Chapter 7 - Emergency Custody
The stranger stopped when he saw the deputies.
"Sarah Mercer?"
"Who are you?"
"Process server."
He handed me the envelope.
Linda Mercer had filed for emergency temporary guardianship of Noah.
My vision blurred.
The petition described me as physically aggressive, dangerously sleep deprived, and unwilling to accept help. Attached were dated notes documenting my worst moments since Noah's birth.
January 8 - Sarah cried for forty minutes.
January 11 - Sarah said she "couldn't do this anymore."
January 15 - Sarah fell asleep on couch while baby slept in bassinet.
Normal exhausted-mother moments had been rewritten like evidence in a criminal case.
Then I saw a printed email.
From Ryan's account.
I THINK SARAH MAY NEED TO BE AWAY FROM NOAH FOR A WHILE.
I looked at my husband.
He read it and went white.
"I never wrote that."
"It's your email."
"I never wrote it."
Dana took the pages.
"When was this sent?"
Ryan checked the date.
"Last Tuesday. I was in Houston."
I remembered Linda using his home office that night.
Ryan ran to his laptop.
His password worked.
The sent folder had been emptied.
But the security page showed a login from our home IP address at 2:14 a.m.
Ryan had been 240 miles away.
Dana's expression sharpened.
"Do you have any reason to believe Mrs. Mercer knows your password?"
Ryan whispered, "She knows the password I used as a kid."
I looked at the petition again.
At the bottom was a proposed guardian.
Linda Mercer.
And beneath it, a second proposed custodian in case Linda was unavailable.
The name made Ryan grip the table.
Mark Bell.
May you like
His father's old attorney.
The man who had witnessed the papers after Anna died.
