Grief doing its work.
The slow processing of loving someone who was gone and discovering fourteen months later that he had been trying to save you right up until he could not.
Sky stayed there four minutes.
Then she folded the letter.
She placed it inside the inner pocket of Luther’s jacket.
And she called Marcus.
They talked for twenty-two minutes.
Afterward, Marcus remained at his desk and wrote seven notes.
One he underlined twice.
Sky woke at 5:30.
Patrice heard movement and came downstairs.
Sky was making coffee.
She had found everything without needing to ask.
The folder lay open on the counter.
“You eat breakfast,” Patrice said.
“Usually don’t.”
“Today you do.”
That ended the discussion.
They ate quietly.
It was not uncomfortable silence.
Patrice did not ask about the hearing.
Instead, she asked about the photograph Gregory had sent of the Hart emblem on the motorcycle tank.
When Sky talked about painting, her entire manner changed.
More relaxed.
More certain.
Painting was the one subject where she did not need to argue for herself.
“Your brother talked about your painting,” Patrice said.
Sky looked up.
“You knew him?”
“Gregory brought him to Sunday dinner twice.”
Patrice poured more coffee.
“He was one of those people who filled a room without trying.”
She smiled faintly.
“Very alive.”
“You know what I mean?”
Sky did.
“Some people just have more of that than everybody else.”
Patrice took a drink.
“He told me his little sister could paint anything she looked at.”
Sky stared into her coffee.
“He said someday you were going to be famous.”
Her mouth twitched.
“And he’d tell everybody he taught you.”
“He did teach me.”
“I know.”
Patrice smiled.
“That’s why he said it.”
Gregory’s car arrived at 7:30.
Sky came downstairs with the folder, Luther’s jacket, and the quiet composure of someone who had slept badly but had already decided the day belonged to her anyway.
Twelve motorcycles were in the courthouse parking lot by 8:45.
No patches.
Clean jackets.
Clean boots.
Jimmy wore an actual button-down shirt.
Devlin quietly took a photograph for historical documentation.
The men did not cluster.
They did not make noise.
They stood there.
Present.
A fact.
Renata Voss arrived at 8:50 in a black car with her attorney, Ms. Caldwell.
Caldwell carried her briefcase like a weapon and had the walk of someone who billed four hundred dollars an hour and knew it.
Renata was in her mid-fifties.
Expensive clothes.
Hair arranged with considerable effort to appear effortless.
She saw the motorcycles.
Then the men.
Her expression barely changed.
Caldwell leaned over and whispered something.
Renata’s jaw tightened a fraction.
Sky was already inside with Marcus.
She did not see Renata arrive.
Gregory did.
He sent Marcus two words.
She’s rattled.
Marcus replied:
Good.
The hearing room was small.
Not a full courtroom.
A hearing room with a judge’s bench, two tables, and chairs against the wall.
Judge Patricia Odum was 64.
She had spent enough years on the bench to be interested primarily in facts and very little in performance.
Ms. Caldwell went first.