She pressed the button for the lobby.

“I’ll be waiting for the server,” she said.

The doors opened, and she stepped back out into the bright corporate light of the lobby, leaving Sarah and me to descend into the dim concrete parking garage.

We walked quickly to Sarah’s sedan.

The afternoon air in Rockville was thick and humid, smelling of incoming rain.

I sat in the passenger seat, my hands clamped tightly in my lap to stop them from shaking.

“Are you ready for tomorrow?” Sarah asked as she started the engine.

“I don’t have a choice,” I said. “Gavin has the boys tonight. He’s probably telling them right now that I’m leaving them.”

“He can’t change the temporary custody order before nine tomorrow,” Sarah said, pulling out of the garage. “We just need to survive until we get in front of Judge Beckett.”

We spent the next six hours in Sarah’s office.

The walls were lined with heavy leather-bound law books that seemed to absorb the quiet panic in the room.

Sarah drafted the emergency subpoena for Sloane’s records.