The Child Comes First Read Free Page B

Tiffany’s interests during the legal proceedings,” Montgomery said as he downshifted and pulled into a parking space. “And I’ll need you to tell me whatever you think I should know that she might not want to talk about. What you hear and add to my interviews with her will still be protected as attorney-client communication, so don’t hesitate to talk as we go along.”
    Jayda nodded. “Tiffany’s smart. Sometimes a smart aleck,” she added with a rueful smile. “But she often understands the proceedings better than I do—mostly, I hope to be an emotional support to her.”
    As they got out of the car, he said, “I’ve never been here before, so it would be great if you’d lead the way.”
    Jayda had been to the Gay Street facility far too many times. “The people who run it probably mean well, but it’s still not a good place for any kid to end up. I hate that Tiffany’s spent so much time within these walls. Every day she’s here there’s a chance she’ll be beaten or abused by a fellow inmate.”
    He didn’t say anything to this, but Jayda saw his mouth tighten with tension. Did he appreciate the importance of winning his client’s release? She couldn’t tell. Without speaking, he opened the entrance door for her and she walked in first.
    â€œI called ahead while you were rearranging your schedule with your secretary, so we shouldn’t have to wait long to see her,” she said. “I’ve never found anything specifically wrong on her previous visits, but things can change quickly, and for the worse, in a place like this. I hope to get her out while she still has some little girl left in her.”
    Â 
    S IMON HAD BEEN INSIDE many prisons. He’d visited clients in mental institutions. But the juvenile justice center into which he walked with Ms. Kavanagh really gave him the creeps. He supposed his reaction could be attributed partly to his own experiences in similar places, even though he’d been too young and his time in those facilities had been too brief to have left him with any lasting memories. Unlike the places he’d been kept in right after his parents’ deaths, this was a fairly new building, opened in 2003. It should have been the best of the best. It wasn’t.
    He did his utmost to shrug off his sense of discomfort as he waited for the red tape to be sorted out so that he could meet Tiffany. As he waited, he began to identify sounds that made the hair stand up on the back of his neck. “Can you hear that?” he asked the social worker.
    â€œYeah, I can hear it. It’s always like this.”
    Faraway shouts, the dull clang of heavy metal doors, the unmistakable sense that children were weeping. That was how he heard it, though none of the noises was actually identifiable. “How long has she been here?”
    Her gaze swung around to collide with his. Anger flared behind her gray eyes. “Too long, wouldn’t you agree? Haven’t all the kids been here too long?” She looked away and seemed to collect herself. Her tone was softer when she said, “A little over a month.”
    They waited together in silence for Tiffany to be brought to an interview room. At last, a matron in a dark uniform asked them to follow her. They were led to a gray door with a meshed window inset at an adult’s eye level. Through it, Simon got his first look at Tiffany Thompson.
    He’d expected to find a big-for-her-age, tough-as-nails, hard-looking preteen—someone who actually appeared capable of committing the heinous murder of a three-year-old boy. But instead, he saw a small girl with pigtails and doe eyes sitting at a gray metal table in a chair far too large for her. She had on a tan T-shirt and ill-fitting elastic-waist pants; her feet, in a pair of slip-on sneakers, didn’t touch the floor, but her ankles were crossed and she swung her legs back and