Chapter 3 - THE WARNING AT BREAKFAST
At 6:40 that morning, my mother had stood at my kitchen counter stirring sugar into tea she never drank.
“Somebody called last night,” Gloria Ellison said. “A man asked whether you still use the service entrance.”
I had laughed it off as a security mix-up.
Now, in the basement, Voss leaned close enough for me to smell his coffee.
“Your mother was proud of this building, wasn’t she?”
“Leave her out of it.”
He glanced at the clock above the utility door. Eight forty-four.
My hearing was scheduled for nine.
“You only had to stay away for one morning,” he said.
The words confirmed it: they knew exactly who I was.
A thump came from the hall. Then Pruitt returned, dragging Camille by her sleeve. She was twenty-four, with a nervous face and fierce eyes. Her phone was gone.
“She says she wasn’t filming,” Pruitt announced.
Camille looked straight at me.
“I’m sorry, Judge.”
Voss’s mouth hardened.
“Judge?” he repeated, pretending surprise.
“Your game is over,” I said. “Call the marshals.”
Instead, he opened the door to a storage cage and pushed Camille inside.
“Both of you stay quiet. We’ll be back after the hearing.”
“You’re supposed to be at that hearing,” I said.
Voss stopped.
For a moment I saw something more frightening than anger: calculation.
“We’ll be wherever our lawyer tells us to be.”
He and Pruitt hurried into the corridor. A key turned. Their footsteps faded.
Camille pressed her face between the cage bars.
“Judge Ellison,” she whispered, “they smashed the wrong phone.”
Then she pulled a second device from inside her boot.
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20 CHAPTERS •
THE JUDGE THEY TRIED TO SILENCE
