The room fell into a silence so complete that the hum of the overhead projector sounded like a roar.

Jared Cole shot to his feet, his chair scraping the floor. His face drained from sun-tanned bronze to a ghastly white.

“N-Nora?” he stammered, his hand flying to his collar.

Judge Douglas’s pen snapped in his hand, blue ink staining his palm.

“This meeting is adjourned,” Iris announced, her voice carrying the unshakable authority of a woman who had finally found her justice. “And the state’s execution of Gavin Cole has been permanently stayed by the Texas Supreme Court.”

She slid the flash drive into the room’s media console.