Free The Advocate's Ex Parte (The Advocate Series Book 5) by Teresa Burrell Page A

any steps. He retrieved a book about baby animals and handed it to her. She took the book, plopped down where she had been standing, and slowly flipped the pages, spending close to a minute on each page and carefully studying the pictures before she went to the next one.
    “Does she talk at all?” Sabre asked.
    “She has a decent size vocabulary, mostly Vietnamese, but she’s a very shy little girl,” Mrs. Nguyen said, “so she doesn’t express herself often. We speak to her frequently in English.”
    “I’ve only seen her once before at Polinsky and she seemed to be developmentally appropriate for her age. What do you think?”
    “She seems quite normal. She walks quite well. In fact, she’s very quick, but quiet. She covers a lot of ground so I sometimes need to be careful. I’ll turn around and there she is, right under foot.”
    Emma stood up while holding her book and toddled over to Mrs. Nguyen. She handed her the book and said softly, but very distinctly, “Kit-ty.”
    Mrs. Nguyen opened the book to the page with a kitten. “Yes, kitty. Very good, Emma.” Mrs. Nguyen looked up at Sabre. “The kitten is her favorite. Do you know if they had a cat?”
    “Not that I’m aware of, but she may have.”
    “And there is no father in the picture?” the foster mother asked.
    Sabre shook her head.
    “That’s a shame. Emma deserves two parents. I asked Kim-Ly about the father. She told me she didn’t know his name, that she’d had a one-night stand, but she wasn’t very convincing. I think she does know and doesn’t want to tell for some reason.”
    “Perhaps,” Sabre said. Even if she knew something more, which she didn’t, it wasn’t her place to share it with the foster mother. Kim-Ly told that same story to the social worker when questioned. It was not unusual to see young girls in the system with babies and no knowledge of who had fathered them. She had hoped that Kim-Ly had opened up to Dr. Heller in her psychological evaluation, but since Heller hadn’t submitted the report, she wasn’t certain it had even been written. Neither the report nor the usual tape recording of the session had been found in Dr. Heller’s office. There was no way to tell what, if anything, might be missing without the doctor to verify it. Sabre decided to wait a few more days and then ask the court to order another evaluation on Kim-Ly Tran if there was no change in the doctor’s condition.
    Sabre spent a little more time with Emma and then went to four more home visits. Afterwards, she stopped at the hospital to check on Dr. Carolina Heller, but there had been no change.

Chapter 13
     
    The Durham Case
    Child: Matt Durham, Defendant
    Type: Delinquency case
    Charges: Two counts of First Degree Murder
    Victims: Hannah Rawlins & Mason Usher
    Facts: Double homicide. Two teenagers bludgeoned to death with a baseball bat.
     
    JP left Robin at home with her car secure within the garage. She assured him she wouldn’t go outside the house. Normally, Louie would go with JP on Saturday morning when he went out. They’d stop at Bob’s house and Louie would play with Bob’s dog, Alfie, while Bob and JP drank coffee and visited. But today JP had a full schedule and a late start so he skipped his visit with Bob and left Louie behind to keep Robin company.
    JP walked onto the high school campus and headed toward the gym where the coaches had their offices. The school was quiet except for a few boys with baseball gloves showing up for practice. JP wound his way past the track and across the outdoor basketball courts and into the gym. He encountered a tall, African-American student, with a closely clipped mustache and beard walking out of the building. JP remembered trying to grow anything that resembled facial hair in high school, but to no avail.
    “Could you direct me to Coach Arviso’s office?” JP asked.
    He pointed to his right. “Straight ahead to the end of the hallway, turn left, and it’s the second door on the