A Father Without Proof
Chapter 11 - A Father Without Proof
Willow Ridge refused to let Jax see Lila.
Daniel was listed as her husband, medical proxy, and emergency contact. According to the clinic, Lila had experienced paranoid delusions, abandoned her vehicle, and endangered her child.
Sarah requested the admission records.
The clinic denied her.
Officer Ruiz requested security footage from the night Lila was admitted.
The footage had been erased during a “system update.”
Every door led back to Daniel.
Meanwhile, the town turned Jax into a story it already understood. Television reports used old booking photographs. Online comments called him violent, unstable, and dangerous to children.
His garage lost three customers in one day.
A supplier canceled his account.
Someone spray-painted KIDNAPPER across the metal door overnight.
Jax arrived at dawn with a bucket and scrub brush.
He had removed half the word when Mae appeared beside him.
“You do not have to do this alone.”
“I did alone for years.”
“That is not the same as having to.”
Mae picked up a second brush.
By eight o’clock, two diner regulars joined them. Then four mechanics. Then Officer Ruiz’s retired father arrived with a pressure washer and said nothing at all.
The wall was clean before the morning news crew reached the street.
Sarah watched from her car.
“Character witnesses,” she said. “We need every one of them.”
Jax looked at the people who had shown up without being asked. For years he had believed respect came from fear. Now he understood it could also come from quietly fixing what one had broken.
A lab collected his DNA that afternoon.
The results would take five days.
The custody hearing was in three.
“Without Lila or the test, Daniel has the stronger legal case,” Sarah warned.
Jax glanced at the flash drive. “What about the recordings?”
“Encrypted. We need the password.”
Mae studied the file names. Each was labeled with a date and one word: sunrise, booth, pie, river, mercy.
“Those are memories,” she said.
Jax tried every date he remembered.
Nothing worked.
Then he looked at the old photograph.
On the white edge, almost hidden beneath his thumb, someone had written a number in faded ink.
081817.
The day Lila had taken Noah to meet him.
May you like
Jax entered it.
The drive unlocked.
