AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Let me know when you need me,” Maddie said.
As people reluctantly returned to their spots on the raft, Ballard stood up from her desk.
“Paul, let’s go get a coffee,” she said.
Ballard turned and headed toward the exit before any of the others could react to being left out of whatever discussion Ballard was about to have. She didn’t speak to Masser until they were in the cafeteria and sitting down at a table with to-go coffee cups in front of them. Before Ballard could begin, Masser spit out an apology.
“I am so sorry,” he said. “If I had put together the incongruity of the hospital, we’d be two days into a new direction.”
“Not necessarily,” Ballard said. “And I didn’t buy you coffee to set up an apology.”
“Then why did we come up here? The others think you took me to the woodshed.”
“I don’t care what they think. We need to figure out our next move on this. I’m already taking heat for putting the judge under surveillance. Now that it’s not him, this could really turn bad for the unit.”
“Well, I think it’s obvious. We have to go to the judge.”
Ballard nodded. “I was thinking that too. But he could blow us out of the water, especially if we tell him we collected his DNA.”
“Hisandhis wife’s. He may blow a gasket, but he might also see that we had no choice. We did what we had to do.”
“Hopefully. But how are we going to get him to talk if he was involved in some sort of shady deal getting the kid?”
“You mean like a black-market baby?”
“Maybe. I still don’t see how the birth was recorded so quickly. That means somebody at the hospital was somehow involved in making this work.”
“There’s something we don’t know here. Even if we could get into adoption records, I have a feeling there wouldn’t be any for Nicholas Purcell.”
“So when do we go to the judge?”
“That’s your call. That’s why you get a salary and we don’t.”
“Right.”
Ballard went silent as she mulled the question. Intruding into these thoughts was the reminder that Captain Gandle had directly ordered her to keep him in the loop. She knew she should inform him of the DOJ results and the plan to brace the judge. But by doing so she risked Gandle telling her to stand down until he got clarity from the tenth floor. That move could take days and maybe even weeks. Ballard was not interested in stalling the case while the command staff considered the political gain or fallout from asking the presiding judge of the superior court questions about the possibly illegal adoption of his son.
“What are you thinking?” Masser finally asked.
“I’m thinking if we left now, we could get to the CCB before the judge takes off for the weekend,” Ballard said.
“So you want to do it today?”
“Why not?”
“Because if the judge gets mad and throws us in jail, we probably won’t get out till Monday.”
“More like Tuesday because of the holiday.”
“Yes, Tuesday.”
“Fuck it. Let’s go.”
“I’ll drive. My keys are on my desk.”
“Let’s not tell the others what we’re doing. I don’t want Colleen calling every ten minutes.”
“She’ll do that whether she knows what we’re doing or not.”
