Marcus didn’t answer right away, his hand gently patting the baby’s back in steady, practiced strokes.

At three thirty, Marcus stepped out into the fourth-floor corridor while I stayed in the room to nurse the baby.

Julian was standing by the glass observation window of the main nursery with a county bail bondsman and a young legal assistant holding a courier pouch.

His white shirt collar was open at the neck, and his silk tie was stuffed crookedly into his side coat pocket.

“You must feel like a saint, Marcus,” Julian said as the older man stopped three feet away by the water cooler.