Chapter 4 - The Iron Dragon
Sarah Vance stood up so quickly her chair nearly overturned. "Maya? What are you doing here? This is an administrative intake."
"This is an illegal seizure of a child from a victim of domestic battery," Maya Lin snapped, dropping her heavy briefcase onto the examination bed beside me. She didn't even look at Sarah; her sharp, dark eyes were fixed entirely on me. "Valerie, I'm Maya Lin. Your sister, Clara, called me from Seattle an hour ago. She wired my retainer thirty minutes ago."
Relief, so intense it felt like physical pain, flooded through my chest. My sister, Clara. She had remembered the lawyer who helped her friend escape an abusive marriage two years ago.
"Miss Lin," Sarah Vance said, trying to regain her authoritative posture. "The mother is currently under investigation for child endangerment and assault. We have an affidavit—"
"You have a worthless piece of paper written by a known accomplice," Maya interrupted, pulling a sleek tablet from her briefcase. She tapped the screen twice and held it out toward Sarah Vance's face. "This is the 911 audio log from forty minutes ago. My investigator obtained it directly from the dispatch server via emergency subpoena."
Maya pressed play.
My voice came through the small speaker, breathless and terrified: “I have a three-day-old baby with me... my husband dragged me from the bathroom and slammed me into a doorframe...”
Then, clearly audible in the background, came Mark’s voice: “Tell them you hit me.”
Followed immediately by Evelyn’s calculating tone: “She did hit you. I saw it.”
And finally, the crushing blow: “Where are her keys?” / “I took them when she went into the bathroom.”
Maya paused the audio recording. The room went completely deathly quiet. Even the hum of the fluorescent lights seemed to dim.
"That audio proves premeditation, unlawful restraint, and conspiracy to commit filing a false police report," Maya said, her voice dropping into a register of terrifying precision. "If you sign that temporary placement order to give this infant to Evelyn Miller, Sarah, I will name you as a co-conspirator in a federal kidnapping lawsuit by 8:00 AM."
Sarah Vance’s face drained of color. She looked down at her clipboard, then at the tablet, and finally at me.
"The... the child still needs a safe environment," Sarah stammered, her composure completely shattered. "The father’s home is a crime scene."
"The child will go home with his mother to a secure, private address managed by my firm," Maya stated, pulling a fresh document from her folder and handing it to Sarah. "This is an emergency temporary protection order signed by Judge Henderson ten minutes ago via electronic docket. It grants Valerie Chen exclusive temporary custody and restrains Mark Miller and Evelyn Miller from coming within one thousand feet of Valerie or Toby."
Sarah Vance accepted the paper with trembling hands. She swallowed hard, grabbed her leather folder, and moved toward the curtain without saying another word.
"And Sarah," Maya added, her voice chillingly quiet. "If you contact Evelyn Miller tonight to inform her of this order, I will have your state license revoked by noon."
Sarah Vance scurried out of the room like a frightened rat.
I slumped back against the hospital pillows, my entire body shaking uncontrollably. Tears rolled down my cheeks, soaking into the blue blanket.
May you like
Maya Lin turned to me, her sharp features softening just a fraction. She reached out and lightly touched my uninjured arm.
"You did good, Valerie," Maya said softly. "You kept him safe. Now let me handle the rest of these bastards."
