The hacker had only sent him a snippet from a personal email. None of his work emails. Maybe all the hacker wanted was half a million dollars. If he paid him off, maybe that would be the end to it. “No. I do not.” He cleared his throat. “Look, this has been an exhausting day. I need to lie down. Can I call you later?”

“Yes, of course. But, remember, Harry: I’m on your side. And I’m here to help you.”

“Thanks, Randall. I appreciate it.”

He hung up the phone.

Opened his laptop.

He was no techie, but he had been taught how to wipe his computer clean. He remembered joking to the IT staff that it was like getting his computer to swallow a cyanide pill so it wouldn’t divulge its secrets.

Within minutes, he had destroyed every file on his computer.

He stared at the empty folders.

His head pounded. His stomach roiled.

His career might just have swallowed a cyanide pill, too.

But maybe, just maybe, it had just saved itself.

Chapter 26

Chapter 26

2:18 p.m.

“How can Leah be arraigned in the hospital?” Kate asked, her voice low. She stood in the corridor outside her client’s room, phone pressed to her ear. Eddie had called her during his break from court. “The judge and clerk would have to be here.”

Eddie exhaled. Kate guessed he was standing outside the Law Courts, getting his nicotine fix before returning to the courtroom. “It is unusual,” he agreed. “But the media are breathing down the backs of the police and the Crown. Leah was placed under arrest, so she must be arraigned within twenty-four hours.”

“I thought they’d wait until she was discharged.”

“Apparently not. They left a message on my phone, but I only just got it. They said they’d be there by 2:15.”

Kate glanced at her watch. “Well, they are three minutes late. I’d better go. I’ll call you later.” She hurried into Leah’s room. Her client’s eyes drifted open.

“I just had a phone call from Eddie Bent,” she said. “The Crown called to inform him that you will be arraigned, Leah.”

“Arraigned? What does that mean?” Tim Roberts asked, moving closer to Leah’s side.

“It means that the charges are read in court in front of a judge and Leah enters a plea. Then the judge decides if she should be remanded to a correctional facility.”

Leah, if possible, turned paler. Her mother gasped. “How could they do that? She’s too ill to be moved.”

“I doubt very much that a judge would order Leah incarcerated in her present state.”

Tim Roberts glanced around the room. “This isn’t a court room. How can they even do this?”

“As long as all the parties representing the judicial process are present, a hospital room can be considered a court room.”