Next to me, Claire lowered her hands from her chin and let out a long, quiet breath into the bright air of the courtroom.

Across the aisle, Gene stayed sitting alone at his table while his lawyer packed his leather briefcase and walked out the door without saying a word to him.

In the hallway outside the double doors, Arlene Vance was waiting by the water fountain with a thick blue folder from the county clerk’s office under her arm.

Howard Cobb snapped his leather briefcase shut, the brass latches clicking loudly in the sudden quiet of Courtroom 204.

Gene Miller didn’t move from his seat at the defense table until the last spectator had shuffled out into the marble hallway.