Chapter 5 - The Challenge
The courtroom went deadly still. An interruption from a spectator—even an official investigator—was an egregious breach of protocol. The bailiffs shifted their weight, looking uncertainly between Eleanor and the tall man in the charcoal coat. Travis turned around with a look of irritation that quickly melted into recognition.
""Mr. Cole,"" Eleanor said, her voice dropping into a register of icy authority that reverberated through the hall. ""You are an observer in this proceeding, granted presence solely by courtesy. If you address this bench again without being summoned, I will have you removed and held in contempt until tomorrow morning.""
Cole’s smile tightened, but he did not sit down immediately. ""I merely remind the bench that under Section Four of the Administrative Judiciary Code, matters concerning sealed county archives cannot be admitted into summary sentencing hearings without twenty-four hours' prior notice to the Standards Bureau.""
""Your concern is noted, Mr. Cole,"" Eleanor responded calmly. ""Now sit down before I ask the sergeant-at-arms to assist you into a cell.""
Cole gave a curt nod and sat back down, crossing his long legs, but his posture remained predatory. He knew what was in the locked dispensary room at the abandoned Saint Jude hospital wing—the room that corresponded to the tarnished brass key. He also knew that if Arthur were remanded immediately to state custody, the evidence inside that locker would be incinerated during the planned demolition scheduled for five o’clock that evening.
Clara turned around and looked at Cole, her small face pale with intuitive terror. She didn't understand the legal codes, but she understood the cold malice radiating from the man in the back row. She tugged at Reyes' sleeve, whispering frantically, but the young lawyer could only offer her a helpless pat on the arm.
Eleanor looked down at Arthur. His eyes were wide with a mixture of terror and desperate warning. He wasn't afraid of prison; he was afraid of what Cole would do to Clara if the truth surfaced. Arthur had hidden the key inside Clara’s bootee because he knew the police would search his home, his pockets, and his old truck, but they would not strip a six-year-old of her dead mother's keepsakes.
""Arthur Vance,"" Eleanor addressed the prisoner directly, ignoring Travis, who looked increasingly alarmed. ""The materials you were apprehended with were taken from the Saint Jude Medical Logistics facility on the third of this month. Why did you risk your freedom for hydraulic couplings and voltage regulators that have been obsolete for a decade?""
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Arthur swallowed, his throat moving convulsively. He looked up at Eleanor, then back at Cole. ""Because,"" Arthur said, his voice trembling violently, ""the machine they belong to isn't a factory tool. It's the life-support system Sarah kept running off the books for children whose families couldn't pay the county fees. And someone turned it off on purpose.""
Before Eleanor could reply, the emergency lights along the courtroom perimeter flickered once, then died, plunging the room into gray afternoon gloom.
