Chapter 20: The Hallway

The courthouse has a long hallway on the third floor.

A bench runs along one wall, beside a drinking fountain that doesn't work.

On Friday at nine fifteen it held twenty people.

I stood by the bench in a gray dress that no longer zipped all the way.

Padraig stood on my left and Jo on my right.

Dorothy sat on the bench in her good coat, her handbag on her knees, looking straight ahead.

My lawyer stood at the water fountain with a woman in a dark blazer and a badge on her belt.

"That's the detective," Jo whispered.

"I know."

"She looks bored."

"She looks patient."

The elevator dinged.

Shelby stepped out of it in a navy dress with her hair pulled back and no ring on her hand.

She looked smaller without the ponytail high.

She walked straight down the hall to me, past a dozen people, and stopped an arm's length away.

"I came," she said.

"I see that."

"I didn't tell him."

"Good."

"I told the detective on Wednesday." Her mouth shook. "I told her everything. I gave her my phone."

Jo said something under her breath that I decided not to hear.

The elevator dinged again.

Travis got off it with his thin lawyer, in the gray suit.

His cheerful face vanished.

He saw the detective.

He saw Shelby standing beside me.

"No," he said.

"Travis," the lawyer said.

"What is she doing over there?"

"Mr. Colburn, please lower your voice."

"Shel." He started toward her. "Shel, what did you say?"

She stepped behind me.

I had not expected that, and I did not know what to do with it, so I did nothing.

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