Chapter 4 - THE FIRST LIE IN THE COURTROOM
Derek's attorneys appeared before Derek did.
They filed an emergency motion demanding contact with Lily, alleging that I had used military influence to block a loving father's access to his daughter.
A second filing claimed the police had unlawfully damaged our property.
A third accused me of fabricating the insurance policy because of a marital dispute.
Each allegation landed like another hand against Lily's hospital door.
Naomi read the papers beside me in a courthouse conference room.
"These are allegations, not findings," she reminded me.
"They want you angry enough to respond without thinking."
I stared at the words loving father.
Lily still woke crying for food she believed would disappear.
"Then we respond with the record," I said.
The first hearing was limited and practical.
The judge reviewed medical information, Derek's documented absence, the active criminal investigation, and Lily's immediate safety needs.
The court ordered that Derek have no direct contact pending further review and set a fuller hearing for later.
I should have felt relief.
Instead, as we left the courtroom, a woman stepped into our path.
She wore a pearl-colored coat and carried a leather handbag I recognized from family holidays.
Patricia Nolan.
Derek's mother had returned from the cruise ahead of the others and somehow learned when I would be in court.
"Hannah," she said with a trembling smile, "this has gone much too far."
I moved closer to Naomi.
"Stay away from Lily."
"She's my granddaughter."
"Then you should have cared whether she was eating."
Patricia's eyes hardened.
"My son said the sitter was coming. You know how he exaggerates."
"He left her alone for three days."
"You left her for six months."
Her words struck exactly where she intended.
The courthouse noise faded as I remembered Lily asking whether I was really home.
"I was serving under orders," I said.
"I arranged for her father to care for her."
Patricia leaned forward.
"A mother doesn't get to disappear and then come back pretending she's the hero."
Naomi stepped between us and instructed Patricia not to approach me again.
Bell, who had arrived to discuss separate evidence, watched the encounter from the stairs.
He waited until Patricia left before speaking.
"We found emails showing she knew the babysitter canceled," he said.
I gripped the railing.
"Before they sailed?"
"Four days before. She wrote Derek that the situation had to be handled quietly."
"Did she know Lily would be alone?"
"We haven't established that."
I hated the distinction, but I understood it.
A fact mattered more than what I desperately wanted to believe.
At the hospital, a new problem awaited.
A nurse showed me a message claiming that a private transport service would collect Lily for a specialist consultation the following morning.
The order bore a physician's name, but no doctor had requested it.
Denise Harper blocked the transport and contacted security.
A camera captured the person who had delivered the instruction.
This time the face was uncovered.
It was Jenna Nolan, Derek's sister.
But the timestamp showed the message had been delivered while Jenna was supposedly under questioning in Nassau.
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Either someone was using her identity, or the person law enforcement believed was Jenna was not Jenna at all.
