, not trusting her voice.

Mac glanced at the note. "Henry, is Larry your friend?"

"Sorta. Larry doesn't have many friends because he's not very smart and he only knows one joke, about a parrot in a freezer. He's told it a million times. I feel kinda sorry for him, but he shouldn't have done what he did to Grace."

"A few more questions, then we'll be done. Have you ever met me or talked to me before today, Henry?"

"No, sir."

"Did anyone tell you that you might have to talk to the judge today?"

"No, sir." He shook his head for emphasis.

"Thank you, Henry. Now Mr. Patlack might have a few questions for you."

Patlack turned to the witness, expression stern.

"Mr. Moser, why aren't you in school today?"

"I'm sick," Henry said. "Wanna see?" He tilted his head back, stuck out his tongue, and let out a loud, long ahhhhh. "My brother had it last week, and I always get what he has. Mom was kind of mad that I had to stay home, but she really wanted to come today, and I promised I'd be good."

The adults in the courtroom were looking down or out the window, but Grace's champion wasn't done.

"Mom makes me drink lots of water when I'm sick, and pretty soon I'm going to have to wee-wee. Are we done yet?"

Patlack sat behind the counsel table. "Just one more question: Why were you paying such close attention to Grace? She isn't even related to you."

Henry shot a perplexed look at Patlack. "What has related got to do with anything? Mom says Grace is part of my family whether we're related or not, and Grace doesn't have anyone to stick up for her at school. Will you talk to Larry, or am I going to have to tell the princ.i.p.al on him?"

"No further questions, Your Honor."

"I have a few," the judge said. "But none that require Mr. Moser to delay the call of nature, and none that prevent me from dismissing the Department's pet.i.tion with prejudice. Ms. Stark, you and your daughter are free to go. Mr. Patlack, I suggest your workers schedule an interview with this Larry fellow, in order that your investigation reach its appropriate conclusion and Ms. Stark and her daughter can henceforth be left in peace. Court is adjourned."

"All rise."

Hannah struggled to her feet, her knees so wobbly Mac's hand under her elbow was a necessary support. When she turned to him, no words formed. She hid her face against his shoulder until Trent was there, stuffing tissues into her hand and gently peeling her from his brother's arms.

"I have to thank Mac," Hannah said when Trent got her out to the hallway.

"You can thank him later, though I think he knows you're appreciative."

"Where's Grace? I have to talk to Grace. I don't want her to worry one instant longer than she has to."

"You wait here." Trent pushed open the door to a witness interview room. "I'll find Grace, and thank Mac and Eliza, and buy that boy a d.a.m.ned pony and season tickets to the Orioles and the Ravens."

"Two ponies," Hannah said, "and Redskins tickets."

They'd won. Thanks to Trent's brilliant notion to call Henry as a witness, Grace was safe, and they'd won.

Somebody had put Larry up to abusing Grace, though, and beneath Hannah's relief and joy lay a miserable knot of fear the judge's ruling hadn't addressed.

"I need a name," Trent said to Eliza Moser. Eliza sat on a bench in the courtroom while Mac, of all people, explained the finer points of the morning's proceedings to young Henry.

"A name?"

"Who is Grace's father? I promise you, I will not use the information to contact him without Hannah's permission, not now, not ever. I have three possibilities in mind, all members of the last household where Hannah was in foster care, but you can save me a lot of time."

"Hannah should be the one to tell you." Eliza's eyes were teary as Mac lifted Henry up to his shoulders to peer over at the judge's desk in the now emptying courtroom.

"Hannah can't spell her own name right now, and in seven years, she hasn't been able to locate this guy."

"Why do you want to find him?"

"So Hannah will know where he is," Trent said. "The last thing she needs is to run into him at the toy store some fine day with Grace in tow. This haunts her, Eliza, and it will haunt her every day until that little girl turns eighteen, at least."

"G.o.d Almighty." Eliza offered a few more curses under her breath. "He was six-foot-two, a nineteen-year-old bodybuilding bully with a juvie record as long as your arm. His parents adored him, and Hannah's afraid he'll try to take Grace."

"Not while there's a Knightley brother standing to say otherwise," Trent a.s.sured her. "Hannah isn't alone anymore, Eliza, whether she's admitted it to herself or not, not in this."

Henry was now perched on Mac's hip, inspecting the reporter's recording equipment and the computer at the clerk's desk.

"You mean that," she said. "All three of you were here for her today, for her and for Grace."

She gave him a name, and better still, a date of birth and which high school the guy had attended. Trent thanked her and got out his cell phone.

Mac approached as Trent's call went through to the very best private investigators in captivity.

"When you're done with Miss Moser," Mac said, eyes dancing, "you'll want to know what Judge Halverston mentioned to me before the hearing started. I about wee-wee'd in my pants."

"Where are we going?" Hannah asked as Trent towed her along by the wrist.

"To get your family."

Hannah sensed a mystery, but held her peace until they stopped outside the door to judge's chambers.

"Hannah, does the name David Blackmun mean anything to you?"

She dragged back against his grip. If he'd struck her, she could not have been more stunned. "Less than nothing."

"Then you wouldn't be interested to know he's serving fifty years for armed robbery of a bank in West Virginia?"

"What?"

"He's in a maximum security prison several hours away, and won't be eligible for parole for probably twenty years. Violent offenders get the longest sentences."

"I looked all over Maryland," she said, sagging against a wall. "I scoured the judicial databases. How did you find him?"

"I called our private investigators, and they nailed him in less than four minutes."

"I have to sit down." She was light-headed, and lighthearted. "He's really locked up?"

"Really and truly." Trent led her to a bench and sat beside her.

"I cannot take this in. First that hearing, now this. It's too much."

Trent stuffed some more tissues in her hand. He seemed to be doing that a lot lately.

"I'm done crying today. I won't be needing these."

"Keep them anyway."

"You don't know what this information means to me, Trent. It's the whole world, the universe, the eternal universe. My grat.i.tude-"

He put a finger to her lips. "You and Grace deserve to know you're safe," he said. "Mac will wait for you both, and I'm sure Merle will expect to hear from her friend tonight. Grace is with Louise and Dan in chambers. I expect you to take the rest of the day off, Stark. You'll need the time to decompress, and I"-he rose, patting the hand clutching the tissues-"I'll need the time too. Now go in there and find Grace."

He kissed her soundly on the mouth and left.

Hannah rose, still a little unsteady and more than a little puzzled by Trent's behavior. Maybe he was concerned for his own daughter; maybe he was still troubled by the knowledge Hannah hadn't been honest with him. Maybe he was disappointed she'd failed to bring charges against Grace's father; maybe he was- Her thoughts came to an abrupt halt as she made her way to Louise Merriman's judicial offices. There, behind the secretary's desk, was a four-foot-tall wall portrait of a white, winged unicorn with a sprinkling of silver spots across its hindquarters.

"I painted that when I was about fourteen," Louise Merriman said, emerging from her chambers. "It's kind of hokey now, but he was my personal totem. Unicorns are on the state seal of Scotland you know, and I'm mostly Scottish."

Hannah looked at the judge askance.

"I know your daughter"-Louise stumbled over the word-"I know Grace is partial to unicorns. I thought she might enjoy meeting this one."

Louise took a guest chair, the secretary having apparently abandoned her post, so Hannah took a seat as well.

"How do you know Grace likes unicorns?" Hannah asked.

"She told us, chattered away like a magpie about Bronco this and Henry that and Mommy the other. She has a lively mind and lovely manners." Louise smiled, though it struck Hannah as a sad smile.

"Thank you," Hannah said, but her curiosity got the better of her. "I appreciate your spending time with her, but Judge Merriman, what were you doing at the hearing this morning? The proceeding is normally confidential. I suppose Judge Halverston was showing up as some sort of judicial color guard out of respect for the Knightleys, but I can't for the life of me explain what you were doing there."

"For the life of you?" Louise looked at her hands, then peered at Hannah, her gaze so wistful Hannah wanted to pa.s.s the woman a tissue.

"Hannah, I don't know any other way to say this. I strongly suspect I am your natural mother, and that would make Dan Halverston your father. I would appreciate it, I would appreciate it very much if you would allow us a chance to get to know you."

Hannah heard the words and comprehended their meaning, but she struggled silently to grasp their significance.

"Why do you suspect this?" Her voice was calm, barely curious, but inside her emotions were rioting.

"You were born at the Douglas County hospital on the same day as my daughter, and there were no other girls born that day at that hospital. None born that week, for that matter. I abused a few judicial privileges and spent some time in the Douglas County court archives when we concluded our hearing last week. You look exactly like my little sister."

Louise rose and went to stand before the portrait, studying it as if she'd come across it in some gallery.

"You were initially adopted from the agency that placed my daughter. We have physical features in common, and you are a d.a.m.ned fine attorney. The personal characteristics you can dismiss as coincidence, but the date and place of your birth are facts."

Louise touched the tip of the unicorn's horn, which fairy tales imbued with healing properties.

"I hired the best private investigators money could buy, but there was no real Internet thirty years ago, no adoption registries even. The trail went cold before you were even a year old. I didn't know your adoptive name, your adoptive home, nothing. I would probably never have found you unless something turned up on the registries, especially because you changed your name again and went to so many different schools."

"You would not have found me. I wasn't on the registries. I was hiding from Grace's father."

Louise's shoulders drooped. Did the judge blame herself for every misery that had befallen Hannah?

"Does Judge Halverston know?" Hannah asked.

"He didn't know we had a child until I told him over the weekend, and told him my gut insisted the child was you. I've wondered, frequently, about red-haired girls who were the right age-once upon a time, I was a redhead-but this time, when I saw you, the hair stood up on my arms, and something physical hit me. I can't describe it, but I knew."

"Judge Halverston thought he recognized me too. This is so strange. Why did you give me up?"

Louise nodded as if she'd been expecting that one. "I was in law school, and so in love with your father. He's the only man I've ever loved that way, but we were of different faiths and very different backgrounds. He comes from old money, I do not. Back then, with our families, the differences were going to be a problem. I needed my family's help to finish law school, and he needed his father's support if he was to have the career he was meant to have. When I turned up pregnant, my parents gave me an ultimatum: I could have an abortion or be disowned."

"You kept me a secret from my father, and I've kept Grace a secret from hers, but how did you manage everything?" Hannah waved a hand, for an unwed mother had a great deal to contend with.

"I lied to my parents, of course. I transferred to a different law school, bought a cheap ring, and told some tale about my husband being in the military overseas. My family simply didn't see me for an entire academic year. Dan never even knew I was pregnant."

"And then?"

"When my due date grew closer, I made the adoption arrangements, went about my cla.s.ses, gave birth, and took three weeks off. I kept you with me for those three weeks, Hannah. I stayed up nights watching you sleep, but the days went by, I had no money for child care, and all too soon, the social worker came to pick you up. I started a trust for you with my first paycheck, though legally, I am nothing to you."

"What is my legal birth name?"

"Lucinda Gabriella Halverston."