Page 42 of Never Alone
"I don't need the lecture right now, Cole."
My eyes filled with tears. I didn't blink them back fast enough.
He saw them and sighed. "I came here to tell you I'll do it."
What?
"I'm doing it because it's the right thing to do. Not because I want to."
CHAPTER 8
Cole
I already regret this.
I'd been telling myself it was the right thing since Tuesday. The holiday had bought us all a few days. Walking into Miranda Holt's office on Friday morning, I was still telling myself. Repetition wasn't doing what repetition was supposed to do.
Tessa was a step ahead of me on the stairs. She hadn't said much in the truck. She'd told me where to park and how to find the building, and that had been most of the talking.
The receptionist knew Tessa by name and gave her a small smile. "Lieutenant Weston, can I get you anything?"
"No. Thanks."
She took us back. Miranda was already at her desk, but she stood when we came in.
Mid-forties. Navy suit cut clean. Dark hair pulled back. The kind of presence that didn't announce itself but was hard to miss once you noticed it.
"Lieutenant Weston. Miranda Holt."
"Cole's fine."
"Cole." She nodded. "Have a seat."
The office was clean. Legal pad on the desk. Pen. Her phone face down beside the pad. Two chairs across from her. She gestured us into them and sat.
She looked at me for a beat longer than she'd looked at Tessa. Three seconds, maybe. Reading.
I let her read.
"Alright. Some of what I'm about to say, Tessa already knows. I'll move through it for both of you anyway."
She put a hand flat on the legal pad. Didn't pick up the pen.
"The petition is drafted. I'll have the final to you tonight or tomorrow morning. The institutional records came in faster than I expected—school enrollment, the pediatrician, the bakery payroll Mrs. Thompson sent over Friday. Mr. Whitaker came through with the rent records yesterday—that was the last piece I was waiting on. Seven months at the Westbrook house on paper before the fire. Six is the bar. We have eight months in this state on every line that mattered. South Carolina is Noah's home state under the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act. We can prove it on paper. We can defend it in court."
Tessa breathed out slowly.
Miranda turned a page on the pad. Not because she needed to read it. Because she was setting the next thing down on a clean surface.
"That's where I was when you called yesterday morning, Tessa. Now that Cole's in this with us, the petition has to look different. There are a few things I'll need from both of you before I can file."
She turned to me.
"From you, Cole, an affidavit. A sworn statement, in your own words, about your relationship with Tessa and your involvement with Noah. I'll send the template this afternoon. The fire department already has your background check—I justneed a copy. Most recent pay stub, last year's tax return. Nothing exotic. From the two of you—a lease at one address before the petition lands. If the lease isn't ready, a utility bill. Anything that puts you in the same place on paper. Have all of it on my desk by Friday. Petition goes out Monday."
It landed then. The whole size of it. The life I'd kept to myself going on file in a courthouse. For a child I'd met three weeks ago. For a sixteen-year-old girl in a parking lot eighteen years ago who had told me I'd ruined her life.
I shook my head. Looked at Tessa.
