Danny’s face was wrecked.
He turned once.
Toward David.
David did not look back.
That was the cruelest thing in the room.
Through the glass in the back doors, Eleanor caught a flicker of movement in the hallway. Lila Grant stood there among the press, over a cameraman’s shoulder.
For once, she didn’t look composed. She stood there, stunned—mouth parted, eyes fixed on Danny, like she couldn’t quite make the picture line up with the story she’d been telling about David Mercer for weeks.
Across the room, Reid moved.
Eleanor saw it from the corner of her eye—him stepping away from the prosecution table, his face still pale, stunned, as if he meant to come to her.
Before either of them could say more, the side doors at the back of the courtroom burst open, and the hallway noise came pouring in.
Reporters.
Not inside yet, but pressing hard enough against the threshold that the bailiff had to plant himself in the opening and shove them back with both arms.
“Back up! Court is adjourned, not open season.”
Lila Grant’s voice cut through the noise before Eleanor saw her.
“Eleanor—Eleanor, one question. Did you know Trooper Mercer was involved before today?”
Eleanor went cold.
Of course, Lila would come running the second blood hit the water.
“Ms. Harper,” Lila called again, louder, “did the defense intentionally withhold evidence to provoke a courtroom confession?”
Reid’s head snapped toward the door.
Burke heard it too. He stopped halfway through moving Danny out and looked back with a face that went flat as stone.
“Reid—Mr. Calloway, did the State know Trooper Mercer was the last person to see Caroline Simms alive?”
“Nobody moves.” Sara’s voice cracked through the doorway like a whip.
She stepped into the opening before the bailiff could speak, one arm extended across the threshold, Luke falling in beside her. Between the two of them, the doorway became a wall.
“No media past the tape,” Sara said. “You want a statement, you wait outside like everybody else.”
Lila leaned around her.
“Sheriff Scott, did your office bury the roadside witness statement?”
Burke’s eyes did not even flicker.
“Move her back,” he said to Luke.
Luke obliged with the polite, implacable firmness of a man who had absolutely no problem physically redirecting a microphone into safer territory.
The hallway surged.
