Lopez smiles sadly, realizing immediately, from their awkwardness together, their uneasy silences and uncomfortable shifting, that they’re no longer seeing each other. That, like this waiting outside the courthouse, their relationship is on hold too. Waiting to resume? Waiting for a verdict? By each, by both of them?

“How are you, Emily?” Lopez asks neutrally, pretending not to notice anything amiss and not wanting to get between them.

“Not bad, Detective.”

“Congratulations on the new job.” He adds his sentiments to Zack’s. “And if you’ve wandered over here looking to ask the old detective for some scoop about this bomb scare, let me save you the trouble: no comment.”

She smiles slowly. “Hey, my first ‘no comment’ as a reporter.”

Lopez can’t help smiling back. He leans toward her and says, more quietly, “But I can give you a little exclusive.”

He puts a hand loosely on Zack’s shoulder. “Your boy Zack just saved dozens of innocent lives.” Lopez looks at her meaningfully. “Including yours.”

Emily steps back a little, looking startled by this. Lopez can tell that she, like many out here, must have thought it was just precautionary. Not real. A phoned-in, idle threat.

“I can’t tell you more right now. I’m not authorized to discuss details. But Zack can, if he wants. There’s nothing stopping him from telling you.”

And Lopez backs away, leaving them. And while Zack tries to figure out what to say, some place to begin, he loses his chance. Because seconds later, Litvinov appears in the plaza with several police officials. In his slight Slavic accent: “Civil case docket 231 will now resume.” And they begin to flow back into the courtroom.

As they do, Emily looks at Zack, and her surprise seems to drop away. “Still playing the hero, huh?” Unsmiling but wry. “Hero is not a viable career choice, Zack,” she says, mock-sternly. “But you do seem to have a weird talent for it.”

Admiration, frustration, acceptance, and annoyance seem to all be rolled together in her response.

He shrugs.

She shakes her head and can’t resist a smile. “As talents go, I guess it’s a good one.”

She heads to her seat in the gallery, and he heads, as directed, back to the witness stand, and Joey and Nat Becker head back to the defense table.

As if nothing has happened in the last hour.

And in one way, nothing has. Thank God.

And in another way, everything has.

84.

84.

Joey Richter is convicted in the wrongful death suit. The evidence is so plentiful and irrefutable that Joey’s lawyer, Nat Becker, barely even tries to dispute it, according to numerous press reports, including the firsthand coverage from a reporter named Emily Lane.