Waiting. Still waiting. That is his thought as he stares, inevitably, confused, across the plaza at Emily. What is she doing here exactly? Does she have the same feeling as Zack? That she too is tied to this event? Does she wonder if, in the same way they can’t shake this event, they can’t shake each other? That their fates are tied to each other, and that maybe this is the silver lining of this cloud of inescapability?

Maybe the waiting—the literal and symbolic waiting to resume—is bothering her too, bothering her in the same way, and she can’t stand it either because in a minute, while they wait, she crosses the plaza toward him.

Police dogs and bomb personnel sweep their sensitive equipment under the courtroom benches and around the raised witness box and the judge’s dais and along the courtroom walls.

Beneath the emergency defibrillator case mounted on the back wall that is required in every courtroom by state law, the dogs begin to bark.

The bomb squad’s search devices simultaneously start to beep and ping.

A remote-controlled robot is called in.

The device is removed. Placed inside a specially equipped armor-plated vehicle waiting in the parking lot behind the building. Dismantled inside the vehicle by another remotely operated robot.

It all takes time. It all requires waiting.

Detective Lopez is still standing with Zack when Emily approaches.

“I’m covering the trial for my new job,” she explains, apparently reading his puzzled expression from across the plaza. “I’m a reporter now. For an online news group. They figured I could bring some special insight, considering…” She trails off with a shrug.

It’s what she wanted, he knows. A real journalism job. He immediately sees the irony that it was her connection to him, to the story, that finally gave her the chance to have it. That it probably wouldn’t have happened so soon otherwise. But so what? It’s a great result for her. “Congratulations on the new gig,” he says. And then goes mute. He has no idea what to say next.

He knows that this is a safe place for her to see him. At a safe remove. On the witness stand. But now, unpredictably, they’re out here, all of them milling in the plaza. Of course, she can simply turn and go. She didn’t have to come over to see him. Or is she there at the trial partly to see him again? It is a question she won’t have to answer directly for herself, he realizes. She can hide it from herself, inside this one-time chance to advance her career.

She looks awkwardly down and around. Avoiding looking at him, Zack notices.