Chapter 3: The Woman With the Ruthless Reputation
I called the attorney at 7:52 a.m.
Her name was Carol Vance.
A colleague at work had mentioned her once, in the kind of tone people use when they want you to understand something without saying it directly.
*She doesn't lose custody cases.
She also doesn't take cases she can't win.*
Her assistant answered on the second ring.
"I need to speak with Ms.
Vance today," I said.
"I have a two-year-old with a documented facial injury.
I have thirty-eight exhibits.
And the other side filed before the ink was dry on the medical report."
A pause.
"Can you be here at ten?"
I was there at nine forty-five.
Carol Vance's office was on the fourteenth floor of a building on Michigan Avenue.
No artwork on the walls.
No decorative anything.
Just a long table, two chairs, and a woman in her fifties who looked at me the way a surgeon looks at an X-ray — not with sympathy, but with focus.
She read through the medical report first.
Then she opened the folder I had brought and went through each exhibit without speaking.
When she reached the photograph of my hands — the chemical cr*cks from Diane's industrial cleaner — she set it face-up on the table and left it there.
"Tell me about the livestream," she said.
"Brooke was streaming the party to five relatives.
The camera was positioned across the table.
It would have captured the moment Diane str*ck Lily."
"Would have."
"Brooke's phone disappeared under the table immediately after."
Carol picked up her pen.
"Did anyone else record anything?"
"I don't know yet."
"Find out." She made a note.
"The filing Diane's attorney submitted last night is a preemptive move.
It's designed to make you look reactive.
She wants your response to be emotional so she can point to it."
"I'm not emotional," I said.
Carol looked up from her notes.
"I can see that," she said.
"It's going to be useful."
She walked me through the next steps in a flat, methodical voice.
Emergency motion to establish primary residence.
Petition to have Lily's medical records entered as evidence.
A formal request for the livestream footage — deleted or not, the data could be recovered from the platform's servers.
"What about the mandatory report from Dr.
Howard?" I asked.
"Already in the system.
Child Protective Services will make contact within seventy-two hours.
That's not a threat to you — it's a process.
Answer every question honestly and completely.
Let them see Lily."
"She flinches when strangers reach toward her face."
Carol's pen stopped.
"Document that," she said quietly.
"Every time.
Date, time, who was present, exactly what happened."
I nodded.
"Ms.
Vance — Diane filed before I even left the clinic.
She had an attorney on standby.
That means she planned this.
The party, the camera angle, all of it."
Carol set her pen down.
"Yes," she said.
"It does mean that." She folded her hands on the table.
"It also means she made a significant mistake."
"What mistake?"
"She planned for you to react.
She did not plan for thirty-eight exhibits."
I drove back to my sister's apartment with a retainer agreement signed and a list of seven things to do before noon.
My phone buzzed as I pulled into the parking structure.
Jason.
Not a call this time.
A text.
*"Mom's attorney says you have until Friday to drop this or they go after full custody.
She has witnesses who will say you've been unstable for years.
Think about what you're doing to Lily."*
I read it twice.
Then I forwarded it to Carol Vance with a single line: *Exhibit Thirty-Nine.*
My sister, Dana, was waiting at the door when I came upstairs.
She had Lily on her hip.
Lily was holding a piece of toast in both hands, eating it with the focused seriousness of someone performing important work.
"How did it go?" Dana asked.
"We have a plan."
Dana looked at me for a moment.
"Emily.
Are you okay?"
Lily reached for me.
I took her and pressed my face against her hair.
"Ask me again on Friday," I said.
That night, after Lily was asleep, my phone rang.
Not Jason.
Not Carol.
It was one of the relatives who had been watching through Brooke's livestream.
Her name was Patricia.
Jason's aunt.
His father's sister — the side of the family Diane had always kept at a careful distance.
"I saw what happened," Patricia said.
"I was watching the stream when it cut out.
I know what I saw before it went dark."
May you like
My hand tightened on the phone.
"I also know," she said slowly, "that this is not the first time."
