Detective Lopez rises. Back in the city. He still can’t get over what happened in the criminal trial. He wants to see what happens in the civil trial. As if his being there will bring a conviction. Then again, his being there prevented Joey Richter from murdering Zack and Emily. His being there meant the EMTs got to Steve fast enough to save him. His being there prevented Steve from killing Joey and earning a prison sentence for himself. Lopez is not particularly superstitious, although he’s not particularly unsuperstitious either. And this is better than sitting on his porch gazing out at potato fields. And, well, maybe in some way, for some reason, he’s supposed to be here. If that’s pure superstition, so what?

He notices that he’s a few seats away from Emily, Zack’s girlfriend, whom he last saw in that highly charged moment on the sidewalk when Joey drew his gun and Lopez came up behind him.

Lopez doesn’t initially say anything to her—it would break the silence and decorum of the courtroom—but he nods briefly and amiably to her, and she nods back with a small smile, and he feels a wave of memory and gratitude pass between them.

Zack assumes that by now the bomb is in place. If Karloff’s people can get a prisoner into Joey’s jail cell with him, they can probably get a bomb into a courthouse, maybe even into the courtroom itself. Likely the courtroom is periodically swept but there’s probably a schedule to it, and he’d bet Karloff’s people know the schedule.

Or maybe the bomb was placed much earlier. During construction? Renovation? If this is a long-simmering revenge, maybe Karloff planned it a while ago. And, if planned and placed long ago, presumably they can arm it remotely. But if so, then couldn’t they also detonate it remotely? They wouldn’t need Joey at all.

So maybe the point of doing the hit like this is so the remnants of the explosion, certain to be searched by a police forensics team, can never trace back to Karloff. Would only trace to Joey’s detonator phone, and Joey. Crazy, spiteful Joey, back in court, angry at the world.

Zack knows Karloff might send Joey a text at any moment. The text telling Joey what code to enter.

They don’t know that Joey knows what the code represents. That Joey knows his disposable cell phone is more than a disposable cell phone.

But Zack has come to understand that if Joey gets the code, he might very well choose to enter it. Zack has come to understand how cornered, how trapped, Joey feels. How at the end of the line he feels.