Adrienne arrived early with Miles and Beatrice. They passed through security, checked the courtroom assignment, and sat near a window overlooking a delivery entrance. Beatrice had brought a packet of crackers because she had noticed Adrienne forgetting breakfast before stressful appointments. Adrienne ate two without being asked. Her sister put the remainder between them, within reach but without ceremony. It was a kind of care that did not require an explanation before it could be accepted. Below, a man maneuvered a trolley of paper boxes over a cracked section of pavement. He tried twice before finding the right angle.
Adrienne watched him succeed and wished the day could be reduced to a problem like that.
Miles reviewed the hearing's scope. They were there to address preservation, disclosure, and procedures surrounding examination of evidence. It was not a criminal trial. No one would be sentenced that morning. The judge could resolve disputes and issue orders, but the separate investigation would continue on its own course.
“I know,” Adrienne said.
“I know you know. I'm saying it because a room can make people forget what the day is actually for.”
She looked at the folder on his knee.
“Do you think he'll keep denying it?”
“I expect his lawyer to advise him carefully.”
That was an answer about lawyers, not about Rourke. Adrienne understood why Miles offered it.
Rourke arrived with counsel shortly before the doors opened. He wore his uniform despite being reassigned away from patrol duties. Lieutenant Brand came separately with a department representative. No one greeted Adrienne.
Inside, the clerk checked exhibits and spoke with the attorneys about the recorder's custody. The original device was present because the court had directed that it be made available for the examination dispute. Its existence had been disclosed. Relevant audio had been provided through counsel under the governing procedures. There would be no theatrical surprise in which a hidden device became evidence simply because someone held it up.
What remained undisclosed publicly included witness details and material still subject to protective restrictions. Miles had specifically asked Nina to document who had received information about the tote pocket. If Rourke had learned the detail from a legitimate source, that would matter. They could not call knowledge exclusive merely because it suited their case.
Adrienne sat at counsel table as directed. She placed her notebook in front of her and kept her hands flat on either side of it.
Rourke stood several feet away while his attorney conferred with the department's lawyer. He looked at Adrienne once, then again.
“Enjoying this?” he said quietly.
Miles turned.
“Do not address my client.”
Rourke looked past him.
“All this over something that never happened.”
The bailiff stepped closer and told the parties to remain apart. Adrienne's heartbeat climbed. She reminded herself that there were witnesses, a court reporter preparing her equipment, staff moving through the room.
Then she remembered that she had believed a uniform would make the road safe too.
She concentrated on physical details. The cool edge of the table. The dent in her pen. Beatrice's coat hanging over the bench behind her. Things that existed now, in this room, rather than in the dark stretch of road her body kept returning to.
Judge Sloane entered. Everyone stood.
For the first twenty minutes, the hearing concerned records. Counsel discussed draft logs, retention procedures, and the difference between an assigned district and a recorded location. The judge asked precise questions and refused sweeping answers from either side.
Then Miles referred to Rourke's declaration that he had never searched Adrienne's belongings.
The officer made a sound under his breath.
His attorney touched his sleeve.
Miles continued, asking that the preservation order cover communications related to the disputed stop and subsequent revisions of its records.
Rourke stood so abruptly that his chair struck the rail behind him.
“You're putting words in my mouth.”
Sloane told him to sit.
He did not.
Adrienne turned instinctively toward the movement. Rourke crossed the narrow distance before she fully understood that he was coming around the table.
His hands closed on her jacket.
The button snapped free.
Later, she would remember thinking something absurdly practical: Beatrice had checked the cuff, but neither of them had checked the buttons.
Then the bailiff was beside them, and the ordinary morning she had prepared for was gone.
In the room where courthouse medical staff examined her, Adrienne discovered that bruises could take time to decide what color they wanted to be.
For now, the marks near her collarbone were red. Her hands were cold. She could answer questions about pain more easily than she could explain why she kept looking toward the door.