Chapter 7 - The Trial Before the Trial
Hope remained in the NICU for another seven weeks.
During that time, three separate battles unfolded.
Kendra fought addiction.
Sarge fought the foster-care system.
And prosecutors prepared to fight Travis Boone.
Recovery stripped Kendra down emotionally. Without drugs numbing her fear, memories returned in violent waves. Some mornings she refused to leave bed. On others, she demanded discharge so she could stay beside Hope.
Her counselor taught her that loving her baby did not mean abandoning treatment.
“You cannot become stable by proving how much pain you can tolerate,” Dr. Sheila Grant told her. “Stability comes from accepting help before you collapse.”
Kendra disliked the lesson because it sounded too much like surrender.
Sarge understood.
They began attending family therapy together.
“You both confuse suffering with loyalty,” Dr. Grant observed.
Sarge frowned.
“I don’t.”
“You refused pain medication after being shot.”
“I don’t like narcotics.”
“You also refused to ask Mara for help assembling the crib.”
“That was different.”
“How?”
Sarge crossed his arms.
Kendra laughed for the first time in weeks.
“He’s worse than I am.”
“Not possible,” he muttered.
Gradually, the sessions became less defensive.
Sarge admitted that caring for Hope terrified him because everyone he loved seemed to disappear.
Kendra admitted that part of her resented how easily Hope trusted him.
“I’m her mother,” she said. “But when she cries, she calms down for you.”
Sarge did not dismiss her jealousy.
“She knew my voice longer. That’s all. You’ll build your own way of reaching her.”
“What if she never trusts me?”
“Then you keep becoming trustworthy.”
Meanwhile, Pauline conducted surprise inspections of Sarge’s apartment. Each time, she found the nursery prepared, medication locked away, emergency numbers posted, and a schedule detailed to the minute.
During the fourth inspection, she noticed a photograph on the dresser.
It showed Elias, Kendra, and Sarge at Family Day.
“You loved her father,” Pauline said.
“He was my brother.”
“Do you see Hope as repayment of a debt?”
The question struck deeply.
Sarge looked toward the empty crib.
“At first, maybe.”
Pauline waited.
“I thought saving her would balance something,” he continued. “But children aren’t debts. She doesn’t owe me healing. Elias doesn’t owe me forgiveness. I want to care for Hope because she deserves someone who stays.”
Pauline wrote nothing.
Instead, she nodded.
The criminal case became dangerous when Travis began sending messages from jail through another inmate’s girlfriend.
One message reached Kendra’s rehabilitation center.
Withdraw your statement, or the giant loses the baby.
Another included details about Sarge’s apartment, proving someone had watched the building.
Police installed cameras.
Sarge wanted to move, but Pauline warned that sudden changes could delay placement.
Then one evening, Sarge returned home and found the nursery window open.
Nothing appeared stolen.
On the crib lay a red plastic horse.
It resembled the toy Kendra carried as a child.
Beneath it was a note.
PROMISES GET PEOPLE KILLED.
Sarge called Beck.
The detective photographed the scene.
“This is meant to provoke you,” Beck said. “Travis wants you arrested or disqualified.”
“He knows where Hope will live.”
“We can relocate you.”
“That delays custody.”
“Better delayed than dead.”
Sarge stared at the little red horse.
The object had been chosen deliberately. Someone knew private details from Elias’s letters.
Only a few people had accessed the storage locker evidence.
Suspicion spread toward law enforcement, hospital staff, and the district attorney’s office.
Beck ordered an internal investigation.
Sarge temporarily moved into a secure veterans’ residence without telling Kendra the full reason.
She discovered the truth from Mara.
“He lied to me,” Kendra said.
“He was trying to protect your recovery.”
“That’s what people always say when they control information.”
Mara realized the mistake.
Kendra confronted Sarge during their next visit.
“You don’t get to decide what I can handle.”
“You were already struggling.”
“I’m always going to struggle. Does that mean you lie forever?”
“No.”
“That was not convincing.”
Sarge lowered his head.
“You’re right.”
Kendra blinked, surprised.
“I should have told you,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
“You’re not going to argue?”
“I spent enough years arguing with ghosts.”
She sat beside Hope’s incubator.
“Who left the horse?”
“We don’t know.”
“I do.”
Sarge looked at her.
Kendra remembered Travis speaking about a woman who had helped him obtain hospital information—a woman he called Aunt Vee.
Kendra had assumed the name referred to a relative.
Now she remembered seeing the same nickname in her mother’s old address book.
Virginia Vale.
Elias’s estranged younger sister.
Kendra’s aunt.
A woman the family believed had died from an overdose thirteen years earlier.
Detective Beck searched the name.
Virginia was alive.
She had changed her identity and worked as an administrative contractor for the county child-services office.
May you like
She had access to Hope’s placement file.
And according to employment records, she was Pauline Reeves’s immediate supervisor.
