Scarlet came and led him into the visiting room where Trudy was. She unlocked the door, let Adrian in, and softly closed and locked it. Once she was gone Trudy nearly collapsed in Adrian's arms.
Later Monk still felt Trudy's arms around him and her hair in his fingers when he held the back of her head.
It was hard not to tell her, but he couldn't bear to get her hopes up and couldn't risk anyone overhearing and jeopardizing the plan or causing any trouble for Scarlet.
So, he told her to hold on and promised again that he would be back at 8 p.m.
Outside it was raining. But he needed to walk to clear his head. He found himself at the police station. He supposed that he should go in and see if he could find Leland and see if he had some time to talk privately and he would tell his friend about everything that had happened.
Leland listened carefully to Adrian's story.
"You know," he said as they drove to his house, "That makes a lot of sense. Ethan Rickover is bad news."
"I consider him an attempted murderer if nothing else," Adrian said as they got to Leland's house.
Leland sat down and Adrian sat across from him.
"How so," Leland asked.
"He's trying to kill Trudy," Adrian pointed out.
Leland knew his friend was having an emotional reaction. He knew this wasn't the time to point out the obvious which was that Rickover had issued a legally appropriate sentence.
"I know this is hard as hell for you, Monk," Leland said thinking of some of the experiences he had been through. There was the time his oldest, Jennifer, had been kidnapped. She was finally returned after nearly a year. There was also the time he'd gotten in big trouble with Karen. Jared had overheard the entire incident and he later admitted he felt guilty because he couldn't protect his dad. Leland had made it clear to Jared that it was the responsibility of a parent to protect their child, not the other way around. A few months later when Karen had messed up Adrian had told Leland, "Don't use a broom to mop the floor." Leland couldn't help but laugh when Monk said that. Of course, Adrian Monk would use cleaning analogies. He understood that Monk was telling him not to act the same way that Karen had acted when she was in his shoes.
"Leland," Adrian asked, bringing him out of his thoughts, "Are you alright?"
"Yeah Monk," Leland assured him, "I'm fine."
He paused.
"Is Trudy okay," he asked.
"As okay as someone on death row can be," Adrian replied, "which is to say not very."