Chapter 7 - THE UNEXPECTED ALLY
At 2:00 AM, we arrived at a gated townhouse in Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood.
I knocked heavily on the solid mahogany door until the porch light flickered on. A woman in her late fifties, wearing a silk robe with her grey hair pulled back in a sharp bun, opened the door. Her eyes widened in shock as she saw me holding a baby, my clothes disheveled, standing beside Grace.
"Nora?" Marcus's ex-wife, Detective Sarah Vance of the King County Sheriff’s Special Victims Unit, stared at us in disbelief. "What on earth happened to you?"
Sarah had divorced Ethan's uncle five years ago after discovering his unethical practices and fraudulent medical billing. She had been exiled from the Hayes-Vance family gatherings ever since. She was the one person who knew exactly how dark and corrupt that family truly was.
We sat in Sarah’s living room while she poured hot tea, her professional instinct taking over as she examined the evidence we laid before her.
She listened without interrupting as I recounted the events of the evening. Then, she put on her reading glasses, opened the blue ledger, and played the unedited video on Ethan's phone.
As Ethan’s voice rang out from the phone speaker—"Make sure the angle catches the hands leaving the tub"—Sarah’s face hardened into stone.
"This isn't just a custody dispute," Sarah said, setting her cup down with a sharp clatter. "This is conspiracy to commit child endangerment, medical fraud, and corporate extortion. Marcus has been under quiet investigation by the state medical board for six months for signing off on fraudulent competency evaluations for wealthy families looking to seize estates. This video... this is the silver bullet."
"Ethan said he would report me for child abduction if I didn't come back," I said, my voice shaking.
"He can report whatever he wants," Sarah said calmly, reaching for her official police department radio and laptop on the desk. "He doesn't know you're here. He thinks you're hiding in a motel, terrified and helpless."
"What do we do?" Grace asked.
Sarah looked at Grace, then at me, a sharp, cold smile touching her lips. "Tomorrow morning at nine o'clock, Ethan and Amanda have an appointment at the King County Family Courthouse to file that emergency petition with Marcus. They think they're going to surprise you with a court order."
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Sarah stood up, her uniform badge gleaming under the lamp light.
"We're going to let them file it," Sarah said. "And then we are going to walk into that courtroom with the Sheriff's Department and lay the trap."
