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.
A medical worker asked whether she wanted the door closed. Adrienne started to answer automatically, then stopped and considered it. Open, she decided, but with someone standing where passersby could not look straight into the room. The worker adjusted the screen without suggesting that she was being difficult. For the first time since the officer touched her, Adrienne felt the difference between being told where to stand and being asked what would help. She thanked the woman by name before the examination continued.
Beatrice sat beside her. Miles remained outside speaking with court staff and documenting what had occurred. The bailiff had separated Rourke from the parties. His conduct would be referred for independent review, and the hearing had been adjourned with additional preservation directions.
No one offered Adrienne a chance to question him further. She did not need to win another exchange while his fingerprints were still visible on her skin.
“He said the yellow sheet,” she told Beatrice.
“I heard.”
“He knew where it was.”
“I heard that too.”
The repetition steadied her. For months, her most important memories had lived in rooms where other people were not present. This one belonged to everyone who had been there.
Miles came in after the photographs were taken.
“The court recording is being preserved. We have requested the reporter's transcript. Staff are documenting the physical incident separately.”
“Does it prove he stopped me?”
“It is a significant statement. We still have to examine how he could have learned the detail.”
She closed her eyes.
“Please don't say the rest.”
He pulled up a chair.
“I won't. But I won't give you a promise that can fall apart tomorrow either.”