of the rights of children. Surely that would work in their favor.
Janet presented their case for retaining custody. Calling first Cord, then Sharon Lynn, she led them through testimony about the brutally cold night on which they’d found the baby abandoned in the alley behind Dolan’s.
“What did you think when you saw her there?” Janet asked Cord.
“That she’d been left there to die,” he said angrily.
“Not that she’d been dropped off in the hope that she’d be found by someone who’d love and care for her?” Janet persisted.
“No,” he said flatly.
“Do you agree with your husband’s impression?” Janet asked Sharon Lynn when her turn came.
“I do,” Sharon Lynn said softly. “I didn’t want to believe any mother could allow that, but there was no other way to look at it. The baby was left too far from the door.”
Tears welled up as she remembered. “The snow was coming down so hard by then. In a few more minutes, an hour at most, she would have been under a cold blanket of snow. She would have...” She choked back a sob, then drew in a breath and faced the judge, who seemed shaken by the testimony. “She would have died.”
When Sharon Lynn left the stand, Janet called witness after witness who could talk about the love and care Cord and Sharon Lynn had given to the baby in all the weeks since that terrible night, about the love they’d discovered in the process that had led them to marry.
And finally Janet called on witnesses who could describe Hazel Murdock’s life-style.
“Your honor, I ask, is that the kind of situation in which you wish to see an innocent baby raised?” Janet asked passionately when the evidence had been presented. “I mean this as no disrespect to Mrs. Murdock. She has raised a daughter with little or no help from the child’s father. But that daughter—this baby’s mother—has vanished. Can Mrs. Murdock be expected at her age to raise yet another baby, this one her grandchild, with so few emotional and financial resources, especially when there are others capable and willing to give the child a warm, loving home?”
By contrast to Janet’s well-organized and passionately stated presentation, the attorney handling Mrs. Murdock’s case had little to offer the court in defense of his client. Even Mrs. Murdock herself seemed to be going through the motions on the stand, repeatedly citing her duty to rear the child, not her love for the baby she’d visited only once and never even asked to hold.
The judge listened to her intently, then interrupted her attorney’s questioning.
“Mrs. Murdock, do you truly want to take on the job of rearing this child?” the judge demanded.
“I’ve said so, haven’t I?” the older woman retorted with a defiant lift of her chin. “She’s my kin.” She gestured across the courtroom. “They have no claim on her.”
“Other than love,” the judge replied quietly. She uttered a sigh. “I wish I could end this matter right now, but there are any number of moral issues to be considered. Normally I would not rule against blood ties. And then there is the fact that the biological mother’s whereabouts are not known. She could turn up here tomorrow wanting her baby back. Or she might never be heard from again.”
She glanced at Sharon Lynn, who had been holding the baby cradled in her arms ever since she’d left the witness stand. Cord was snugly by her side, his hand resting reassuringly on her shoulder. A smile seemed to touch the judge’s lips for just an instant at the picture of a loving family that they presented.
“I think time is what’s needed here,” she said. “Time for me to consider all the facts, time for the police to complete their search for Victoria Murdock and her boyfriend.” She gave a pointed look toward the woman fighting them for custody. “Time for Mrs. Murdock to consider thoroughly what is truly best for her granddaughter.”
Sharon Lynn’s heart was in her throat as she waited for the judge’s ruling. Cord folded her hand in his and squeezed.
“Therefore I am granting temporary custody to Mr. and Mrs. Branson. We will come back here on July first with any additional evidence that becomes available. At that time I will be prepared to rule on permanent custody.”
Sharon Lynn released the breath she’d been holding. Three months. They had three more months with Ashley at least. She would be teething in earnest by then, crawling, maybe even trying to pull herself up to