Chương 2
She had not expected Preston Vale to be sitting behind the records supervisor’s desk with a checkbook open.
“Where is Marjorie Bell?” Eleanor asked.
Daniel swallowed. “Lunch.”
“It’s after three.”
“She left early.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
Preston spread his hands. “I had an appointment.”
“With whom?”
“Ms. Bell.”
“Then why are you meeting with Mr. Ruiz?”
“Because Ms. Bell wasn’t here.”
“And why is your son putting his hands on people who enter a public office?”
“I told you. He misunderstood.”
Mason stared at the check on the floor.
Eleanor shifted her bag away from her injured wrist. She could feel the pulse in the swollen joint. She wanted to sit down, but Preston was watching for weakness, and Daniel was watching for rescue, and Tessa was watching to learn what kind of chief judge she actually was.
Her title had been engraved on a brass plate for eleven months. Until that moment, it had mostly meant budgets, calendars, staffing shortages, security meetings, and the lonely responsibility of signing decisions that made half the room angry.
Now it meant everyone was waiting for her to become the most powerful person in the office.
She had no intention of giving Preston that satisfaction.
“Tessa, call Court Administrator Bishop,” she said. “Tell her to come here with courthouse security and information services. Ask her not to discuss the reason over the phone.”
Tessa set the folders on a cabinet and reached for the wall phone.
Preston gave another small laugh, though there was no amusement left in it. “Security? For this?”
Eleanor glanced at Mason.
“For everyone.”
That shut him up for a moment.
Daniel’s computer emitted a soft notification sound. He looked at the screen and then quickly away.
“What was that?” Eleanor asked.
“Email.”
“From whom?”
“I didn’t read it.”
“Good. Leave it unread.”
Preston stepped around the desk.
Eleanor lifted her right hand.
“Stay where you are.”
His jaw tightened. “I’m not under arrest.”
“No.”
“Then I’m leaving.”
“You may leave when security arrives and documents who was present. Your son may wait in the corridor with an officer. Nobody is detaining either of you.”
“That sounds like detention.”
“It sounds like a courthouse preserving a record.”
He looked again toward the camera.
Eleanor followed his gaze, and a cold thought moved through her.
“Tessa, when you finish the call, ask security control to preserve the hallway and office footage beginning at two thirty.”
Tessa nodded while speaking quietly into the receiver.
Preston’s eyes narrowed.
There it was.
Not surprise. Recognition.
“You expected me,” Eleanor said.
He smiled without warmth. “I knew someone might come down.”
“Someone?”
“A clerk. An auditor. You people send people.”
“You people?”
He looked at the credential wallet still in her hand.
“I didn’t mean judges.”
Daniel made a sound that might have been a breath or the beginning of a word.
Eleanor turned to him. “Mr. Ruiz, do not explain anything yet.”
His relief was immediate and shameful. He lowered his head.
Preston saw that too.
“This is absurd,” he said. “Daniel, tell her why I’m here.”
Daniel did not answer.
“Tell her.”
Eleanor stepped between Preston and the second desk.
The movement cost her. A bright line of pain ran from her wrist to her elbow. She held her arm against her body until it passed.
Mason noticed the white bracelet.
“Did I hurt you?” he asked.
Preston’s head turned. “Mason, stop talking.”
The boy’s face closed.
Eleanor looked at him. “You shouldn’t put your hands on people.”
“I barely touched you.”
The words came quickly, in his father’s rhythm.
“I know,” Eleanor said. “You still shouldn’t.”
Mason looked at the floor.
The check rested near the toe of her shoe, untouched.
Court Administrator Nora Bishop arrived four minutes later with two security officers and Owen Park from information services. Nora was fifty-eight, broad-shouldered, silver-haired, and almost never visibly hurried. That afternoon she entered the records office breathing hard from the stairs, her reading glasses still hanging from a cord around her neck.
She took in the room without asking the obvious question.
“Judge Grant, do you need medical attention?”
“No.”
Nora looked at the bandage.
“Not right now,” Eleanor amended.
One security officer spoke to Preston. The other guided Mason into the corridor and found him a chair near the drinking fountain. The boy went without protest. He glanced back once.
Preston insisted on making a phone call.
“You may call counsel from the hallway,” Nora told him.
“I am counsel.”
“You may call different counsel.”
That was the first thing anyone said that came close to humor, though nobody laughed.
Owen Park photographed the workstations before touching anything. He disconnected Daniel’s computer from the network but left it powered on. He did the same with the supervisor’s machine. Tessa stood near the doorway with her hands clasped so tightly that her knuckles had whitened.
Nora looked at the check.
“Whose is that?”
“Mr. Vale’s,” Eleanor said.
Preston’s voice sharpened. “It was a joke.”
Nora looked at him. “Don’t explain it to me.”
“I wasn’t bribing anyone.”
“No one used that word.”
He pressed his lips together.
The first officer placed the check in a clear evidence sleeve after photographing it where it lay. Its memo line read CONSULTING. The payee line was blank.
Eleanor watched Daniel see that.
His shoulders sank another inch.
Within half an hour, Preston and Mason were gone. They had not been arrested. The security incident report documented the physical contact, the check, the credential display, the witnesses, and the preservation request. Preston left with the controlled anger of a man who believed every delay in his freedom was a personal insult.
Mason followed him in silence.
At the elevator, the boy looked back toward Eleanor.
His father did not.
The office door closed.
Daniel began crying.
May you like
Not dramatically. His face seemed to collapse inward. He covered his mouth with one hand and stared at his dark computer monitor.
“I didn’t take money,” he said.
