Deadly Silence (complete) Chapter 140

“What?” Cassidy snapped, brow furrowed. “You’re holding the court order. It’s even signed by a judge. Your lawyer is lying to you.”

Samuel pressed his thumb to his phone and said, “You’re on speaker.”

“Hello there, Ms. Everett. This is Charles Montague, Mr Devreaux’s lawyer. I’m sure you remember me from when we met this summer,” the lawyer’s voice came through the phone, somehow sounding rougher than usual. “Now, this court order you’ve given my client? Not only does the court system have no record of it but, more importantly — and I cannot emphasize this enough — the judge’s signature is fake.

“Firstly, Judge Randall is a traffic court judge, and would never sign a warrant for an emergency child custody order. Secondly, the date of his signature is yesterday, and he has always spent his thanksgiving weekends in the next province over, where his children live. There is no possible way for you, or anyone, to have acquired his signature without driving a sixteen hour round trip, which would need to be the case since nothing but the original copy is considered valid. If you attempt to enforce this court order, you will be held criminally liable by association.”

There was a lengthy silence that followed, as everyone stared at either the phone in Samuel’s hand, the case worker, or the officer who was still watching Arlo.

“That’s not possible,” Cassidy finally managed to say. “I checked everything yesterday. It’s all above board, Mr Montague.”

“Then I believe you should give Judge Randall a call, Ms Everett, and verify that he signed this court order. Just know I am advising my client to not surrender custody of his daughter over to anyone.”

“Why haven’t *you* asked Judge Randall if it’s his signature,” the officer snapped, looking angry.

“Because I’ve been on the phone with my client, whom the police enjoy targeting with false accusations. If you’d like, I can turn this into a three-way call with the judge. Everyone can listen in as he learns someone forged his signature, and no one thought to double check why a traffic court judge would be signing this sort of thing.”

“The court order was to simplify things,” the officer snapped. “The allegation of child abuse still gives us probable cause to remove her from the custody of Samuel Devreaux.”

“And you are…?” Charles inquired.

The officer made a sour face. “A police officer.”

“Badge number?”

“That’s not important right now,” Cassidy exclaimed, taking a step forward only for Arlo to let out another growl. She retreated before speaking again. “As the officer stated, the allegations of abuse are enough to remove Vivian from Mr Devreaux’s custody, court order or not. I was given the order for the sole purpose of preventing this sort of… confrontation.”

“But I’m not being abused,” Vivian assured the woman.

“Vivian, I know it’s hard to admit when someone is taking advantage of you, but I can keep you safe,” the woman told her, voice cajoling but it did nothing to change Vivian’s mind.

“No, seriously, there’s no abuse. Who is making these allegations? And why?”

“Look… I don’t think this is the right place to be discussing this,” Cassidy continued, giving the girl an imploring look. “Please, just trust me on this. I’m only interested in your well being.”

“I have nothing to hide,” Vivian told Cassidy with a shrug. “So tell me what, exactly, I’ve been subjected to, because I’m honestly really confused about all of this.”

Cassidy glanced around the room, the number of people standing witness having grown from a dozen to over fifty. “Alright… if you insist…” Taking a deep breath, Vivian’s case worker then said, “It’s been brought to my attention that Mr Devreaux’s has been… exploiting you online… in a… sexual manner. We’ve found dozens of photos to prove this to be a credible allegation.”

Vivian felt her gut constrict. That hadn’t been what she’d expected to hear. Of *course* someone outside the school would stumble on the catfish. “Oh. That.” She paused for a second to gather her thoughts. “That’s not me.”

“Vivian, please…”

“No, seriously. Someone made a fake profile a couple weeks ago, and used A.I. to make those photos,” Vivian explained, feeling self-conscious because of everyone listening in on this less than comfortable topic. “I’ve never had, and still don’t have, social media.”

Samuel let out a sigh. “So you knew about it all along…”

“You knew?” She asked, surprised as she turned to stare at her father. “Who told you?” Vivian snuck at glance at Laurent, but he was shaking his head as if to say it hadn’t been him.

“Of course I knew,” he replied, fingers pressed to his temple. “I’ve had someone working on taking it down since it showed up. It took far longer than I’d wanted before they managed it.”

“…it’s been taken down? Since when?”

“Yesterday afternoon.”

“I still need to take Vivian into my custody, until the matter is fully investigated, Mr Devreaux.”

“No, you do not,” Charles’ voice came through the phone, reminding Vivian that there was yet another person listening in on the conversation. “Mr Devreaux alerted me the moment he found the profile, and I’ve filed the proper paperwork. His people have the court’s permission to look into the culprit’s identity, and remove the contents from the site in question, before handing all evidence collected over to the police. The person who is *actually* responsible is also a minor, so I will refrain from sharing their name, but the police will be receiving all the evidence by lunch, tomorrow. I will also be speaking with your supervisor, and the police commissioner, about all of this.”

“No offense, but—” the office began, but Charles cut him off.

“Oh, I’ve taken great offense to all of this, as has my client and his entire extended family, of whom I believe will *gladly* give statements on how much you fucked up. Now, you can either leave my client alone, and leave Mrs. Lamont’s house quietly, or I *will* start making calls to the people who control whether or not you still have a job.”

At that point, Cassidy and the officers had no other choice but to leave. The deck was stacked against them and, by leading with a document containing the forged signature of a judge, they’d effectively shot themselves in the foot.