Chapter 16 - Cooperate
Grant’s attorney asked for a recess.
The judge denied it.
“Mr. Mason may answer.”
Grant looked toward Claire.
For years, she had watched him perform for different audiences.
Charming for friends.
Patient for doctors.
Wounded for family.
Now she watched him search for the right version of himself and fail to find one.
“I meant cooperate with treatment,” he said.
“What treatment?” the judge asked.
“A mental-health evaluation.”
“Ordered by whom?”
“No one.”
“Requested by whom?”
“My family.”
The judge’s expression did not change.
“And if your wife declined a voluntary evaluation, your infant son would be flown out of state with your mother?”
Grant swallowed.
“That wasn’t the plan.”
The recording had already said otherwise.
Claire did not need to speak.
That was new.
She had spent years trying to explain herself to people who heard Grant first.
Now evidence was speaking before he could.
The judge granted Claire temporary sole physical custody and restricted Grant to professionally supervised contact pending further review.
Diane was barred from contact with Noah.
The ruling was not permanent.
But it was enough for Claire to breathe.
Outside the courtroom, Grant’s attorney approached Claire’s lawyer with a proposal.
Grant would agree to stronger temporary restrictions if Claire agreed not to pursue certain financial records in the family case.
Claire’s lawyer stared at him.
“Why would financial records matter?”
The attorney’s face gave away too much.
By that afternoon, Claire’s legal team filed requests for records connected to joint accounts, trusts, and payments made by Grant during the prior year.
The results arrived in pieces.
Thousands to Mercer.
Payments to Evan Keller.
Fees to Marcus Vale.
And one transfer Claire did not recognize.
Twenty-five thousand dollars to a company called Northlight Family Consulting.
Rachel searched the company online.
No public office.
No real website.
A registration address in Phoenix.
The same city as Diane’s canceled flight.
Claire felt a slow chill.
“What kind of family consulting company has no website?” Rachel asked.
Claire looked at the invoice description.
Emergency placement preparation.
Her lawyer called Ortiz.
Ortiz went quiet when she heard the company name.
“I need you not to contact them,” the detective said.
“Why?”
“Because Northlight is already part of another investigation.”
Claire gripped the phone.
“For what?”
May you like
Ortiz answered carefully.
“For helping private clients move children across state lines during contested custody cases.”
