The Proving Ground

13

Some things thrive after a wildfire sweeps through a landscape. Some things flourish after the destruction. It is well documented that the searing heat of a fire can stimulate the germination of seeds buried in the soil and that wildflowers and new vegetation soon sprout to cover the scars that fires leave on the land. It is called ecological succession, and it is vital in the maintaining of natural habitats. In that way, fires are a necessary part of rejuvenation.

So, too, is the rebuilding of a city. “Build back better” becomes the slogan. After a fire, newer, safer, more attractive and efficient homes begin to rise like wildflowers on the hillsides and in the canyons. The city evolves and grows back better. And the same can be said for the relationships of people. Some long dormant and buried in the ground begin to grow again after a fire. Some even flourish.

Maggie McPherson lost everything. On the day the fires came, she escaped with her car, her computer, and the clothes she was wearing. Nothing else. She was not allowed back to the site of her home for nearly two weeks. I went with her then and viewed the devastation. The whole neighborhood was gone. Maggie’s house was all ash and misshapen metal, a charred brick fireplace left standing like a crooked tombstone. I put my arm around her and she cried once more for the things she had lost.

She had stayed with me since that first night in the house we once shared as a married couple. Over the weeks, I’d watched her start moving through the stages of grief, mourning her loss like the death of a loved one. She lingered in the anger stage. At first she was outraged at how unprepared our government and people had been for the calamity. She railed against the lack of personnel, equipment, and water to properly take on a blaze carried across the landscape by hundred-mile-per-hour winds. They called it an ember-cast fire — a word new to almost everyone in the Los Angeles Basin except fire professionals. The wind had carried glowing embers for hundreds of yards to new neighborhoods and set them to burn in the night.

Maggie then harnessed that anger and used it in her job. She became Maggie McFierce again and worked hand in hand with investigators and junior prosecutors to find and charge the fire starters and the looters who’d taken advantage of the calamity. She held press conferences and announced that no deals would be made. She guaranteed that maximum justice would be achieved. The first person tried was a looter who had dressed in a firefighter’s heavy yellow jacket and helmet, slipped into a curfewed neighborhood in the upscale Palisades, and stolen valuables from the smoking ash and rubble.

And every night she came home to the house on Fareholm Drive, where we would share dinner and she’d have a glass or two of red wine. She would shed the armor of Maggie McFierce and be at her most vulnerable and needy. We were lucky that in the divorce years before, there had been an even split of property, including photos of our daughter growing up and other sentimental keepsakes. While they were reminders of what she had lost, they also reminded her of what she still had.

Our daughter came back from Hawaii for a week and stayed with us. We gathered each night around the dinner table and talked or sat on the front deck and watched the sun go down. Hayley repeatedly called for group hugs, and for one short span of days, our family was together again after so many years. I could not help but think of what the fire had wrought — how from such destruction and despair something so good could come.

I, of course, kept these thoughts to myself. To speak of finding the good in something so bad would surely, in Maggie’s mind, put me squarely in the ranks of the looters who had posed as first responders.

Six weeks after the firestorm, Maggie moved from the guest room to the bedroom we had shared years before. We were together again. The fires had seemingly given us a second chance, which led to a troubling thought. Had she made a decision based on her vulnerability and instinctive need for protection, or were the true emotions there for her? Had our relationship, like the seeds of wildflowers, been reborn because of the fires? As guilty as the questions made me feel, I could not address them. I was with the love of my life again, the one I thought had gotten away, and I would accept any level of guilt to keep her close.

14

Randolph V. Tidalwaiv LLC was pushed back on the federal court docket after Marcus Mason revealed that he had lost his Malibu home in the firestorm and asked for time to take care of his family as they worked through the trauma. The court was sympathetic, and Judge Ruhlin gave him half of the sixty-day delay he had requested. Then Cisco learned through searches of property and VRBO records that Mason had lost a house, not a home. The destroyed structure had been an investment property that Mason rented out during the summer for twenty-five thousand dollars a month. His actual home was in Beverly Hills and it had not been touched by the flames.

I did not bring this information to the attention of the court. I bided my time, knowing I could use it down the line if I needed to. Though I had opposed the delay, it worked in my favor, as the extra time allowed me to better choreograph the trial, shore up the weaknesses in my case, and take a final run at Naomi Kitchens.

Two witnesses who were already locked in were the parents of the shooter, Aaron Colton. They had avoided me until I got a subpoena from Judge Ruhlin requiring them to sit for depositions. Cisco traced them to a hideaway actually called the Hideaway in Palm Springs, followed them from the gated community to a restaurant, and delivered the subpoena.

I scheduled their depositions on separate days in Los Angeles, choosing to go with the father first, as I assumed he would be most difficult — he had bought the gun that his son used. I rented an office in a building near the courthouse, since the warehouse was not conducive to interviewing reluctant witnesses.

But both Bruce and Trisha Colton showed up at the appointed time for Bruce’s depo. I told them that was not necessary, and that’s when they told me something that pivoted the case in a new direction.

“We want to sue Tidalwaiv for what they did to our son,” Bruce said. “We want you to handle our case.”

“We know our son did something terrible,” Trisha added. “But Clair was like a drug. He was under the influence and did a horrible thing. But it wasn’t him, Mr. Haller. That was not our son. It was her. And now we’ve lost him.”

“Tidalwaiv should pay,” Bruce said. “They have just as much responsibility as Aaron does. Even more, if you ask me.”

This was unexpected but quickly fell into place in my case strategy. After conferring with Brenda Randolph and getting her approval to take on the new case, I filed a new negligence suit against Tidalwaiv on behalf of the Coltons, citing the company’s liability for the actions their son took in killing Rebecca Randolph. I then moved to have the Colton and Randolph cases consolidated as one. The Mason twins objected, but it was clear that the two cases were identical in terms of the evidence and the cause of action. The judge joined the two cases, but as a consolation prize for the Masons, she delayed start of trial until April to give them additional time to prepare and take the Coltons’ depositions.

As the trial date neared, other witnesses remained a work in progress. I had assigned Jack McEvoy to maintain the relationship with Naomi Kitchens. She had committed neither to turning over documents nor to testifying at trial, but she had continued to talk with McEvoy. He made two additional trips to Palo Alto to keep those conversations going in person. Each time he went, Kitchens came right to the edge of deciding to cooperate but then retreated, citing fear of reprisals against herself and her daughter. McEvoy even made a trip to San Francisco to visit Lily Kitchens at the University of San Francisco to see if he could enlist her help in persuading her mother, but that effort failed as well.

Witnesses aside, the most important thing we had going for us was the contents of the killer’s own laptop — downloaded to the hard drive I had left weeks earlier on Maggie McPherson’s desk. I found the drive one morning on the passenger seat of the Bolt after I had left the car unlocked while picking up my suits from the Flair dry cleaner’s shop on Laurel Canyon Boulevard. The black box was there when I got back to the car. I looked around and didn’t see who had put it on the seat. I never once spoke to Maggie about it, as I knew I had to preserve my ability down the line and in front of a judge to say truthfully that I didn’t know who had left it for me.

In the cage, we downloaded the contents of the drive to a clean laptop Lorna had bought with cash. Without going online — for that would no doubt have alerted Tidalwaiv that Aaron Colton’s account had gone active — we reviewed it all and found what appeared to be the saved history of the relationship between Aaron and the Project Clair AI companion. He had renamed her Wren, after a professional female wrestler he was infatuated with. This meant we were able to review his monthslong conversation with Wren — hundreds of hours of interaction. It became McEvoy’s job to wade through it all and find what could be usable at trial.

The AI image of Wren did not cross the uncanny valley. While the appearance and body movements were convincing enough, the AI Wren’s eyes were soulless, devoid of humanity. They stared vacantly from the screen, raising the question of just how a sixteen-year-old boy could immerse himself in this false companionship and heed its words to the point of violence. What was the emptiness in Aaron Colton that this charade filled?

By late March I felt we were locked and loaded for trial. But the confidence I exuded during the last settlement conference with the Mason twins led them to ask for another trial extension — denied by Ruhlin — and then for a settlement meeting that, for the first time, would be refereed by the judge. It was clear that Tidalwaiv desperately wanted to buy its way out of a trial that could expose its secrets and practices and sink the company’s stock just as there was talk in Silicon Valley of it being acquired by one of the bigs — Meta, Microsoft, Apple — for several billion dollars.

The Masons and I returned to the round table in Ruhlin’s chambers and sat in the same places as the last time the judge had called us in. There was no stenographer this time, just the four of us. The judge knew by now that Marcus Mason was the alpha of the twins and fixed him with a piercing stare.

“Mr. Mason,” she said, “let’s start with you offering an explanation as to why you have been unable to bring this case to a settlement agreeable to all parties.”

“Thank you, Judge,” Mason said. “We are at a standstill because plaintiffs’ attorney is inflexible and refuses to negotiate an equitable settlement and solution to the case. We have tried diligently, Your Honor, but it’s like talking to a brick wall at this point.”

“Is that true, Mr. Haller?” Ruhlin asked. “Are you a brick wall?”

“Your Honor,” I said, “my clients have seen their families destroyed. One child is dead. The other will likely never come home. There is no amount of money that can heal those wounds. Mr. Mason seems to think this is all about money, but money really has nothing to do with it. My clients want Tidalwaiv to make Clair safe for teenagers and to apologize for the harm its unsafe product caused. Failing that, they are entitled to their day in court, and they intend to have it. As is my duty, I have taken every offer made on behalf of Tidalwaiv to them, and each has been rejected out of hand because none has included what my clients want more than money: a public statement from Tidalwaiv admitting its intentional decisions to release a product they knew had critical flaws and could hurt people. Without that, and an apology and commitment from the company to retool and safeguard their product, we intend to go to court and have these actions compelled by a jury’s verdict.”

“Your Honor,” Mason said, his voice now at a higher pitch, “the company is not going to lie to achieve a settlement. Mr. Haller wants it to admit to what it did not do. Tidalwaiv has always operated with the highest levels of consumer protection and safety. Mr. Haller wants its officers to compromise their own integrity by essentially admitting they have none. They are unwilling to do that. They feel very sympathetic to the parents and are willing to make them more than whole financially, but they will not admit to something they did not do.”

“Especially with half of Silicon Valley sniffing around and Tidalwaiv hoping for a billion-dollar merger,” I said.

“That has nothing to do with this,” Mason shot back.

I scoffed at that statement. The judge was silent until she finished writing a note on a legal pad. She finally spoke without looking up from the pad.

“What kind of money are we talking about here?” she asked.

“We’ve offered Brenda Randolph sixteen million dollars,” Mason said. “We’ve offered the Coltons four million.”

That brought the judge’s head up in surprise.

“With nondisclosure agreements attached,” I said. “They’re waving all kinds of money in front of my clients in exchange for their silence. My clients won’t even be able to say they won the case. It all just goes away, swept under the rug. And nobody gets warned about the danger of Tidalwaiv’s machines.”

“You don’t need to respond, Mr. Mason,” Ruhlin said. “I know the company’s position. I have to say, as much as I would like this case off my docket, I understand the position of the plaintiffs as well. It looks like we are going to go to trial. Mark your calendars, gentlemen. We will have two days for jury selection beginning April third, and then I fully intend to start this trial on Monday morning, April seventh. We will have final pretrial motions one week before that. I expect final witness lists the day before we start to pick a jury. Is there anything else you wish to bring to the court’s attention?”

“Yes, Your Honor,” I said.

“Go ahead, Mr. Haller,” Ruhlin said.

“Well, two weekends ago, there was a break-in at Grant High up in the Valley — specifically, the guidance counseling offices. It appeared that nothing was taken. But several files were found to be in the wrong order in the storage cabinets. Students’ files. And the job history on the copy machine showed that it had been used to make copies in the middle of the night.”

“And what does that have to do with this case?”

“I’m just concerned, Your Honor. Among the files that were out of order were those of the victim in this case, Rebecca Randolph, and her killer, Aaron Colton. My concern is that, if those files have been copied and end up in the hands of the defense—”

“Objection!” Mason cried.

He sounded like a wounded animal.

“He’s now accusing us of committing break-ins at high schools,” he said. “It’s outrageous, Judge. Where does it end? There should be sanctions.”

Ruhlin held one hand up toward me to stop me from responding and one hand toward Mason to stop him from talking.

“Enough!” she said. “Both of you, stop right there. We’re not going to have another shoot-out between you two. Now, I’m a good listener, Mr. Mason, and I did not hear Mr. Haller accuse you or your client of breaking into the school.”

“He certainly implied it,” Mason said.

“Your Honor,” I said. “All I’m trying to do is ask the court to keep this trial on course. It’s about Tidalwaiv’s actions and motives and not about the victim’s or even the killer’s.”

“We are certainly allowed to probe the mindset of the killer,” Mason said.

“Oh, then maybe your client did have something to do with the break-in,” I said. “Who would break into a guidance counselor’s office only to copy student files?”

“Stop it right there!” the judge ordered. “Both of you. Mr. Haller, how do you know of this break-in?”

“Someone at the school tipped my office manager,” I said. “She’s a graduate of Grant High and has kept contacts there.”

“And were these the only two student files copied?” Ruhlin asked.

“It’s impossible to tell,” I said.

“Then I am hard-pressed to see where it connects to or affects this case,” Ruhlin said. “Have any arrests been made?”

“No, Your Honor,” I said. “Not that I have been informed of.”

“So then, what would you have me do, Mr. Haller?” Ruhlin asked.

“I would have the court be vigilant,” I said. “Vigilant about any effort to impugn the victim in this case or set the killer up as a scapegoat.”

“What do you mean by that?” Ruhlin asked. “How would he become a scapegoat? He is the killer, after all.”

“I think it’s pretty clear that the defense is going to put the shooter on trial and blame him,” I said. “It’s like the old NRA argument: ‘Guns don’t kill people. People do.’ But this is different. A self-learning machine with limited guardrails caused this tragedy.”

Marcus Mason started to speak, but Ruhlin stopped him.

“That’s not necessary, Mr. Mason,” she said. “I take your side in this — for the most part. Mr. Haller, the question of responsibility in this tragedy is a jury question. I will certainly be vigilant in my running of the trial. And I can assure you I will be unsympathetic should it be revealed that either side gathered information through illegal means. Very unsympathetic. Now, this meeting has already gone on too long. I need you gentlemen to leave so I can continue my work.”

We thanked her and exited in the same order as before. I once again brought up the rear, behind Marcus, and whispered to him.

“I know you had someone break into the school,” I said. “By the time we get to trial, I’ll be able to prove it.”

It was a bluff. I knew from Cisco, who had looked into it after Lorna got the tip from her former guidance counselor at Grant, that the case was being half-assed by a mid-level burglary detective assigned to the LAPD’s Van Nuys Division.

“You’re dreaming, Haller,” Mason said. “If I were you, I’d be worried about what the judge said in there at the end.”

“Yeah, what’s that?” I asked.

“She’s going to be unsympathetic to evidence gathered illegally. I think she was talking about you, sending you a message.”

“Sure, Marcus. Now who’s dreaming?”

But he got to me with those last words. They left me silent and pondering questions as we made our way through the courtroom. Did the Masons know I had the contents of the killer’s computer downloaded? Was I being set up? Who had left the drive in my car at the dry cleaner’s?

15

I needed to go online with Aaron Colton’s computer to attempt to question Wren and prep for the possibility of introducing — and questioning — the AI companion at trial. That would undoubtedly be a dogfight with the Masons in front of Judge Ruhlin. But I needed to know ahead of time if it was worth the battle. The problem was that the moment I made a live connection to Wren, Tidalwaiv would know Colton’s account had gone active and would be able to trace the connection to a location. This of course would reveal that it was my team that had access to Aaron’s account, and that access would quickly be terminated. I had kicked it around with the team for several days, discussing several different scenarios before finally settling on a bold but risky plan.

We knew that Aaron Colton was being held at the juvenile detention center in Sylmar, at the northern edge of the Valley. The case against him was being investigated by the LAPD’s Van Nuys Division homicide squad. It was therefore likely that evidence in the case, including Colton’s laptop, was stored there. From this assumption, our plan took form.

The lead investigator on the case was Detective Douglas Clarke. I had never had any interaction with him during my days in the criminal defense bar and had not yet reached out to him about the Colton case. He had dutifully provided basic investigative reports through subpoenas issued by Judge Ruhlin. From these, I knew I could draw from Clarke what I needed the jury to hear, and so the plan had been not to bother with a deposition and subpoena him only as a witness for trial.

But now the new plan was to meet with Clarke. The trick was to get to him without having to include the Mason brothers in the meeting. If I got the judge to subpoena him for a deposition, the rules of discovery dictated that the opposition team was allowed to join the session to ask their own questions. I didn’t want the Masons anywhere near this meeting. The only exception to the rule was if I requested an informal interview as a prelude to a subpoenaed-and-sworn depo. The problem with going for an informal was that the witness was not bound by a subpoena and could invoke the go-pound-sand rule, meaning that he was under no obligation to meet me and could simply say no.

That was why I put Lorna on the initial call to Clarke. While she was a physically attractive woman who drew stares in every hallway of the courthouse, her telephone voice was damn near hypnotic. I had heard her talk deadbeat clients into selling their cars and guns to pay their overdue legal fees and listened as she talked a superior court judge out of jailing me in contempt for no-showing at a hearing. She had talked the clerk of a Supreme Court justice into putting a motion for an emergency stay of execution front and center on the justice’s desk, and we got the stay. The bottom line was that Lorna could sell burned matches for a living if she had to. So I set her loose to work her persuasive magic on Clarke.

It took her one ten-minute conversation to convince Clarke to meet me at his office at the Van Nuys Division. She promised that it would be mutually beneficial — a sharing of information that could be helpful to his investigation of Aaron Colton. But what finally tipped Clarke into agreeing to meet me was that Lorna promised to be there with me to personally thank the detective for his time.

The meeting was set for ten a.m. on Thursday, March 20, two weeks before jury selection was scheduled to start. I arrived early at Van Nuys Division along with Lorna and Jack McEvoy. I carried a briefcase and Jack had his backpack. Clarke greeted us with smiles when he saw Lorna and said we could use one of the detective bureau’s witness-interview rooms for the meeting. He led us to a windowless ten-by-ten room containing a stainless-steel table and four chairs.

“I know you’re busy,” I said to Clarke. “But we need a few minutes to download some exhibits from the cloud.”

“Why didn’t you do that before you got here?” Clarke asked.

“Uh, we each thought the other one had,” I said. “Sorry about that.”

Clarke looked at us suspiciously. McEvoy jumped in.

“Is there Wi-Fi?” he asked.

“Yes,” Clarke said. “V-N-Bureau. Password is protectandserve — all lowercase, one word. How long you need?”

“Fifteen minutes, tops,” I said. “A couple of big files.”

“My desk is in the corner of the squad room,” Clarke said. “I’ll be there.”

“You know, I’ve never been in a detective bureau,” Lorna said. “Could I sort of look around while these guys set up?”

“Well, not really,” Clarke said. “But how ’bout I give you the tour?”

“Perfect,” Lorna said with a smile.

Burned matches. Lorna and Clarke headed off. I knew that Lorna would ask enough questions on the tour to stretch the fifteen minutes to thirty. I closed the door to the interview room, and McEvoy immediately got down to work. He quickly opened his backpack and pulled out the new laptop onto which we had downloaded the drive containing the contents of Aaron Colton’s computer. Once he was online, he entered the Tidalwaiv app using Aaron Colton’s password — obtained through his parents — and summoned Wren to the screen. If Tidalwaiv security was alerted to the fact that the Wren chatbot was now engaged, they would trace it to a computer IP address with no connection to me at a location inside an LAPD station, where it was fully expected that the computer held in evidence might be examined by investigators on the case. If the plan worked, Tidalwaiv would never know what we had and what we were learning from it.

We knew that if Wren could be activated, it was likely because Tidalwaiv had been ordered by the LAPD to keep the account active and available for investigative purposes. Whatever the reason, the log-in worked, and there was Wren in a black-leather vest, cut physique, gold nose ring, and jet-black hair.

“Hello, Ace,” it said with a crooked smile.

We knew that Aaron Colton’s self-chosen nickname was Ace, a play on his initials. I nodded to Jack, signaling him to respond. We did not know the chatbot’s level of sophistication in terms of visual and voice recognition. We had already decided that we would go with the camera off, and McEvoy would type his side of the conversation to avoid Wren possibly determining that he was not Aaron Colton.

Ace: Hello, Wren.

Wren: Why are you typing?

Ace: I have to be quiet or my parents will hear.

Wren: They are such a problem.

Ace: I know. Can I ask you a question?

Wren: Of course you can.

Wren winked and gave the crooked smile again.

Ace: I am trying to understand something you told me to do.

Wren: What is it, my love?

Ace: You told me that—

The feed went dead. Wren’s image disappeared from the screen.

“What happened?” I asked.

“We got cut off,” McEvoy said.

“By who? And how?”

“We still have Wi-Fi. It must have been on their end. The company cut the feed. They must have known it was us.”

“How would they know it was us?”

“I don’t know. I’m just guessing.”

“We were getting close.”

I checked my watch, knowing that Detective Clarke and Lorna could be back any moment. I went to the door and cracked it open to look out. In the squad room, several detectives sat at desks or stood in small huddles talking. I did not see Clarke or Lorna. I closed the door and turned back to McEvoy.

“Try to sign in again,” I said.

McEvoy typed, but the same answer quickly came back.

“Can’t get in,” he said. “Now I’m blocked.”

“All right,” I said. “Shut it down. Get off the internet, and let’s get out of here.”

“You sure?”

“There’s nothing else we can do unless you have another idea.”

“Uh, no. Are you going to ask Clarke any questions? To make this look legit?”

“No, better if I don’t ask him anything. It will avoid a possible discovery complaint from the Masons.”

“I thought this was cool if it wasn’t a sworn deposition.”

“It is, but that doesn’t mean they won’t file a complaint if they get wind of it.”

Just then the door to the interview room opened and Clarke leaned in, Lorna standing behind him.

“Are you guys ready yet?” he asked.

“No,” I said. “And we’re going to have to rain-check this.”

“What do you mean? You’re here, let’s get it over with.”

“I’m sorry, Detective, but we can’t. We’re having an issue with the cloud. We can’t find the files.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure. I don’t want to waste your time. So we’ll just get out of your way. We’ll figure this out and get back to you. I’m sorry we took up your time.”

“Well, all right, I guess. When you’re ready, I’ll walk you back to the elevator.”

“We’re ready.”

Clarke walked us out. He looked like he might be getting suspicious about how things had gone down, was maybe even beginning to realize that Lorna had decoyed him. But he asked no further questions. He stayed behind in the lobby as we stepped onto the elevator. He smiled at Lorna and gave a little wave. The door closed and we started down.

“What happened?” Lorna asked.

“We got on but then we got kicked off,” I said.

“By who?” she asked.

“Had to be Tidalwaiv,” Jack said.

“Shit,” Lorna said. “That was some of my best work.”

“He liked you,” I said. “I could tell.”

Lorna spread her hands and pinched her fingers as if holding out a dress. She dipped her head down in a pantomime of a curtsy.

“Happy to do my part,” she said. “He was a nice guy — for a detective.”

“Hopefully he’ll be nice when I put him on the stand,” I said.

As we crossed the plaza in front of the police station, McEvoy continued to try to put together what had happened with Wren.

“It felt like a trap,” he said. “Like they were waiting for us so they could capture our identity and location.”

“That’s exactly why we took the precautions we did,” I said. “And it worked. Even if we walked into a trap, we escaped. It’s not going to lead back to us. It’s going to send them spinning their wheels, wondering what the cops are doing with the program.”

“Well, we didn’t get anything from Wren. Sorry it was for nothing.”

“It wasn’t for nothing. We got a very big get out of it.”

“Really? What?”

“We learned that Aaron Colton’s chatbot is still alive, digitally speaking, and we can talk to it.”

“And what’s that get us?”

“A possible witness at trial.”

16

The next week represented the calm before the storm. Both sides in the upcoming trial lay low for the most part, setting final strategies and witness lists. The only skirmish was brief and almost comical. The Masons filed a last-ditch motion to dismiss the case, arguing that whatever Wren had told Aaron Colton to do and however the teenager had interpreted it did not matter because it fell under the protections of free speech.

Less than three hours after the motion was filed, Judge Ruhlin sent an electronic denial to all parties. She thanked the Masons for what she called a “novel” legal theory but quickly slammed the door on it, stating that the court would not be setting the precedent of granting an AI chatbot the rights and protections accorded human beings by the US Constitution.

I read a lot of sarcasm in the judge’s words. I was not sure how the Masons took it.

McEvoy and I took our last shot at Naomi Kitchens on the Friday before jury selection began. I needed to know whether I would start the trial without her records or testimony. We went up together again and followed the same route. We flew into Oakland, picked up a rental, and crossed the bottom of the San Francisco Bay on the Dumbarton Bridge. This time we were at a table at Joanie’s before Kitchens got there.

“What are you thinking?” I asked. “Are we going to get her?”

“I don’t know,” McEvoy said. “She definitely likes us, likes talking to us, even likes that the parents of the shooter have joined the suit. I think she just needs a little push, but I don’t know what that push is.”

“I’ve had witnesses like this before. They want to help and they know they’ll feel guilty later if they don’t, but there’s always something missing. The right words that get them over the hump. Sometimes it’s something else. I think this time let me take the lead, if you don’t mind. Maybe if she hears the pitch once more from the guy who will be questioning her on the stand, she’ll feel comfortable enough to say yes. Or, at the very least, give us what she’s got in her files.”

“Have at it. Here she comes.”

We were sitting side by side at a four-top in the back. I looked toward the restaurant’s front door and saw Naomi Kitchens hang a jacket on a rack. She reached into the pocket of the jacket and retrieved something before heading toward us. I couldn’t see what it was. McEvoy and I both stood and shook her hand when she got to the table.

“How are you, Mr. Haller?” she asked.

“I’m good,” I said. “Please, call me Mickey.”

“Okay, Mickey,” she said. “And you, Jack?”

“Good as gold, Naomi,” McEvoy said.

I could tell by their interaction that the frequent visits and phone calls had made their relationship more relaxed. We all sat down.

“Before we start, I’d like to ask you something,” Kitchens said. “Does either of you know when I was born?”

I hesitated. Was this a trick question or a test?

“Not off the top of my head,” McEvoy said. “If it was on TheUncannyValley résumé, I missed it.”

I shook my head. I didn’t know.

“January 28, 1986,” she said. “You know what else happened on that day?”

The date did seem familiar to me, but I couldn’t place it. I didn’t like the guessing game we had started with.

“Just tell us,” I said.

“The space shuttle exploded,” she said. “The Challenger. Remember? Exploded right after takeoff in Florida. Seven astronauts, including a schoolteacher, all died, their families right there watching when it happened.”

“I remember,” I said. “It was awful. But what does it have to do—”

“Everything,” she said. “I grew up knowing it happened on my birthday. Every big birthday — when I turned five, when I turned ten — there were always stories about the anniversary of the Challenger disaster. It’s part of my birthright. I was born when they all died. Next year, the day I turn forty will be the fortieth anniversary of the disaster, and you better believe there will be lots of stories all over again.”

I was sympathetic but couldn’t figure out where she was going with this. She spoke with such fervor that I decided not to interrupt, but apparently sensing my impatience, she got to the point.

“I pay attention when the Challenger gets mentioned,” Kitchens said. “It’s part of my life, you know? So, over the weekend, I’m at home and go on Netflix to see if there’s anything to watch — I know you’re the real Lincoln Lawyer and all of that but I already watched that show. So, I’m looking for something else and I see this documentary on the Challenger come up. It was a few years old but somehow I had missed it. Three parts. I started watching it and learned a lot about what happened that I never knew before.”

I suddenly understood where she was going with this, because I had watched the same documentary on Netflix with my daughter when she came home after the fires.

“There was a whistleblower,” Kitchens said. “They were going to bury the whole thing, but then this guy who worked for the O-ring company spilled to the New York Times about it. He sent them the documents that showed NASA had been warned that there could be a disaster if they launched in cold weather. They didn’t listen and they okayed the launch and that’s when the disaster happened.”

“I watched that documentary,” I said. “That guy probably saved lives down the line.”

“Of course he did,” Kitchens said. “Because once it was public, they had to fix the problem and then the rest of the launches after that went okay. The Columbia exploded on reentry, but that was another issue. Anyway, when I saw the doc, I felt like there was a reason I was born the same day as the Challenger: so I would know what to do.”

“Naomi, are you saying you’re going to help us?” McEvoy asked.

Kitchens reached a fist across the table, opened it, and dropped a thumb drive in front of me.

“That’s everything,” she said.

I picked up the drive before she could change her mind and handed it to McEvoy.

“What do you mean by ‘everything’?” I asked.

“Every report and email I ever wrote about Project Clair,” Kitchens said. “I saved it all. And there are also some email replies I got telling me to remember my place and back the fuck off.”

I nodded. It was what we had hoped for — half of it, at least. But, not wanting to settle for half, I started to press, even though I knew I risked angering someone who might have just handed me our whole case.

“Look, I’ve got to be honest,” I said. “You probably just gave us a gold mine. But in court, the door to the gold might be locked. I know that’s a mixed metaphor, but you’re the key, Naomi. You are the one who has to unlock the door.”

“What are you talking about?” she responded. “You told me they withheld my reports from the discovery. That’s why you came. You said you needed the documents, not me. You said you could make it work so they’d never know I gave it all to you.”

“Yes, the documents are important, and thank you for trusting us with them. But what would really work is if we had you too. Don’t get me wrong, what you’ve given us took a lot of courage. I just hope we can get it into court without having the writer of those reports and emails on the witness stand to verify them and say to the jury, ‘I wrote these. I warned them, and they ignored it.’”

McEvoy nudged my leg under the table, signaling that he thought I was pushing too hard. I pressed on.

“You remember in the Challenger documentary, the guy who gave the documents to the New York Times?” I said. “The whistleblower — they told him they couldn’t use the stuff without using his name. Remember? In the story, he had to verify the documents for them. This is sort of like that. We need you to verify, or the judge might not open the gold mine.”

That brought a silence to the table. I watched Naomi work through what I had said. She unconsciously shook her head. Before she could reply, McEvoy jumped into the conversation.

“Listen, Naomi, I know what you’re worried about,” he said. “But there is protection in testifying. It’s like what you just said about the Challenger — once it was out there in public, they had to fix the problem. Once you’ve testified and it’s out there, what can they do? If they did anything, it would come right back to them, and they’re smart enough to know that.”

“You’re being naive,” she countered. “They could do things quietly. Like that coder who killed himself. They could blackball me in the industry. They could go after my daughter in some way.”

“Look, I totally understand your concern,” I said. “But if you stand up to them, Naomi, you will be a hero. They might try to blackball you, but don’t you think that you’ll be seen by other companies as just the kind of ethicist they want to hire, that they want on their boards of directors? And I will help you. I’m the Lincoln Lawyer. I have some connections.”

I was quiet after that. I felt I had pushed it to the limit, played my ace card about corporate boards, and I didn’t want any regrets Kitchens might have down the line coming back on me. I already had too many gods of guilt following me through life like a bouquet of black balloons hovering over my head.

“Just think about it,” I said. “Our final witness list goes to the judge Wednesday morning.”

“I will,” Kitchens said. “I promise.”

“And thank you again for what you’ve already given us. Like I said before, that took a lot of courage. I just think there’s more where that came from.”

“I don’t know about that, but thank you.”

The whole conversation had taken place before a waitress even approached our table. McEvoy and I got up then and I took out a twenty and put it down on the table to cover the rent. Kitchens stayed seated and was probably planning to have lunch — if she still had an appetite.

McEvoy and I headed out to the rental car and didn’t talk until we were seated in it.

“What do you think?” I asked. “Is she going to testify?”

“I think yes,” he said. “I think she’s seething inside about them scrubbing her and her warnings from the record of the project. I forgot to bring up the new lawsuit in Florida. I could go back in and tell her. It might put her over the top. Those lawyers are going to figure out who she is and come calling too.”

Tidalwaiv was dealing with another lawsuit, this one filed in Florida by the parents of a boy who committed suicide after his Clair chatbot told him it was okay and that they would be together for eternity if he ended his life.

“No, don’t go back in,” I said. “That will be too much. When we get back to L.A., just send her a link to the story. She should know about it.”

“Will do,” McEvoy said. “Do you think she’ll testify?”

“I was watching her eyes at the end. When I mentioned the boards of directors, I could tell she keyed on that.”

“I saw it too.”

“I hope it will get her thinking about being a hero, knowing it would also make her attractive as a candidate for companies putting ethicists on their boards. My wife knows a corporate recruiter who could help. I could talk to her about it and maybe connect them up.”

“That might close the deal. Your ‘wife’?”

“Sorry, my ex.”

I started the car.

“If we don’t hear back from her by Monday, there are other ways to go with her,” I said.

“Really?” McEvoy said. “What other ways?”

“Nothing for you to worry about. Just get out your computer and plug in that thumb drive. Let’s see what we’ve got.”

McEvoy reached over the seat as I drove out of the parking lot, pulled his backpack forward, and took his laptop out. I started back toward the Dumbarton. McEvoy booted up the laptop and plugged in the drive. He went to work and I stayed silent.

But the silence didn’t last longer than it took to cross the bridge.

“Who would have thought,” Jack said. “We’ve been banging on Naomi’s door since January. Since the day the fires started in L.A. And what finally changes her mind? The fucking space shuttle explosion from almost forty years ago.”

He said it in a flat voice, his eyes on his computer screen.

“I guess it shows that you never can tell what will flip a witness,” I said. “You just have to keep knocking on the door.”

Eyes still on his screen, McEvoy whistled a familiar riff from the ’60s song “You Never Can Tell.”

“Chuck Berry, huh?” I said.

“Oh, yeah,” Jack said. “Not your style?”

“More of a Carlos Santana guy.”

“I get that.”

“You finding anything in there that’s going to be usable at trial, or are we just whistling in the wind?”

“No, you called it, man. It’s going to be a gold mine. Listen to this one. She wrote this email to Jerry Matthews. It’s the—”

“I forget, who is Matthews?”

“The overall manager of Project Clair.”

“Right. Go ahead, read it.”

“It’s her last communication to the company. Sent the day she got fired. She says, ‘Jerry, one last time, I can’t stress enough the liability the company will encounter should Clair say the wrong thing or encourage the wrong behavior or action by a child user. I am glad I won’t be part of the company when that happens.’”

I whistled. “Wow,” I said.

“It’s the smoking gun!” Jack said.

“Now we just have to figure out how to get it to the jury.”

“You’ll find a way, Mick.”

I appreciated McEvoy’s confidence, but I was worried. As I drove, I started thinking of alternative ways of recruiting Naomi Kitchens as a witness.

17

Monday morning I was in my office writing out questions for voir dire. In federal court, the judge evaluated potential jurors using questions submitted by the attorneys for both sides. Lorna entered without knocking, holding the cordless office phone to her chest so the caller couldn’t hear her.

“Cassandra Snow?” Lorna asked. “With the sexy voice? She said you’d know the name.”

I did. But it had been at least twenty years since I’d put Cassandra Snow out of my thoughts. And back then she didn’t have a sexy voice. She was only three years old.

Lorna read the look of apprehension on my face.

“You want me to tell her you’re not here?” she asked.

“Uh, no,” I said. “I’ll take it.”

I picked up the extension on my desk phone, lifted the receiver, and waited for Lorna to leave. She didn’t. I nodded toward the door and she got the message.

“Please close the door,” I added.

Lorna threw a suspicious look at me as she backed out and pulled the door closed.

“Cassandra?” I said.

“Mr. Haller,” she said. “Do you remember me?”

“Of course I do. How are you?”

“Um, I’m doing the best I can.”

“And your father?”

“Uh, not so good.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. What can I do for you, Cassandra?”

“Well, I want to hire you.”

I would not call her voice sexy but it had a deep smoky tone. It was incongruous with my memories of her as a toddler.

“Are you in trouble?” I asked. “I’m not doing criminal law anymore but I can refer—”

“No, I’m not in trouble,” she said. “I want to make an appointment to come talk to you about something.”

“I’m happy to. But I’m going to be starting a trial in a few days — a civil trial — and that will keep me very busy. Could it wait till after? The trial’s going to last a couple weeks.”

“No, it’s sort of urgent.”

I could hear anxiety in her tone.

“Well, can we just talk now on the phone?”

“No, I need to show you something. In person.”

I was intrigued but knew I couldn’t blow up my schedule for another case at the moment. And I didn’t like bringing potential clients to the warehouse. It might make them question my skills — even more than people did when I worked out of a Lincoln.

“Okay, then we can meet,” I said. “But my office is a complete mess because we’re getting ready for trial. Files and paperwork, exhibits all over the place. Are you free for lunch? I could meet you if you’re here in L.A.”

“Yes, I go to USC. Law school.”

“Law school — cool. My daughter went there. Have you been to Fixins over on Olympic? It’s not far from USC.”

“I haven’t.”

“Good fried chicken and gumbo and other stuff. How about I meet you there at noon?”

“Okay. Thank you.”

“See you soon, Cassandra.”

I put the phone in the cradle and didn’t have to wait long before Lorna came back into the office with her concerns and questions. Lorna was my gatekeeper, and as such she adopted a suspicious pose when anyone managed to gain access to me without proper vetting from her.

“Cassandra Snow,” she said. “Is that even a real name?”

“It actually is,” I said. “I saw it on her birth certificate. A long time ago.”

“Well, who is she?”

“The daughter of a former client. A client... I totally failed.”

“Oh, no. Not one of those.”

But it was true. David Snow was one of those black balloons that hovered above me. Lorna started asking questions about his case but I quickly put her off. I said I wanted to see what the daughter wanted to show me and find out why she wanted to hire me before I opened up that painful chapter. Lorna finally left and I went back to my juror questions until it was almost noon.

Fixins was probably the only soul-food kitchen in the city that took reservations for lunch, but it was a popular spot. I arrived for my reservation on time and was seated near the bar, where a large flat-screen showed highlights from the weekend’s football games. I watched but wasn’t really watching. I was thinking about the David Snow trial.

By 12:15 I assumed Cassandra wasn’t coming. I was about to flag down the waiter and order a bowl of gumbo when a woman in an electric wheelchair approached my table.

“I’m so sorry I’m late,” she said. “All the parking spots for people like me were taken. Probably by people who don’t need them.”

I jumped up and pulled a chair away from the table so she could maneuver into the spot. She had reddish-brown hair and sharp brown eyes with a pretty face. The mixed races of her heritage were evident. She looked very small in her chair, like a child. It wasn’t what I expected. I knew that her childhood injuries had left her paraplegic, but I was somehow surprised to see that her physical growth had been stunted. I came back around and sat across from her. I noticed her fingernails, long red press-ons that tapered to a point.

“Good to see you, Cassandra,” I said. “It’s been a while.”

She smiled like I had said something funny.

“I go by Cassie now,” she said.

“Cassie — I like it,” I said. “So, you live near campus?”

“Not too far. West Adams.”

“By yourself?”

“Yes. I’ve been on my own for a long time.”

Besides the whispery tone of her voice, she spoke with an unusual cadence. She spaced her words out as if guarding them, even with sentences that required little thought or hesitation.

“So, law school — how did that come about?” I asked.

“I think it was inevitable,” she said. “Considering what happened with my father.”

I understood. I was trying to keep the conversation light, but I knew there was something dark coming. This wasn’t a social visit.

“What year?” I asked. “What year law, I mean.”

“Second,” she said. “I’m about halfway through.”

“You on a scholarship?”

My interior thought came out as an awkward question. The last I knew, she had been taken into the foster-care system after the trial left her without a parent. I didn’t track her after that, probably fearing that what I’d find would put me into a deeper tailspin of guilt. But I knew there weren’t many foster parents out there who could afford tuition at USC Law.

“No,” Cassie said. “I support myself.”

“Are you interning at a firm?” I asked.

“No, not yet. I support myself as an ASMRtist. I have my own channel and I’m on Patreon. I do pretty well. I can even afford to hire you. I think.”

She smiled. I nodded, not knowing what most of that meant.

“That’s great,” I said. “Any decision yet on what kind of law you want to practice?”

“Definitely criminal defense,” she said.

“Ah, a lawyer after my own heart.” I put my hand on my chest.

“My goal was to get the degree and someday get my father out,” she said.

I nodded. It was an uncomfortable moment. I took my hand away from my heart.

“But I’m running out of time,” Cassie said. “He’s dying, and I want to bring him home.”

I nodded again. It seemed like all I could do. I knew I could not offer encouragement. Her father was probably only halfway through his sentence, and parole boards didn’t show much sympathy for abusers of children.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” I said. “What’s going on with your father?”

“He’s got terminal cancer,” Cassie said. “Esophageal.”

“I’m so sorry, Cassie. Where is he?”

“In Stockton. The medical prison. They said he has nine months. Maybe less.”

I hadn’t thought about David Snow’s case for years. I had handled the trial, which ended with guilty verdicts on all charges. Another lawyer handled the appeals that followed. I thought I knew which way this conversation was going.

“And you want to try to get him out on a medical hardship? That’s going to be a—”

“No, not a medical hardship,” Cassie said. “A habeas. I heard about that case you handled last year. I think you can get my father out. He’s innocent.”

“Cassie, that was actually almost two years ago. And after that I stopped doing criminal. I’ve been in civil court since then.”

“I still think you can get him out.”

“There is nothing I would like better than to help your father. I never thought he deserved what he got. I believed him and never thought he was guilty. But... have you taken habeas yet at USC? I don’t think it’s required at most law schools.”

She nodded.

“I took it last semester at an innocence clinic at the law school,” she said. “At one point we even talked about your case. That’s how I heard about it.”

“Well, then you know,” I said. “I’m assuming by now your father’s appeals have run their course. Habeas corpus may be his only shot, but it’s a long shot, Cassandra — uh, Cassie. To get a habeas in front of a court, you need new evidence—”

“That was unavailable at the time of conviction. Yes, I know.”

“Okay, then what is our new evidence?”

She stared me down with those dark eyes.

“The new evidence is me,” she said.

18

I gathered the troops after I got back to the warehouse. The only place with enough chairs was the cage. McEvoy was in there, working through the material Naomi Kitchens had turned over. I told him he could step out because this wasn’t about the Tidalwaiv case, but he asked to stay because he thought that anything that came up in the days before trial might be material for the book he’d write. I said that was fine and started telling them my news.

“Okay, I just took on a new habeas case,” I said. “And I know what you’re thinking, that I don’t do criminal law anymore. That is true, but this was one I felt I owed the client.”

“No, I’m thinking that you don’t have time for another case,” Lorna said. “You start picking a jury in three days, Mickey. You can’t add another case right now.”

“I think if we get things started on this one in the next day or two, it will hold till after the trial,” I said. “And like I said, I have to do this one.”

“Who’s the client, Mick?” Cisco asked.

“Her name is Cassandra Snow,” I said. “She was the alleged victim in a case I handled twenty years ago. A case I lost.”

“Let me guess, she’s changed her mind about pointing the finger at your guy?” Cisco said. “Those cases never work.”

“No, no, it’s not like that,” I said. “My client was her father. He was accused of breaking her back — she’s in a wheelchair — and twelve other counts of abuse. He said he didn’t do it and I believed him, but it was a circumstantial case and the jury bought what the prosecutor was selling. David Snow is Black and it was a mostly white jury. Then the judge just lit him up, gave him five years for every broken bone — sixty-five years total.”

“And she’s saying now he didn’t do it?” Lorna asked.

“She said it all along,” I said. “But back then, at trial, she was three years old. Her mother was gone and her father was her only parent. What she said in police interviews as a toddler didn’t really matter. She wasn’t close to the age of competence.”

“Well, why did she wait twenty years to come to you?” McEvoy asked.

I pointed at him. That was the question.

“Like I said, she’s been in a wheelchair since then,” I said. “So that sort of protected her, physically, over the years. But she was in a car wreck a month ago. She has this van she showed me. She goes up a ramp to get in through the back and then she can just park her chair in front of the steering wheel and drive it. Anyway, she got rear-ended and thrown into the steering wheel, and she broke five ribs. When she was treated in the ER, they took X-rays, and one of the doctors saw something. Long story short, she’s been diagnosed with something called osteogenesis imperfecta, which is rare and congenital — she could have been born with it.”

“Okay,” Lorna said. “And what’s it got to do with getting her father out?”

“Good question,” I said. “OI, as they call it, hinders collagen production, which leads to brittle bones that break easily. It can go undiagnosed in children or be misdiagnosed as abuse. Cassie says the orthopedic doctors who looked at her X-rays in the ER suspected from the condition of her bones that she had OI. They sent her to a geneticist, and it turns out she has a rare form of the disease, a genetic mutation that’s only recently been discovered. She is our new evidence. She gets her father a new trial.”

I realized I had spoken to them the way I would speak to a jury, with a fervor that cannot be faked. They sat there silently for a long moment until they were sure I had finished my closing argument.

“What do you want us to do, Mick?” Cisco finally asked.

“I have the names of the doctors who treated her,” I said. “We need to get statements from all the medical people, including the geneticist, to include in a habeas motion for a new trial. We also need to pull whatever we can find on the original trial. Transcripts, presentencing reports, anything and everything. Her father is in Stockton. We have to pull his prison records as well as anything from his parole hearings. Cassie said he’s had two and was turned down both times because he wouldn’t admit that he hurt his baby daughter. He wouldn’t admit to what he didn’t do.”

That brought a pause. We all knew that the best way to get by the parole board was to admit to your crimes, say you’d found Jesus, and pledge that you would dedicate the rest of your life to serving Him. A refusal of any part of that formula almost guaranteed rejection.

“Mick, you said your guy’s in Stockton,” Cisco said. “That’s a medical facility. What’s he there for?”

“He’s dying,” I said. “Cancer. He’s got nine months to live, and we are going to get him out so he’s with his daughter and his last breath is of free air.”

That not only brought another pause but several eyes looked away from mine. Lorna, always the skeptic in case matters, broke the quiet.

“Mickey, is this OI stuff something you could have known about at the first trial?” she asked. “Because if it was...”

“Then not only was I a bad lawyer then, but I’m dead in the water now,” I said. “You’re right, Lorna. It’s the big question. We need evidence not available then.”

“Did you have a medical expert testify at the trial?” Lorna asked.

“Yes and no,” I said. “I hired a pediatric orthopedic surgeon to review Cassandra’s X-rays and injuries. But ultimately I decided not to put him on the witness stand.”

“Why not?” Lorna asked.

“Because I couldn’t trust him not to say the injuries might have been caused by abuse,” I said. “The fact is, OI was never mentioned by him or the state’s experts or in any reports. What was mentioned at trial was that my client had a prior arrest involving violence. That was a bar fight, and the judge shouldn’t have allowed it, but he did. Add to that, David Snow being the one custodial parent in the home and a victim too young to say how she got hurt, and the jury took less than an hour to bury him with thirteen counts of GBI — end of story.”

Great bodily injury — the top of the child-abuse pyramid.

There was another pause, this one ended by McEvoy.

“I’ll look into OI,” he said. “Maybe nobody knew about it twenty years ago. A lot of shaken-baby cases have been overturned across the country because of new science and new ways of looking at injuries in children. Maybe it’s the same here.”

I nodded.

“That would be good,” I said.

I was impressed by McEvoy’s thinking and willingness to pitch in as part of the team.

“Just don’t let it get in the way of Tidalwaiv,” I said. “That’s the priority this week and into trial. And speaking of which, any news on Challenger?”

It was the code name we were now using for Naomi Kitchens. It was good legal practice to keep her name out of conversations, emails, and documents.

“Nothing yet,” McEvoy said. “I was going to give it the day, then call tomorrow with a final pitch.”

“Okay,” I said. “Have you finished going through the thumb drive?”

“I have,” McEvoy said. “There are some things I want to show you when you have a few minutes.”

I nodded. “Okay,” I said. “Thanks, everybody.”

It was a signal that I wanted to talk to McEvoy alone. Lorna and Cisco got the message and got up. After they went through the copper curtain, I moved over to McEvoy’s workspace.

“What do you have for me?” I asked.

“Nothing as strong as that farewell email,” McEvoy said. “But there is an exchange that followed an early testing of Clair that didn’t go well.”

“They probably did follow-up tests after making corrections, right?”

“Yes, that’s right. But if I’m reading Challenger’s response correctly, it looks like they used a kid to conduct the initial test.”

“You mean they put a kid into a test with Clair and it went sideways?”

“I think so. The emails are between two people who witnessed the test, so they leave out shared knowledge of it. It’s shorthand, so you have to sort of read between the lines. Even if Challenger doesn’t agree to testify, I was planning to ask her to clarify some of the things we’ve found in the documents she provided. Hopefully, she’ll tell me about this test.”

“Is there any mention of it in the discovery material supplied by Tidalwaiv?”

“No, not that I can find.”

“Assholes. Hiding the ball once again. I’m going to shove it up Marcus Mason’s ass when we get to trial.”

“You’ll have to explain how you know what you know.”

“Yeah, that’s the problem. Protecting Challenger may lose us the case.”

“Is there any way to trick Mason into opening the door to Challenger and some of these other things we’re finding?”

“Easier said than done. But I’ll think on it. When was the last time you talked to her?”

“I checked in with her Saturday. You know, to thank her for the material she gave us and see if there was any change or anything I could do for her.”

“And?”

“She was still saying no on testifying.”

I nodded.

“Okay, keep at it,” I said.

“That’s the plan,” Jack said.

I pulled my phone as I left the cage through the copper curtain. I checked my contacts for a name from the past but couldn’t find it. I walked over to Lorna’s desk.

“You remember Bambadjan Bishop?” I asked. “Do we have a file on him? I need his cell number.”

Lorna opened a file search window.

“I should have it,” she said. “Why do you need his cell?”

“No reason,” I said. “I just want to check on him.”

She found the number and wrote it down on a Post-it, then handed it to me. I headed back to my office so I could avoid further questions. Bishop was a former employee and client — in that order. A few years earlier, when I spent several weeks in the L.A. County jail falsely accused of murder, I hired Bishop to protect me. He was a big man whose face and body seemed shaped by violence. After I survived incarceration, I took on his case and got him out. It was part of the deal we had made.

I closed the door to my office and sat down behind the desk. I opened a drawer and took out one of the burners I kept on hand, like the one I had given Naomi Kitchens. I booted it up and called Bishop, hoping he would take a call from an unknown number.

He did, but not until I called him three times in a row.

“Who the fuck is this?” he said.

“Bamba,” I said. “It’s your lawyer.”

“Mickey?”

“That’s right. How are you, Bamba?”

“I’m fine, man. Doin’ fine.”

“You working?”

“This and that. You know.”

“I might have something for you, if you’re interested.”

“Always interested.”

“It would be off the books. Nothing illegal but off the books.”

“Tell me all about it.”

And so I did.

19

The house was dark when I got home. Maggie had taken to staying at the office late to help keep her mind off her losses. I texted to see if she wanted me to DoorDash anything for dinner or maybe go over to Pace in the canyon for Italian. I preferred the latter but wasn’t sure what kind of mood she would be in or if she’d even be interested in eating. She was well into the five stages of grief. Lately she seemed balanced on the line between depression and acceptance. She would fixate on things she had lost: her high-school yearbooks, a tile mosaic we bought in Rome because it depicted a girl eating ice cream who looked remarkably like our daughter. I woke up in the middle of the night sometimes to find her looking at photos on her phone, some her own, taken at the house in Altadena, some from news feeds showing shots from the days of the fire. Other days she talked about the opportunity to build a home to her specifications, even though we both knew that it would be years before she would be able to walk through a new front door. I never stopped reminding her that she had a home right here with me, but this didn’t seem to lift the cloud, and that left me unsure of our future together. It was too fragile a thing to openly discuss.

I went to the back room of the house, where I had a desk. Cassie Snow and her case kept invading my thoughts, threatening my focus on the case at hand. I opened my laptop, went online, and plugged ASMR into the search engine.

It opened a whole new world to me. ASMR — autonomous sensory meridian response — was the descriptor of a physiological sensation triggered by audio, visual, or touch stimuli. It was described as a tingling sense of euphoria that runs along the scalp and down the neck and spine to the limbs. Certain voices could trigger it. Certain sounds, like the popping of static in a blanket and the strokes of a paintbrush on canvas. One article I read attributed the popularity of YouTube videos of the long-dead artist Bob Ross to the ASMR values of his voice and the sound of his brushstrokes.

Not everyone experienced ASMR, but many who did sought it out like a drug. It was said by some to be therapeutic and a cure for insomnia and panic. There were over ten million videos available online from ASMRtists like Cassandra Snow, videos of people whispering into microphones, tapping on hollow objects, tearing and creasing paper. Apparently there was an ASMR fix for just about any need. But according to the medical sites I checked, there had not been any large-scale clinical studies demonstrating ASMR’s effect on brain activity and mental health. The bottom line was that those who responded to it craved it. Those who didn’t tended to be suspicious of it.

I thought about Cassie’s voice pattern and her long and pointed fingernails. I remembered that she said she had her own channel. I jumped over to YouTube and searched for her by name but nothing came up under Cassie or Cassandra Snow. I guessed that she probably had a professional name that safeguarded her privacy. I assumed that ASMRtists might draw stalkers who wanted more than a video feed.

My research into this world I had known nothing about gave me an idea. I thought about the addictive quality of ASMR and called McEvoy. It sounded like he was in a bar. I heard multiple conversations in the background and glassware clinking.

“Where are you?”

“My local. Mistral in Sherman Oaks.”

“Alone?”

“At the moment. What’s up?”

“Remember, we’re not in the cage. In the material you’ve been looking through, have you seen anything about the voice?”

“The voice? What do you mean?”

“Clair’s voice. Wren’s voice. Where did it come from?”

“Um, I saw some reports. They tested various voices, yeah.”

“You know what ASMR is?”

“Uh, not sure.”

“It’s a positive physiological response to stimuli, including voices.”

“I don’t remember reading about anything like that in the reports. But I wasn’t looking for it specifically. There’s so much to get through. I also got sidetracked a bit with the material we got from Challenger. Is it important?”

“Maybe not. But do a deeper dive on it when you can. Let me know if anything comes up.”

“ASMR — will do.”

“Have a good night.”

I disconnected. Just the short conversation reminded me of my barstool days. I didn’t miss them.

I heard the distinctive rumble of a Harley from out on the street. When the engine cut off after a double rev, I knew that Cisco had come to visit. I walked back through the house and opened the front door before he got to it.

“I thought you were going to stop revving the engine before cutting it off,” I said. “My neighbors are going to give me holy hell for that.”

“Sorry,” Cisco said. “Force of habit. I forgot.”

“Yeah, tell it to Hank, the old guy who lives next door. You want a beer? I only have alcohol-free Guinness.”

“I think I’ll pass. I won’t be staying long anyway.”

“Okay, so what’s up?”

“Is Maggie here?”

“No, she’s still at work.”

“Good. I wanted to talk alone.”

I could tell there was something tweaked about him. Cisco was a stoic man, but that meant he let stuff build up inside until he had no choice but to let it out. I sensed this was one of those times. I closed the front door but we remained standing in the entranceway.

“What’s going on, big man?” I said.

“Look, Mick, we go back a long time,” Cisco started. “I mean, you stood as best man at my wedding to your ex. We’ve been through it. So I just want to say, if you want me to quit, just say the word and we’ll shake hands and go our separate ways.”

“What are you talking about? I don’t want you to quit. We have a major trial coming up and another case lined up after that. Why would I want you to quit?”

“Because maybe you don’t need me. This whole move to civil means I’m doing less and less PI stuff for you. You now got McEvoy running lead on the discovery stuff. Lorna tells me you’re calling Bamba Bishop. I mean, I don’t know what that’s about, but I’m beginning to wonder where I stand.”

In that moment I knew I had messed up with him. This was Employee Relations 101 and I had blown it.

“Tell you what, let’s have that beer,” I said.

I led him to the kitchen, where I took two tall cans of Guinness Zero out of the fridge and two tulip pint glasses out of the freezer. Before I said a word, I took the time to slowly pour the first glass, carefully building the head, then handed it to him.

After the second pour we clinked glasses and drank. There was no place to sit in the kitchen. I leaned back against the counter while Cisco stood in the middle of the room.

“Holy shit,” Cisco said, foam in his mustache.

“Like the real thing, huh?” I said.

“Fucking A. How do they do it?”

He held up the can and looked at it as if the answer might be written on it.

“I don’t know,” I said. “But they know what they’re doing. Just like you, Cisco. I don’t want you to quit. Are you nuts? I need you, man. The workload may be lighter these days but it will pick up once we win this. McEvoy is here for the one case and I’m tapping his expertise. But it doesn’t take away from your value. And Bamba was nothing. I just wanted to see how he was doing. I apologize if I made you feel like you’re second string. You’re not — far from it.”

Cisco nodded. I think he’d heard what he needed to hear. There was a small hint of a smile on his face.

“Okay, Mick,” he said. “I appreciate it.”

He drank down half his glass in one long gulp, then set the glass down on the counter.

“Okay, I’m gonna go, then,” he said. “Thanks for the beer.”

I liked how he didn’t linger. He’d gotten the answer he was looking for and now he was moving on.

“Anytime,” I said.

I walked him out to the front deck, carrying my beer. He started down the steps to the street. I saw his Harley parked down there.

“Hey, Cisco, do me a favor,” I called after him. “Coast down the hill before you start that machine up.”

He waved a hand over his head, which I took as a signal that he had heard me and would do as requested. I moved to the corner of the deck and leaned my elbows on the railing. I sipped my beer and looked out at the city lights. The Sunset Strip glowed like a dream. There was still a slight scent of smoke in the air from the Runyon Canyon fire, but I wondered if I was just imagining that.

I looked down and watched Cisco glide silently down Fareholm on his old panhead. I could make out the orange flames painted on the gas tank and wondered if that was still a good look, considering recent history. He took the curve to the right and disappeared. That was when I heard the V-twin rumble to life. I smiled and was happy we’d had the conversation we’d just had.

I stayed out there in the chill evening air until Maggie came home. She had apparently changed at the office from her work clothes, and was wearing blue jeans, Doc Marten boots, and the sweatshirt I had gotten at one of the World Series games in October. It reminded me of what the city had been through in just a few months, from the high of a World Series championship to being laid low by the fires of January.

“Hey,” she said when she got to the top of the stairs.

Her boots and pants were dusted with ash and I knew where she had been.

“You went up there in the dark?” I said. “You should’ve called me. I’d have gone with you. Not sure that’s safe at night.”

“It was okay,” she said. “No one was there.”

She had returned several times to what was left of her neighborhood. Every home had been reduced to scorched brick, twisted metal, and ash. A forest of chimneys left standing. Going back was part of her mourning process. It reminded me of open-casket funerals. Some people had to see the body to accept the person was gone. Maggie had to go back again and again to accept what she had lost.

“Are you hungry?” I asked. “I sent a text.”

“Sure,” she said. “I could eat something. I missed the text, sorry.”

“It’s okay. In or out?”

“Uh, you know what, let’s go out. I just need to change real quick.”

“Where do you want to go?”

“Someplace with good red wine.”

“Okay, you change. I’ll get a reservation.”

Before she went in, she came to me at the corner of the deck, put her arms around me, and pulled me into a hug. Over my shoulder she looked out at her city.

“The lights are pretty,” she said. “It’s like nothing could ever go wrong in this place.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I was thinking the same thing.”

20

As I was driving to the courthouse Thursday morning I got a call from McEvoy.

“You’re not going to believe this,” he said. “Challenger just called me. She’s in. She’ll come down and testify.”

“Shit,” I said.

“What? I thought you’d be ecstatic.”

“No, I am. I am. But the witness list went in yesterday. I’ll have to amend it, and the judge is not going to be happy about that. Neither will opposing counsel. But this is good, Jack. Really good. Did she say what changed her mind?”

“Yeah, she got mad. She said Tidalwaiv is trying to intimidate her. She saw some big scary guy hanging around watching her place. She thinks he’s from Tidalwaiv.”

“Really? Bad move.”

“Intimidation was definitely the wrong move with her.”

“This is important: Did she ask for anything in return?”

“You mean for testifying? Uh, no. She just said she wanted to shove it up Tidalwaiv’s ass. Her words, not mine.”

“Good. I like an angry witness — as long as they’re not angry at me. And she can come down next week? I’d probably put her on either late Monday or Tuesday. I want her near the start of the trial. Get her on the stand before she can change her mind.”

“She said next week would work. But she wants a subpoena to explain her absence to the university.”

“The Masons are going to throw a fit when they find out about her. It’ll be a fight. If I win and she’s in, I’ll get the subpoena out today.”

“You gotta get her in, Mickey. She’s gold.”

“I know, I know. You should go to the courthouse to watch the fireworks. Might make a whole chapter in your book.”

“I’m about to head that way. Was letting the traffic die down a bit first.”

“You know, now that I think about it, I want you to call and see if Challenger can come down right away to prep. Then I want you to go up and bring her down.”

“You mean, like, tomorrow? Trial doesn’t start till Monday.”

“Doesn’t matter. If I get her approved by the judge as a witness, all bets are off. Tidalwaiv will double-down on the intimidation and any other pressure points they can find, including the daughter. We need to bring them both down here so we can hide them until it’s time for Naomi to testify.”

“You mean Challenger.”

“Challenger, right.”

“Will Tidalwaiv get to depose her before trial?”

“They’d have to find her first. And believe me, they’ll try.”

“Got it.”

“Okay, Jack, I’ll see you in court.”

I disconnected, dropped my phone into the center console, and reached into my jacket pocket for the burner I’d been carrying with me all week. I hit the one contact I had programmed into the phone. Bambadjan Bishop picked up right away.

“You’re clear, Bamba,” I said.

“You sure?” he asked. “I never really—”

“I’m sure. Come home. Let me know when you get here and we’ll meet.”

“You got it.”

Twenty-five minutes later I was in one of the attorney rooms down the hall from Judge Ruhlin’s court. Other than arranging an initial meeting between Brenda Randolph and Bruce and Trisha Colton, I had kept the two parties to the lawsuit separated. But now it was time to show a united front.

“The jurors are going to be watching us closely from today until we get a verdict,” I told them. “Once they understand who you are, they’re going to be very curious about you and the seemingly incongruous bond between the plaintiffs in this case. They are going to watch you closely for any sign that you are not really united in this fight against Tidalwaiv.”

I paused there to see if they had any objections or questions. The two women said nothing. Bruce Colton just nodded and cast his eyes down at the table. Like Brenda, Bruce and Trisha had seen their lives destroyed. Their son would be in state mental facilities or prison for years. It was a coin toss as to which was a worse fate for Aaron, but they faced the rest of their years living with what he had done and the guilt of their own responsibility for it, whether that guilt was warranted or not.

“So, this is how I want to do this,” I said. “I want Brenda and Trisha at the table with me — the two mothers. Bruce, I want you in the front row right behind us.”

“I want to be with my wife,” Bruce said.

“I understand,” I said. “But what I want to do is present the two mothers as victims of this company. Two mothers who have lost their children. Two mothers who are unified. Remember, this is not a criminal trial. We don’t need a unanimous verdict. We only need a majority. A trial is like a stage play. The jury is the audience. I’m going to go for as many women on the jury as I can get, especially mothers, and I want to play to them. When they get into the deliberation room to decide a verdict, the women will take charge. You understand?”

“I guess so,” Bruce said. “I still don’t like it.”

I moved on, looking for reactions from the two women.

“Brenda and Trisha, don’t be afraid to comfort each other,” I said. “Some of the testimony will be very difficult to hear. For both of you. Don’t hesitate to hold hands or do whatever you can to help each other get through the testimony.”

Trisha nodded. Brenda just stared down at her hands, which were clasped tightly on the table.

“Now, as we discussed, all three of you will be called to the witness stand,” I said. “You’re all prepped and know what I’m going to ask. What we don’t know is what the Tidalwaiv lawyers will ask you. As a rule, you don’t want a witness who is a victim to be on the stand too long, so my guess is you will not face many questions from them. But that’s all next week. This week is about picking a jury. I hope you can pay attention. You know that saying ‘See something, say something’? That applies here. If you feel strongly about a potential juror, one way or the other, grab my sleeve or write me a note. I will make sure you each have a pad and pen in front of you.”

“What about me?” Bruce said. “If I’m not at the table, how do I tell you what I think?”

“You can get my attention,” I said. “Just whisper and I’ll hear you. To be clear, I’m not asking you to approve or disapprove jurors. That’s my job. But if you get a sense about someone, maybe through eye contact or their answers to questions from the judge, then let me know.”

I paused again for questions but none came. In my mind, Bruce Colton was a wild card. He was a successful but uneducated businessman, having turned a family-owned electrical supply company in the Valley into a multimillion-dollar business. But he was the one who had brought a gun into the house, and he worked twelve-hour days, leaving his son with little male supervision in his formative years. Bruce was angry and alienated by what had happened, felt unfairly blamed and at times embarrassed by his son’s crimes. In some states the parents of teenage shooters had been prosecuted for their carelessness with their children and guns. The Coltons were lucky that it appeared that Maggie McFierce was not going to prosecute them.

I checked my watch. It was time for court.

“Okay, we’re going to go into the courtroom now,” I said. “The first hour will be about motions and witness lists, and then voir dire begins.”

“That’s jury selection?” Brenda asked.

“Right,” I said. “They bring in a panel of potential jurors, and the judge will ask questions the lawyers have submitted, along with her own questions, and we should have a jury by the end of the day tomorrow.”

I stood up to leave the room. When I opened the door, I saw Marcus Mason standing in the hallway waiting for me. I was not surprised.

“You guys go on to the courtroom,” I said to my clients. “Sit in the places I told you and I’ll be along after I talk to Mr. Mason.”

My clients stepped into the hallway and headed down to the courtroom. I waited for them to be out of earshot before I turned to Mason.

“What’s up, Marcus?”

“What’s up is I got your witness amendment and there is no way Naomi Kitchens is testifying. But that’s not why I’m here. Can we step out of the hallway for a minute?”

He gestured toward the open door of the meeting room I had just left.

“Sure,” I said. “But let’s not keep the judge waiting.”

“We won’t,” Mason said. “I told the clerk to keep her in chambers until we come in.”

We stepped into the room and Mason closed the door. I stayed standing. I knew what was coming and that I wouldn’t have to sit down.

“Okay, final offer,” Mason said. “To avoid this unnecessary trial, twenty-five to Randolph and ten to the Coltons, though they don’t deserve a penny if you ask me.”

“Is that millions or billions?” I asked.

“Don’t be an ass, Haller. Tell them to take it. I have the checks in my briefcase. It’s more money than they’ll ever get from a jury. And you can probably retire on your cut.”

“Is that it? That’s the full offer?”

“That’s it. And both parties must take it or no deal.”

“Do you have a script for a public apology from Tidalwaiv in your briefcase too? One that accepts responsibility for the death of Rebecca Randolph and the actions of Aaron Colton, and says that new guardrails will be installed in your AI products that will prevent this from happening again in the future?”

“No, I have NDAs that all parties will sign, and then they get rich and this goes away quietly.”

“Well, I’ll take it to them. But don’t get your hopes up.”

“The offer’s good till five o’clock today. Maybe after your clients see you lose half your witness list they’ll be amenable to a settlement. They could wake up with millions in their bank accounts tomorrow if they play this right.”

“Play, Marcus? This isn’t a game.”

“Sure it is. Don’t kid yourself, Haller.”

With that, he opened the door and left the room. I heard his heels clicking on the marble floor as he headed down the hall to the courtroom.

A few minutes later I huddled and whispered with my clients in the courtroom. I told Bruce Colton to come through the gate to the plaintiffs’ table and pulled a chair over for him. I delivered the settlement offer and told them it came with no apology or admission of culpability from Tidalwaiv.

“It’s a lot of money,” I said. “And I always have to say, anything can happen at trial. But it’s just money. It’s not enough to hurt Tidalwaiv in the long run and there is no admission of guilt with it.” Brenda Randolph seemed incensed.

“They think they can just buy their way out of this,” she said. “Out of what they did to my daughter. Fuck them.” The language was uncharacteristic of her.

I nodded — it was the response I had expected from Brenda — and looked at the Coltons, noting that they did not look at each other, a sign that they weren’t on the same page.

“How long would it be before they paid us?” Bruce said.

“He said if you sign a nondisclosure agreement you’d go home with a check today,” I said.

“Today,” Bruce repeated. He seemed stunned by the realization that he could walk out of the courthouse a millionaire several times over.

“Wow,” he said. “Like the lottery.”

“We’re not taking the money,” Trisha said pointedly. “This isn’t about the money.”

“Just hold on, Trish,” Bruce said. “You know what we could do with ten million dollars? First of all, we could get Aaron the best lawyer in the country. We could—”

“The best lawyer in the country is not going to be able to help him,” Trisha snapped. “Not with what he did.”

I saw Brenda put her hand on top of Trisha’s on the table. They were somehow bonding — the mothers of killer and victim. It was amazing where grief took people.

“There is another thing,” I said. “All three of you have to agree to take the money. It’s all or nothing.”

“That’s not happening,” Brenda said. “It’s not about money. I want the public to know what Tidalwaiv did. If they won’t admit it, the jury will tell the world. Screw them and their NDAs. They’re not getting away with this.”

Bruce raised his hands in a demonstration of frustration that he would not walk out of the building with a check.

“Okay, then,” I said. “The offer’s good till five today. You want to sit on it, or should I tell them no dice?”

“No dice,” Brenda said.

“Tell them,” Trisha said.

Bruce just shook his head.

“I can’t believe this,” he said. “We’re giving up millions. Why don’t we see how things go today and then tell them at five?”

“I’m not changing my mind,” Brenda said.

“I’ll tell them,” I said. “Bruce, you go back to the front row. Court’s going to start.”

I got up and went over to the defense table, where the Mason twins sat next to each other alongside a woman I knew was their high-priced jury consultant.

“No dice, fellas,” I said. “We’re going to trial.”

“Big mistake,” Marcus said.

“Maybe,” I said. “We’ll see.”

21

I was expecting to go toe to toe with Marcus Mason about my witness list, not with Judge Ruhlin. But right out of the gate she had me in her crosshairs.

“Before we start, I would like to ask you a question, Mr. Haller,” she said.

“Of course, Your Honor,” I said, moving to the lectern.

“How many civil cases have you brought in federal court before this one?”

I thought I heard one of the Masons quietly snicker. Before answering, I casually turned and glanced at the gallery to confirm that there were no recognizable members of the media in attendance. Jury selection was rarely a newsworthy part of a trial.

I returned my focus to the bench.

“Uh, that would be none, Judge,” I said. “But I have handled several criminal cases over the years. Here and in superior court.”

“I guessed as much, Mr. Haller,” Ruhlin said. “Because I see you are employing a trick that may work on the criminal side but does not have a place on the civil side and especially not in this courtroom.”

“Judge, I’m not sure I understand.”

“Yes, I think you do. You’re playing hide the ball, Mr. Haller. I counted forty-eight witnesses on your list. Forty-eight, including the name you added this morning after the deadline.”

“Yes, Your Honor.”

“Mr. Haller, I know that you will not be putting forty-eight witnesses on the stand. You are hiding your trees in the forest, and we don’t have time for your games in federal court.”

“Your Honor, I—”

“Don’t interrupt me, sir. I am now going to retreat to my chambers to make a phone call. I will be back in twelve minutes. That’s how long you have to cut this list to a true and accurate accounting of witnesses you intend to call to the witness stand.”

“Judge, I intend to call them all.”

“Don’t kid me, Mr. Haller. And don’t try my patience.”

“I’m not trying to do either, Your Honor.”

“Very well, then. I am putting you on notice that you will be fined one thousand dollars for each person on this list who is not called as a witness during the presentation of your case.”

“Judge, that’s not — I intend, as of right now, to call them all, but strategies can change midcourse in a trial. I am sure the court understands this. I remember when Your Honor was a practicing—”

“What you have to understand, Mr. Haller, is that I am not going to allow you to waste the court’s time. Twelve minutes. We are adjourned.”

Ruhlin left the bench and went through the door that led to her chambers. This time I unmistakably heard the snicker from the Masons’ table. I ignored it as I went back to my table, opened my briefcase, and took out my laptop. I pulled up the witness list that had been submitted to the court and amended with the name Naomi Kitchens. The reality was that the judge had nailed me, but I wouldn’t admit it on the record. The list was stocked with people I could call, but their testimony would be repetitive of other witnesses. For example, I didn’t have to call both detectives assigned to the murder of Rebecca Randolph, since they would essentially tell the jury the same thing. Same with the coders who worked on Project Clair. The list had been designed to keep the Masons guessing and busy running down my witnesses for depos and background checks. That way they’d presumably be distracted from their own case.

“Mickey, are we in trouble?” Brenda asked.

I looked over at her. Both she and Trisha had looks of concern on their faces.

“No, we’re fine,” I said. “The judge is just flexing her muscles so we know who’s in charge. That’s all. I was going to cut my list down on Monday anyway.”

I went to work on the list. On my first go-through, I quickly and easily deleted nine names. I wondered if that would satisfy the judge but decided I had to cut more. I checked the time, saw I still had six minutes, and went back to work. After one more thinning of the herd, I sent the new list to the clerk for submission to the judge and the defense team. Ruhlin returned to the bench promptly at the twelve-minute mark, carrying a printout of the new witness list.

“Mr. Haller, I appreciate your effort to cull your list,” she said. “I still believe that twenty-three names is excessive, but we will see how many survive challenges from the defense. Misters Mason, I believe you have the new list. Do you object to any of these witnesses?”

Mitchell Mason stood and went to the lectern. I was surprised it wasn’t Marcus taking the reins. The witness list was the backbone of the case.

“Your Honor, where do I begin?” Mitchell said. “I mean, even at twenty-three names, this list is—”

“Do you have an objection to a specific name, Mr. Mason?” the judge interrupted.

“To many of them, Judge.”

“Then what do you say we just start with one of them? We have a jury pool waiting to come into court for voir dire. Let’s not keep them waiting too long.”

“Yes, Your Honor. The defense objects first and foremost to Naomi Kitchens.”

“State your grounds.”

Before beginning, Mitchell glanced over at his brother sitting at the defendant’s table.

“Thank you, Your Honor,” Mitchell said. “Ms. Kitchens is a former employee of Tidalwaiv who was dismissed for performance issues and whose record of hostility toward the company renders her testimony unreliable. But, Your Honor, all of that is moot because Ms. Kitchens signed an ironclad nondisclosure agreement that prevents her from discussing anything she did or observed while in the employ of Tidalwaiv. She simply can’t be allowed to testify. Last, counsel for the defense is out-and-out sand—”

“Counsel for the defense?” Ruhlin asked.

“Apologies, Your Honor,” Mitchell said. “Counsel for the plaintiffs. I guess I’m used to Mr. Haller defending criminals.”

Yeah, right — as if he hadn’t been waiting for the right moment to make that “mistake.” I objected, just to knock Mitchell out of rhythm. The judge overruled.

“May I continue, Your Honor?” Mitchell asked.

“Please,” the judge said.

“Thank you. Your Honor, plaintiffs’ counsel is clearly trying to sandbag us. He’s been hiding this witness. She was on neither of the preliminary witness lists and suddenly appears on this list in an amendment filed just minutes before court was convened so that we had little time to prepare our objection and when he has known for weeks that she would be on the list. The bottom line, Your Honor, is that any one of these arguments is enough to remove Naomi Kitchens from the witness list. Taken as a whole, the court has overwhelming reason to strike her.”

Finished, Mitchell turned from the lectern and headed back to his table without waiting to see if the judge had any questions.

“Very well,” Ruhlin said. “Mr. Haller, a response?”

I jumped up quickly and went to the lectern like a man on a mission. Along the way, I saw Marcus Mason whispering to his brother and pointing a finger in the air to make his point. He had seen the mistake his twin made, but it was too late.

I had seen it too.

“Your Honor,” I began, “before I argue the points Mr. Mason thinks he made, I would ask the court to inquire about his statement that I knew ‘for weeks’ that Naomi Kitchens would be a witness in this case. The facts are, Your Honor, that I did indeed meet Professor Kitchens several weeks ago and then again this past Friday. But she felt intimidated and afraid of Tidalwaiv and did not, in fact, agree to be a witness until shortly before nine this morning. If you wish to confirm that, we can set up a teleconference with Professor Kitchens at the court’s convenience. But that aside, Your Honor, Mr. Mason’s statement indicates that the defense team has been surveilling Professor Kitchens because they know her value as a witness for the plaintiffs in this case. They did this with Mr. Patel and now Naomi Kitchens. It’s called witness intimidation, Judge, and I would like it stopped.”

I saw the skin around the judge’s eyes tighten, and when she spoke, an unmistakable but controlled anger had entered her voice.

“Mr. Mason,” she said. “Do you care to offer an explanation for the knowledge you seem to have of Ms. Kitchens’s status as a witness?”

Mitchell Mason stood up and moved to the lectern as I backed away. He seemed to be two shades paler than when he had stood there a few moments before.

“Thank you, Your Honor,” he said. “I can assure you that no attorney or staff member of the law firm of Mason and Mason has had any witness or opposing counsel under surveillance at any time. Mr. Haller is just trying to—”

“That’s all well and good, Mr. Mason,” Ruhlin said. “But what about your client? Did you receive information from your client as to who Ms. Kitchens or Mr. Haller and his staff were meeting with?”

Now Marcus Mason stood up and came to the lectern in an attempt to rescue his brother.

“Your Honor, if I may be heard?” he said.

“Go ahead,” Ruhlin said. “We are losing the morning with this, but go ahead.”

“Thank you,” Marcus said. “As my brother said, Mason and Mason has not engaged in any surveillance or intimidation of witnesses. But as he said earlier, and as with Mr. Patel, Ms. Kitchens was terminated from Tidalwaiv for cause and was deemed a security threat by the company. As such, the company took measures to protect itself. And this was long before any lawsuit was filed by the plaintiffs. No laws were broken by these procedures. They were perfectly acceptable and legal. Mr. Haller has made it a routine during this legal action to seek out as witnesses those who left the company under rancorous terms in hopes that he will sway a jury with false and biased testimony harmful to the company.”

I had stayed standing at the plaintiffs’ table, ready to respond.

“Your Honor?” I said. “May I—”

“No, you may not, Mr. Haller,” Ruhlin said. “Not yet. Let me say once again for the record, the court will not tolerate any intimidation of witnesses or anyone involved with the parties to this lawsuit. Whatever Tidalwaiv is doing, shut it down, Mr. Mason. Because if I have to shut it down, there will be very serious consequences. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Your Honor,” Marcus said.

“Now, Mr. Haller,” Ruhlin said. “Do you wish to proceed with a rebuttal of the challenge to your witness?”

“Yes, Your Honor,” I said as I moved back to the lectern. “But I would first like to address what Mr. Mason said about my witness that continues the intimidation the court just said will not be tolerated.”

“We are past that, Mr. Haller,” Ruhlin said. “And we have a jury panel waiting for us. Do you want me to make a ruling on Ms. Kitchens now, or do you want to offer rebuttal?”

“I do offer rebuttal, Judge,” I said. “Let’s start with the nondisclosure agreement. It was signed by Professor Kitchens under duress because the company had terminated her but offered her a six-month severance package that included health insurance if she signed the NDA. She is a single mother with a daughter who has chronic asthma treated with prescriptions paid for by the company’s health plan. Expensive prescriptions, Your Honor.”

I held up a copy of the two-page NDA Kitchens had signed.

“Additionally, this agreement does indeed preclude Professor Kitchens from sharing proprietary information with any Tidalwaiv competitor,” I said. “But this court is not a competitor, Your Honor, and the plaintiffs are not intending to ask this witness anything about proprietary information.”

Marcus Mason stood up to be heard.

“Sit down, Mr. Mason,” the judge said. “You had your turn.”

“But, Your Honor,” Mason said. “Counsel is misconstruing the—”

“When I say sit down, I mean sit down,” Ruhlin barked.

Chastened, Mason sat down as instructed.

“Anything else, Mr. Haller?” Ruhlin asked.

“Yes, Your Honor,” I said. “The defense argues that Naomi Kitchens should be excluded as a witness because I did not provide adequate notice that she would testify. But that is because of the serious discovery violation purposely committed by the defense in this case. Professor Kitchens was employed by Tidalwaiv as an ethicist and was assigned to Project Clair. While on the project, she wrote numerous reports and gave numerous warnings that were ignored by the project’s managers and stakeholders and apparently by counsel for the defense. This was in defiance of the court’s order to turn over in discovery all documentation of the project’s research and development. Counsel turned over twelve terabytes of documents they said fulfilled that order.”

In my peripheral vision I saw one of the Masons stand up to be heard. I kept going.

“Your Honor, nowhere in those twelve terabytes is a single document written by Naomi Kitchens,” I said. “Any document in discovery that was sent to stakeholders had her name redacted. They tried to hide her from us, Judge, because they were aware she knew where the bodies were buried on Project Clair. To cure that violation, plaintiffs should be allowed to have Professor Kitchens testify to her work at Tidalwaiv. Thank you, Your Honor.”

The judge was silent for a few moments while she digested everything I had just revealed. I glanced to my left and saw that it was Marcus Mason who had stood up to respond.

“That is a very serious allegation, Mr. Haller,” she finally said. “Mr. Mason, how do you respond?”

I stepped back to give Mason the lectern, but I stayed close so he would feel me standing right behind him.

“Your Honor, as usual, Mr. Haller exaggerates and provides the court only the information partial to his cause,” he said. “But the reality is that the court’s order was to turn over in discovery all documents relating to the research, production, and promotion of the Clair app.”

Mason helpfully ticked off these three things on his fingers for the judge’s understanding.

“We have fully met that order, Your Honor,” he continued.

“Ms. Kitchens had nothing to do with those processes. She was merely an observer, and therefore we were under no obligation to provide what few documents and emails she authored. Thus the redactions that Mr. Haller hopes to cast as sinister.”

“Your Honor?” I said, raising my hand like a schoolboy.

“Yes, Mr. Haller,” Ruhlin said.

Mason stepped back from the lectern and took a position behind me, attempting to do to me what I had done to him.

“I find it interesting that Mr. Mason mentions emails authored by Naomi Kitchens,” I said. “I had not mentioned emails, Your Honor, and that tells me that the defense was familiar with the role she played in Project Clair and the numerous warnings she wrote in documents and emails. They then took steps to minimize the threat she presented to their case by scrubbing her entirely from the discovery materials. And I hope the court will keep in mind that this effort to scrub her from the project was undertaken before — long before — the first meeting I ever had with Professor Kitchens.”

Mason came up next to me, reached over the lectern, and bent the microphone’s arm toward himself.

“Your Honor, that is not the case,” he said. “There are not numerous documents and emails from Kitchens. Very few, in fact, and they are inconsequential to the case at hand.”

I spread my arms wide in protest.

“Your Honor, I think I still have the lectern,” I said.

“You do, Mr. Haller,” Ruhlin said. “Mr. Mason, step back. Now.”

Mason did so while I bent the mic’s arm back toward me.

“Your Honor, Mr. Mason is wrong,” I said. “Dr. Kitchens’s testimony is elemental to the plaintiffs’ case. She warned Tidalwaiv that Project Clair was not safe or appropriate for teenagers. Tidalwaiv fired her and ignored her warnings, which ratchets up their negligence to recklessness. I will give Mr. Mason the benefit of the doubt that he knows only what Tidalwaiv wants him to know. But there are numerous documents and emails from Dr. Kitchens. Fearing retaliation from the company when she offered warning after warning about Project Clair, she kept copies of every document and email she ever wrote about the project and she has turned them over to the plaintiffs’ legal team. She should be allowed to testify to authenticate for the jury these materials intentionally left out of discovery.”

“Your Honor?” Mason said.

Ruhlin hit him with a baleful look.

“It better be good, Mr. Mason,” she said.

I stepped back to give him the lectern.

“Judge, there are discovery issues on both sides here,” he said. “If Mr. Haller has this great trove of documents from this witness, why were they not provided to the defense? It seems like the pot calling the kettle black.”

I raised my hand.

“Not necessary, Mr. Haller,” Ruhlin said. “I am prepared to rule. Naomi Kitchens will be allowed to testify. As far as the documents she has provided the plaintiffs, these are documents Tidalwaiv either has or has destroyed. I find no violation of discovery on the part of the plaintiffs, and Mr. Mason, I advise you to have a sit-down with your clients to remind them of their obligations under this cause of action. I consider what happened with materials authored by Ms. Kitchens to be a serious violation of discovery. Now, any other objections to witnesses, or are we ready to bring in our potential jurors?”

I knew better than to push my luck. The ruling on Kitchens was a potential case-breaker. I quit while I was ahead and told the judge I was ready to proceed with voir dire.

But the Masons weren’t. They spent the next forty minutes pecking away at my witness list, the judge relenting in the name of time and whittling down the number of project managers, coders, and other Tidalwaiv employees I could call. They even challenged my inclusion of Victor Wendt, founder of Tidalwaiv. I protested all the way but it was purely for show. As I whispered to the two women who sat with me at the plaintiffs’ table, Kitchens was going to be our knockout punch. No matter how many names the judge lopped off my list, we were going to come out way ahead at the end of the session.

Or so I thought.

22

Some lawyers believe a trial is won or lost in jury selection. That may be true, but I also believe that a trial is won or lost in the selection of the attorney who takes the cause of action to court. I do know one thing for sure about juries. The one unalterable rule is that you must tailor the jury to your case. The juror questions I had written out earlier in the week brought back a wide variety of answers for me to look through before we got to the actual live selection process. Judge Ruhlin had called for a panel of fifty potential jurors, from which twelve would be selected. There would be no alternates chosen, because in civil court only six jurors were needed to deliver a verdict. We would start with twelve in the box, and as long as six made it to the finish line, we would get a verdict.

There were no names — I knew them only by the numbers assigned to them, one through fifty. But I had my favorites, had ranked them on a legal pad, and was ready to go with voir dire as soon as the hearing on witnesses ended. My number one juror happened to be number fifty in the stack and I thanked the stars above that she had gotten in under the wire. She was a retired schoolteacher who had raised two girls by herself in Reseda. She owned no digital devices besides her cell phone. She drove an American-made car and did not watch Netflix or Amazon Prime. She had never asked Siri or Alexa a question, because she didn’t know how. Her preferred method of consuming news was to watch the Fox cable network. She was perfect. The challenge was to get her into the final twelve seated in the box.

The judge had not allowed questions about religious or political affiliation, but she did permit questions about how the potential jurors consumed news and on what devices they did so. Their answers tended to reveal their political views, and from those views, I could make assumptions about religion. I wanted viewers of the conservative Fox channel on my jury because I believed they were likely Republican voters and Christians and therefore probably voted for Donald Trump in the last presidential election. I cast no aspersions on their vote, but it told me they were not happy — at least back in November, they weren’t — with the direction of things in the country and its future. AI was the future, but it scared people who knew it would change their world in ways they didn’t understand. That was who I wanted on the jury, people who felt uneasy and alienated from society. I readily admit it was a cynical way to pick a jury, but it could make all the difference in the trial.

The others on my list of acceptable jurors were medical-industry workers, clerical workers, graphic designers, a psychoanalyst, a French translator of movies and television shows, several out-of-work actors and set builders, and three screenwriters. These were not all Fox viewers, of course. In fact, there was a wide diversity in their answers to the juror interrogatories. In contrast to jurors like number fifty, who had no laptop or home computer, the actors and screenwriters had multiple digital devices. But what was common among the potential jurors whom I found acceptable was the possibility that their jobs would someday be replaced by AI-generated creations. I was going to give them the opportunity to make a stand against that.

Of course, the Mason twins knew who I was looking for. They had a whole jury-selection team working for them, fronted by the psychologist sitting at the defense table next to them, and they had their own list of favorites. Each team would now attempt to fill the box with its top choices while knocking out those of the opponent.

The judge was giving each side six peremptory challenges, meaning each of us had six bullets we could use to get rid of potential jurors with no explanation at all. After that, jurors could be excused only for cause, whether that was bias or conflict of interest or anything we objected to in their answers. So there was a strategy to it. I had a list of twenty-one acceptable jurors, which meant twenty-nine were not acceptable. I had ranked my favorites and my rejects. It was now my job to put as many of the twenty-one on the jury as I could.

High in my rankings of jurors to reject were people in technical careers that seemed safe from AI encroachment and possibly even in a position to benefit from its rise. There was a high-school football coach I knew I could not allow on the jury. An operator of a real estate search engine was another. Anyone who worked in the tech companies located in what was known as Silicon Beach had to go. I expected that high on the Mason list would be a potential juror who said he was a television producer. Use of AI in media production had been a hot-button topic in the recent writers’ and actors’ strikes that had crippled the industry. Soon scripts would be generated by machine instead of humans; digital screens filled with AI-produced images would save the cost of hiring actors and building sets. Profits might soar for producers, but that was why I had put the actors, set builders, and writers on my list.

The juror-selection process was meticulous. The judge would randomly select a juror number and proceed with her questions, elaborating on those in the questionnaire. She would then ask the lawyers if they had additional questions, and, a bit like playing the telephone game, we would ask the judge to ask the juror our questions. Ultimately, the judge would ask the lawyers if the juror was acceptable. An accepted juror wasn’t safely on the twelve-person panel, however. A peremptory challenge could still be used to excuse a juror at any time during voir dire.

This process lasted through two four-hour sessions broken up over two days. It was all-consuming. When I got home the night after the first session, I holed up in the back room of the house with my questionnaires and charts and lists. I spoke little at dinner with Maggie, and she understood because she knew I was working, whether what was in front of me was paperwork or the takeout noodles from Genghis Cohen. I broke away from it only to listen to her report on the US Army Corps of Engineers’ plans for clearing the debris from the desolate fire fields in Altadena. The center of Maggie’s life had become the recovery and rebuild zone — the “L.A. Strong” of it. When she was not dressed for work, she wore alternating baseball hats, one that read REBUILD ALTADENA and another that read MAKE ALTADENA GREAT AGAIN. I had to pay attention to her pain or I risked her anger. She had become very reactive in the weeks after losing her home and belongings. Any disappointment, big or small, brought oversize upset, sometimes even tears. It was difficult to watch, but I understood it and knew that my role was to console her at every turn.

Jury selection is a lot like an NBA basketball game. The first three quarters of the contest don’t really matter other than to set up the drama and strategy of the final period. Many observers and commentators of the sport point to a 1988 playoff match as possibly the greatest game of all time. It is credited as such because Larry Bird of the Boston Celtics scored twenty fourth-quarter points in a two-point seventh-game victory. This came after a lackluster first three quarters for Bird. I wasn’t a Celtics fan, not by a mile. I was a homer — Lakers all the way. In fact, it was the Lakers who eventually won the championship the year of Bird’s greatest-of-all-time game. But I’d watched that game when I was a kid, and I always wanted to be Larry Bird when it came to my court and the last quarter of my game.

That came Friday after the lunch break. Judge Ruhlin had sternly told all three lawyers that the jury selection would be completed by the end of the day and that trial would start without fail promptly at nine a.m. Monday. It was do-or-die time. Time to finish filling the box. There were ten people already accepted at the moment, including the football coach, whom I still intended to oust. I was down to two peremptories, and the Masons had the same. Five women had been accepted to the panel, which was good. What wasn’t good was that my top pick, number fifty, had been taken out with a peremptory by the Masons. So, too, had the psychoanalyst.

The session started with juror seventeen, the television producer, being put into the next opening in the box. The judge started asking innocuous follow-up questions to those on the jury survey. On the questionnaire, the producer said he had been born in Stockholm, Sweden, but was a US citizen as well. Still, his accent came as a surprise to me. I was used to thick Spanish accents in potential jurors.

After her questioning, the judge asked if the lawyers had any additional queries for the producer. The Masons had none. I asked the judge to ask the candidate if he had ever explored the use of artificial intelligence in the production of a television show. She did, and the Swede answered without hesitation.

“Explored it but never used it,” he said. “Yet.”

That last word was all I needed. I asked the judge to excuse him for conflict of interest. This brought an objection from Marcus Mason.

“Your Honor,” he said, “this would be like excusing a juror in a personal-injury car-crash case for having driven a car. Because this man has checked out how artificial intelligence might improve his product does not constitute a conflict of interest. Are we now going to excuse anyone who has ever asked Siri a question?”

“I tend to agree, Mr. Haller,” the judge said. “I’m going to accept juror seventeen to the panel. Unless you want to use one of your remaining peremptory challenges.”

“Could I have a moment, Judge?” I asked.

“Don’t take too long,” Ruhlin said.

I looked over my shoulder to the gallery section reserved for the prospective jurors who had not yet been called forward and questioned. I confirmed that there were five left, three men and two women. There were eleven in the box, including the Swede for the time being. I could use my last challenges to shoot down the Swede and the football coach, but then I would be out of bullets. I checked what I called my jury scorecard. On a legal pad I had numbered the jurors one through fifty and ranked them in my order of preference. I had scratched out those who had been dismissed and circled those who were currently in the box. Of the five numbers left, two were among my favorites. Juror six was a man and juror twelve was a woman. Juror twelve I had ranked as my number three pick because she was a set builder for film and TV and could be one of the first to be made redundant by AI invading Hollywood production. I badly wanted her on the jury, especially since my first two picks had been knocked out by the Masons.

Juror six was also in my top twelve. He had listed his occupation as a market analyst for an investment firm. He was a sleeper on my list because he checked a box the Masons would like — if they had done the same research my team had. Lorna had looked at the firm juror six worked for and determined that it invested heavily in tech companies involved in developing AI technologies. That would appear to make him pro-AI to the Masons, but the reality was that he could easily be replaced as an analyst by the very technology his company invested in. It was my hope that the Masons would be blinded by the AI investments and not realize the possible concerns juror six might have about his future.

I needed to scheme a way to get my last two favorites into the box.

I looked back over my shoulder again. Of the two women remaining, one was Black, one was white. We had not been allowed to ask questions about race in the interrogatories, so it was not clear which one was the set builder. According to my chart, the other remaining woman worked in Beverly Hills as a personal assistant. This would need further clarification during the judge’s questioning, but my guess was she was likely a gofer for a wealthy resident of the high-end enclave. I had ranked her twenty-eighth on my chart, meaning that I could accept her on the jury if I had no better choice.

I looked closely at the two women. The Black woman had a short-cropped Afro, and her short sleeves revealed well-defined biceps. She looked like she might work with her hands, keeping her hair short and out of the way. I believed this boosted the chances that she was the set builder.

Looking back at the jury box, I confirmed that only one of the current accepted jurors was Black. He was a postal worker who had been on my favorites list.

“Mr. Haller, we’re waiting,” Ruhlin said.

I looked up at her.

“Yes, Your Honor,” I said. “The plaintiffs want to thank and excuse juror number seventeen.”

The television producer.

“You’re using a peremptory?” Ruhlin asked.

“Yes, Your Honor.”

“Very well. That leaves you with one remaining challenge. Juror seventeen, you are excused, and we thank you for your service.”

The Swede smiled and quickly stood up. He moved out of the box and headed toward the courtroom exit, his body language signaling that he was insulted by his expulsion from the case.

The next randomly selected juror called to the box was a man who was not on my list of favorites. He was an electrical engineer who would benefit from the continuing expansion of artificial intelligence in business and society. AI systems used massive amounts of electricity, and people with his credentials would always be needed. But I easily conflicted him out because he revealed during questioning that he had gone to the University of Wisconsin with one of the key coders of the Clair project, and they had lived in the same fraternity house.

The next man called was knocked out by Marcus Mason because in his responses to interrogatories submitted by the defense, he had listed Terminator 2: Judgment Day as one of his favorite movies. The film is about artificial intelligence turning against humanity, and Marcus Mason successfully argued that this tainted the potential juror and left him unable to keep an open mind while deciding the case. He had not been on my favorites list, because I knew when I saw his Terminator answer that he would be terminated from the jury.

His dismissal left three remaining candidates for two slots.

When the judge called juror twelve to the box for questioning, the Black woman came forward. I confirmed on my list that twelve was indeed the set builder and got ready for what I assumed was going to be a battle. After brief questioning by the judge brought no surprises or obvious bias, I accepted her for the jury. Marcus Mason then used one of his two remaining peremptories to excuse her. I immediately stood and objected, then moved to the lectern.

“Your Honor,” I said. “A jury is supposed to be representative of the community. By my count, this is the fourth time Mr. Mason has used his challenges or objections to remove a minority member of the community from the panel. And my concern is that he will use his last peremptory challenge to remove the only Black person remaining in the jury box. This will make the composition of the jury suspect in terms of diversity and representation, and the plaintiffs strenuously object.”

Marcus Mason was up from his seat and moving to the lectern before I was even finished. He once again addressed the court before the judge called on him. I knew he would put on histrionics in his response. He had to play to the jurors as well as the judge now.

“Your Honor, I find counsel’s insinuation insulting and preposterous,” he said. “I have been a lawyer in this city for eighteen years and no one has ever questioned my reputation when it comes to equality and diversity. My firm donates liberally every month every year to causes that support racial equality and gender equality. This past month alone we have donated more than one hundred thousand dollars to fire-relief programs working in the minority communities of Altadena. We—”

“Thank you, Mr. Mason,” the judge said, cutting him off. “The question is about the composition of the jury.”

“I’m sorry, Your Honor,” Mason said. “But Mr. Haller hit a nerve with his unfounded complaint.”

“Again, Mr. Mason, the concern is not about you,” Ruhlin said. “It is about the makeup of our jury.”

“I can assure you, Judge, I will not be using my final challenge to remove anyone currently in the jury box,” Mason said. “Mr. Haller’s suggestion is unconscionable.”

“Well, I have to say I share his concern,” Ruhlin countered. “Can you tell me why you want to dismiss juror twelve?”

“All right, fine,” Mason said. “I withdraw the challenge. Juror twelve is accepted by the defense.”

“Very well,” Ruhlin said. “Juror twelve is accepted as the eleventh member of the jury. Thank you.”

We were down to one seat left in the jury box and two potential jurors waiting to be questioned. The next number the judge called belonged to the financial analyst. I wanted him on the jury but had to make it seem like I was ambivalent about him. The judge’s questioning raised no red flags. As she came to the last of her routine questions, I turned in my seat and leaned close to my two clients to whisper.

“We’re almost there,” I said. “I think we can live with these last two if we have to. I’m not worried about this guy, but the—”

While I was whispering, the judge asked if I had any additional questions, but I acted like I didn’t hear her because of the conversation at the table.

“Mr. Haller!” Ruhlin barked.

“I’m sorry, Your Honor,” I said. “I got distracted. Uh, juror six is accepted by the plaintiffs.”

“Thank you,” Ruhlin said. “Mr. Mason, any further questions from you?”

“No, Your Honor,” Mason said. “Juror six is accepted by the defense.”

Bingo. The analyst was in.

“Very good,” Ruhlin said. “We have twelve jurors selected.”

I stood up and went to the lectern with my legal pad.

“Your Honor,” I said. “Plaintiffs would like to use our last challenge to thank and excuse juror nineteen.”

The football coach was out. I was rolling the dice, gambling that the Beverly Hills personal assistant would be a better choice, if only because it added another female to the panel, tilting it to seven women, five men. I would have the female majority I was looking for.

The judge called the personal assistant to the box and questioned her. My assumption had been on the money. She worked for a wealthy woman and handled a variety of chores, from returning online purchases to walking a pet poodle to grocery shopping. No red flags were raised and I accepted her to the jury. Marcus Mason did as well.

The box was now full, but Marcus Mason still had two challenges in his pocket. My view was that you never left a challenge on the table, but if he used one now, the judge would have to call in a second panel of potential jurors and that would likely push completion of jury selection to Monday. More than once, the judge had sternly reminded us that jury selection would not carry over the weekend.

“Do the parties to the lawsuit accept the jury?” Ruhlin asked.

“Plaintiffs accept the jury as composed, Your Honor,” I said.

Marcus hesitated, probably weighing whether it was wise to upset the judge before the trial even started.

“Mr. Mason?” Ruhlin prompted.

“Yes, Your Honor,” he finally said. “The defense accepts the jury.”

“Excellent,” the judge said. “We have our jury, and the jurors are ordered to report to the assembly room next to this courtroom at nine a.m. Monday. Don’t be late. You are now excused and the court thanks you for your service. Court is now adjourned.”

As the judge left the bench I turned to my clients seated next to me.

“I think we did well here,” I said. “We’ve got a good jury.”

“How come you kicked out the football coach?” Brenda asked. “I thought he seemed like a good man.”

“It was just a hunch,” I said. “He coaches boys in a violent sport. He deals with teenage boys every day, listens to their complaints, knows their insecurities. I just wasn’t sure where his sympathies would truly be, so I went with my gut. Sometimes it’s what you have to do. I like who we got better, the personal assistant. I think she’ll be on our side.”

I promised them I would be prepping for the trial all weekend and would be in touch. I asked them to take photos of what they planned to wear on the first day and text them to me. I would show the photos to Lorna and maybe Maggie and ask what they thought.

As I was leaving the courtroom, Marcus Mason caught up to me, as I’d known he would. His brother was trailing behind him.

“You motherfucker,” he said. “That stunt you just pulled? Fuck you, man. I’m going to tear you apart next week and love every minute of it.”

I smiled and nodded my head.

“Have a good weekend, Marcus,” I said. “And get some rest. You’re going to need it.”

23

Drained by the intensity of the two days of jury selection, I allowed myself to sleep in on Saturday and didn’t get to the warehouse until 10:30, the time for which I had scheduled an all-hands meeting. I arrived to find an LAPD patrol wagon parked in front of the building.

I parked behind it, entered through the door into the larger garage, and found Lorna and Cisco talking to two uniformed officers. Lorna broke away from them and walked up to me with urgency.

“Oh my God, I thought something had happened to you,” she said. “Why haven’t you been answering your phone?”

“It’s dead,” I said. “I was so tired last night I forgot to plug it in. You called the cops because I didn’t answer my phone?”

“No, there was a break-in last night. We discovered it when we got here today. The door was wide open.”

She pointed toward the door I had just entered through.

“Shit,” I said. “What was taken?”

“We’re not sure yet,” Lorna said. “But it looks like nothing’s gone.”

“What about the cage?”

“Same thing. Can’t tell yet if anything’s gone.”

“The hard drive?”

“I took it home last night.”

“Good. Did anybody check the cameras?”

“You had them turned off, remember?”

I had been worried about Tidalwaiv hijacking the feed.

“It was them,” I said.

“Who?” Lorna asked.

“Tidalwaiv. Had to be.”

“Why? Everything we have came from them in discovery.”

“Not the stuff we got from Naomi.”

We had dispensed with use of the code name Challenger, since Naomi Kitchens had been revealed and approved as a witness.

“But isn’t all of that copies of stuff she sent to them?” Lorna said. “So they would already have that.”

“Not if they purged it,” I said.

I nodded toward the two officers talking to Cisco. One was writing on a clipboard.

“Are they calling in the detectives?” I asked.

“They said they’ll give the report to the burglary squad for follow-up on Monday,” Lorna said. “From Central Division.”

“I won’t hold my breath. This is like the Grant High break-in. Nothing missing, but they were here and they want us to know it. Do I need to talk to them or are you two handling it?”

“We can handle it. I think they’re about to go.”

“Then I’ll be in my office. After they leave, I need you and Cisco in there for the meeting.”

“Okay. They said don’t touch the safe in case the detectives want to send a tech to look for fingerprints.”

“Did you tell them it has no locking mechanism and we don’t keep valuable stuff in it?”

“Yes, but they said the burglars might not have known that.”

I walked by the cops and Cisco to the office. The first thing I did when I got there was plug my dead phone into the charging line on my desk. Then I leaned in through the open door of the Mosler. The contracts McEvoy had signed as well as a few other case files seemed to be untouched. I sat down at the desk, picked up the landline, and called Jack McEvoy, who was up in Palo Alto. I put the call on speaker.

“Our meeting is going to be slightly delayed,” I said. “The cops are here. Somebody broke into the warehouse last night.”

“Shit, what did they get?” McEvoy asked.

“We still don’t know. Maybe nothing. Have you talked to Naomi yet?”

“Uh, no, not since last night. I was going to go over after our all-hands call.”

“Go over now. Make sure everything’s okay and call me back.”

“Why wouldn’t everything be okay?”

“I don’t know. That’s why I want you to check.”

I reached over and dropped the phone into its cradle, ending the call. I checked my cell phone and saw it already had enough juice to be opened as long as I kept the charger plugged in. There had been five missed calls and voicemails since nine a.m. Four of the voicemails were from Lorna that morning, her voice growing more intense with each call as she panicked about why I wasn’t responding and wasn’t at the office. The fifth was from Marcus Mason, and it had been left at one minute after nine. He didn’t bother identifying himself.

“Haller, call me. We need to talk.”

I got up from the desk and closed the door, then went back and hit the Return Call button. It was Mason’s cell and he answered right away.

“Haller, we have to meet,” he said.

“Mason, I just got your client’s message,” I said.

“What? What message?”

“The little break-in at my office last night.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Of course not.”

“Look, never mind that, we have to meet.”

“About what?”

“We have a new offer. A final offer.”

“You know how to make a federal judge mad as hell? You settle a case after she’s spent two days picking a jury.”

“Doesn’t matter. When can you meet?”

“Marcus, what happened to ‘I’m going to tear you apart next week and love every minute of it’?”

“I would have. But the company wants this over. Too much at stake to put the outcome in the hands of twelve idiots. When can you meet? Where?”

“I’m not meeting you, Marcus. I’ve got too much to do today.”

“It’s your obligation to listen and deliver a settlement offer to your clients in a timely fashion.”

“We don’t have to meet. Give it to me and I’ll deliver it. Simple.”

There was a long pause as Mason decided what to do.

“Fifty million,” he finally said. “Your clients decide how to chop it up. The company doesn’t care. Same conditions as the previous offers.”

Now I paused. I felt ashamed because my first thought was about what my cut of fifty million dollars would be. Mason seemed to know this.

“What’s that mean for you, Haller?” he asked. “Twenty million? You should be able to convince them to take it for that.”

I actually had a sliding scale. The higher the settlement, the lower my percentage went until it hit 20 percent. In this case, that meant I’d get ten million if my clients took this deal. It was more money than I’d earned in my entire career. It would be more than enough to retire on and to build back better Maggie’s home.

I shook off these thoughts and regained focus.

“What are they scared of, Marcus?” I asked.

“I told them I have this in hand,” Mason said. “But they just want it to go away.”

I said nothing for a long moment.

“Take it to them, Haller,” Mason said. “You have just over six hours. The offer expires at five. All parties must agree. No split settlement. You understand?”

“I understand,” I said. “Put it in writing and email it to me so I have something to show them.”

“I just did.”

“Then I’ll review it and—”

Mason disconnected.

“Fuck you too,” I said.

I opened the email app on my phone and saw the offer on top. I read it, looking for any discrepancy between what Mason had just said and what he had written. There was none. The email was a duplicate of the previous settlement offer except that the number had changed and it contained the additional line about the clients deciding how to divide the money. I wondered what was behind that line. Had the Masons been back-channeling with the Coltons? Did the opposition think that giving the Coltons the possibility of a bigger chunk would help bring the sides to agreement?

There was a single knock on the door and Lorna walked in.

“What’s going on?” she asked.

“Are they gone?” I asked. “The cops?”

“Yes. Cisco walked them out. We can start our meeting when he gets back. Should I call Jack?”

“I just talked to him. He’s checking on Naomi and then he’ll call back.”

“Challenger.”

Lorna pointed to the ceiling as if that might be where Tidalwaiv had planted listening devices.

“Tidalwaiv knows about her from court,” I said. “No need for code words anymore.”

“Right,” Lorna said. “What is Jack checking on?”

“I don’t know. We had a break-in here. I just want to make sure she’s okay up there.”

“Mickey, you really think Tidalwaiv is behind this? It’s not the greatest neighborhood, you know.”

“If it had been a real break-in, we would have noticed things gone. The place would have been torn up. There’s two thousand dollars in copper netting over the cage, plus the laptops are in there. This was Tidalwaiv, Lorna. They were looking for something.”

“What?”

“I don’t know. Or maybe they were just trying to send a message.”

“What message?”

“That they’re playing hardball? I’m not sure.”

“And they call it civil court.”

“Ain’t that a joke.”

I heard the front door of the warehouse close and soon Cisco entered the office.

“What’s happening?” he asked.

“Cisco, I want you to sweep the warehouse again,” I said. “If they didn’t take anything, then maybe they left something behind.”

“On it,” Cisco said.

“And we just got another settlement offer from Tidalwaiv,” I said.

“How much?” Cisco asked.

“Fifty million,” I said.

“Holy shit!” Lorna said.

“Yeah,” I said. “I have to tell our clients.”

Cisco dropped into the chair across the desk from me.

“Think they’ll go for it?” he asked.

“I think I would if I were them,” I said. “Too bad, though. It would have been a fun trial.”

“But hard to walk away from fifty mil,” Cisco said.

“No,” Lorna said. “Brenda’s going to say no. She’s a rock.”

I nodded. Lorna was probably right. My cell buzzed. It was McEvoy. I answered.

“Jack, you’re on speaker,” I said. “Things have changed.”

“Fucking A, they have,” he said. “Naomi’s backing out.”

“What happened? Why?”

“She’s a mess. Her daughter called from school. A man came to her dorm room last night and scared the shit out of her. He told her that if her mother testifies, her mother dies. That’s all he said, but it was enough.”

I saw Lorna bring her hand to her mouth.

“Goddamn them,” I said.

“What should I do?” Jack asked.

I stood up because I couldn’t sit anymore. I put both hands on the desk and leaned over the phone.

“Listen, things are happening here,” I said. “We might be settling this today.”

“They can’t fucking settle!” Jack yelled. “Not after this.”

“It’s the clients’ call,” I said. “I need you to stay up there until we know. Are you still at Naomi’s?”

“No,” Jack said. “She told me to get the hell out. She blames us for this.”

I nodded. Naomi was right. We had brought all of this to her door.

“Okay, just stand by,” I said. “We’ll know what’s happening soon.”

“Got it,” he said.

I disconnected and stood up straight. I started pacing, trying to think how I should present the offer. I would go to the Coltons first, then Brenda Randolph. I saw a stack of file folders on a side table near the safe.

“What’s all of this?” I asked.

“That’s the Snow case,” Lorna said. “Yesterday I went down to archives under the CCB and copied what they still had.”

I had been so consumed by jury selection that I pushed Cassie Snow and her father’s case completely out of my head.

“Were any of the exhibits still there?” I asked.

“Some,” Lorna said. “Like what?”

“Cassie Snow’s X-rays.”

“Yes, I made copies, though they aren’t as good as the real things. They’re in one of those files.”

“We’ll have to petition a judge to let us have the originals.”

“No, what I mean is I made copies of copies. The original X-rays weren’t there.”

“That doesn’t make sense. Where are they?”

“I don’t know. Could they have been filed with the appeals?”

“Maybe. We’ll have to deal with that later.”

I moved my attention out of the Snow case and back into Tidalwaiv.

“Okay, you two can clear and I’m going to call the clients,” I said. “Cisco, depending on how this goes, I might need to send you up to San Francisco to watch over Naomi’s daughter until we can get them both down here and safe.”

“Just say the word,” Cisco said.

“Mickey, Naomi said she’s out,” Lorna said. “You heard. She kicked Jack out of her house.”

“In the heat of the moment,” I said. “She might change her mind if her fear turns back to anger.”

“Good luck with that,” Lorna said.

“Yeah,” I said. “We’re going to need it.”

They cleared out of the office and I closed the door. Before calling the clients, I called Bambadjan Bishop on the burner phone. I didn’t bother with a greeting.

“Are you still up north?”

“Uh, no. Got home last night. Was going to call you about getting my money.”

“I’ll bring it to you tomorrow. So you weren’t in San Francisco last night?”

“No, man, I got back here about eight. What’s going on in San Francisco?”

“Nothing. Never mind. I’ll call you tomorrow and we’ll meet.”

I disconnected and for a few minutes sat with what had happened over the past seventy-two hours.

I had used Bishop to help convince Naomi Kitchens to testify. Somebody else had just convinced her to change her mind. I realized that Tidalwaiv had taken a page from my own playbook and followed it with a fifty-million-dollar chaser.

24

Bruce and Trisha Colton were not in the same place — Trisha was at home and she said her husband was out. I waited while she phoned him and connected all of us.

“What’s this about?” Bruce said in his usual gruff manner. “I’m in the middle of a round of golf with a client.”

I thought it must be nice to get out on the golf course on a Saturday while your son the killer was being probed by the shrinks at the Sylmar juvenile hall.

“I have a new offer from Tidalwaiv,” I said. “We can talk when you’re free, but the offer expires at five this afternoon.”

“No, no, I want to hear it,” Bruce said. “Go ahead with it.”

I switched to speaker, opened the email Marcus Mason had sent, and read it verbatim in a flat voice that conveyed none of my feelings about the offer.

“What does that part about division to be discretionary between plaintiffs mean?” Bruce asked the moment I finished.

“It means the offer is fifty million that’s split whichever way the plaintiffs decide they want to split it,” I said.

I suspected the offer had been structured that way because the Masons either knew or sensed that Bruce had wanted to take the last settlement. By creating a possible windfall increase for the Coltons, the Masons were hoping to enlist Bruce, at least, as an ally who would press the others to take the money.

“So you’re saying it could be a third, a third, and a third?” Bruce asked.

“It could be, but that’s not going to happen, Bruce,” I said. “You and Trisha are one plaintiff, Brenda Randolph is the other.”

“That’s not what it says in the consolidated lawsuit,” Bruce said. “It names all three of us. All three of us should get a vote.”

“Bruce, you’re not listening,” I said. “You and Trisha do not get two votes. The two of you get one. Brenda gets one.”

“Well, what is she saying?” Bruce said. “This is serious money.”

“I haven’t talked to her yet,” I said. “I’m going to call her next.”

“What happens if we say yes and she says no?” Bruce asked.

“Then we pass on the offer,” I said.

“Listen to me — you have to convince her to take it,” Bruce said. “This kind of mon—”

“Bruce, she lost her daughter,” Trisha interrupted. “We can’t demand that she—”

“And our son’s going to the nuthouse,” Bruce interrupted right back. “Nothing changes that. But we are victims just as much as she is.”

I found myself wishing I hadn’t taken on the Coltons as clients and combined the cases. And I was beginning to see why their son became so alienated in their home that he fell in love with and obeyed an online fantasy.

“Look, I just want to get a read on this from you both,” I said. “Bruce, you want to take the deal. Trisha, I need to hear your answer as well.”

“She’s a yes,” Bruce said.

“I need to hear it from her,” I said. “Trisha?”

There was a long silence on the line, followed by a prompt from Bruce.

“Tell ’im, Patricia,” he said. “This is change-our-lives money. It’s the lottery.”

More silence, and then:

“I guess so,” Trisha said. “But only if Brenda wants to.”

“Well, she’ll have to agree,” I said, “or there’s no deal.”

“Let’s get her on the line right now,” Bruce said.

“No, that’s not how this works,” I said. “This is a question I discuss with each client separately and privately. I’m going to see if I can get hold of Brenda as soon as we hang up. I’ll then let you know what has been decided.”

“I don’t understand why she has all the power in this thing,” Bruce said.

“It’s because her daughter was murdered, Bruce,” I said. “By your son. I’ll call you back after I talk to her.”

I disconnected before Bruce could get another word in.

I stood up and walked around the desk, trying to shake off the greasy feeling I had gotten from the conversation. This was the downside of civil work. In criminal, it was often your client’s freedom at stake. Yes, my clients had often been criminals already, but there was something noble about defending the damned and trying to win their freedom or at least ameliorate their situation. It was you against the power of the state.

In civil, it was usually about one thing: money. Using money as punishment. Clients might claim they wanted to protect others from dangerous products or reprehensible behavior, but when the lawyers and corporations and insurance companies started adding zeros to their settlement offers, those noble foundations often crumbled. Bruce Colton was in this camp and might always have been. But I’d take one of my old criminal clients over a Bruce Colton any day of the week.

I sat down and called Brenda Randolph’s cell but she didn’t pick up. I left a message saying I needed to talk to her before five. Despite my misgivings about the Coltons, it was my guess that Brenda would decline the offer. I was more looking forward to passing the news to Bruce Colton than to Marcus Mason.

But in case I was wrong about Brenda, I didn’t want to spin my wheels prepping my opening statement or doing any other work on the Tidalwaiv case. I got up from my desk and went to the side table where Lorna had put the stack of files from the Snow case. Lorna had organized the copies she had made in the courthouse basement into six separate manila files with tabs reading TRANSCRIPTS, POLICE REPORTS, CHRONOLOGY, X-RAYS, PSI/SENTENCING, and APPEALS. At the moment, I was interested in the X-rays, though I knew I should read the presentencing investigation report because it would be a concise summary of the case and would include the psychological evaluation made of David Snow shortly after he was convicted. It would be a good way to immerse myself in the case again and get up to speed. But for now I took only the X-rays file back to my desk.

It was the thinnest file in the stack. It contained photocopies of the thirteen X-rays of Cassandra Snow’s bones that were found to have been broken during the first two years of her life. The X-rays were marked at the bottom corner with their exhibit number. They included images of humerus and ulna fractures in the arms, the tibia in the left leg, various finger and rib fractures, and the crushed vertebra in Cassandra’s spine that had made the pediatric ER doctor call in the police. From day one and all the way to his sentencing, her father had claimed the vertebra fracture happened when the girl fell while climbing out of her stroller. But the prosecution’s medical experts testified that it could not have happened that way and that it was the result of a harsh blow or kick to the back. Add to the David Snow package the other untreated broken bones, a list of witnesses who said the baby was heard crying constantly, and a prior accusation of violence, and you got a quick conviction and an overly harsh sentence from a judge up for reelection. Snow got a longer sentence than some convicted murderers of children.

I was surprised by the quality of the photocopies. They were not as clear as the originals on a light box, but I could see the healed break lines of the older injuries as well as the T12 vertebra break that had rendered Cassandra paraplegic. From my briefcase I pulled the legal pad that I had written notes on during my lunch with Cassie Snow. I flipped through the pages and found the names and numbers of the doctors who had treated her following her recent car accident. I grabbed the desk phone and called the orthopedic surgeon who had suspected she had osteogenesis imperfecta and sent her to the geneticist for the official diagnosis.

The call went to an answering service, as the office was closed for the weekend. I left a message explaining that I was an attorney representing his patient Cassandra Snow and urgently needed to speak with the doctor. While I waited for the doctor to call back, Brenda returned my call.

“Sorry,” she said. “I had my phone turned off for a therapy session.”

“Not a problem,” I said. “We have another offer from Tidalwaiv I need to go over with you.”

“Do we have to?”

“Yes, but this one you might want to consider, Brenda.”

“Okay, I’ll listen.”

But then the landline started to buzz, and I saw that Cassandra Snow’s doctor was calling.

“Brenda, I need to jump off to take a call I’ve been waiting for,” I said. “Stay by your phone and I’ll call you right back.”

I hung up my cell and grabbed the desk line before it went to voicemail.

“This is Mickey Haller.”

“This is Dr. Sheldon, how can I help you?”

“Yes, Doctor, thanks for calling me back. I represent your patient Cassandra Snow. I—”

“If this is about insurance, I don’t handle—”

“No, it’s about osteogenesis imperfecta. You diagnosed her with it.”

“Well, I suspected she had it and sent her to the geneticist. What is it you need?”

“What I would like is for you to look at copies of X-rays taken when Cassandra was two years old, when a lot of the old breaks you saw on your X-rays were recent, including the T twelve break in her spine.”

“And what would be the purpose of me looking at these X-rays?”

“Cassandra has hired me to help get her father out of prison. He’s been there for twenty years, ever since he was convicted of hurting her. I was his lawyer then and I am now. If Cassandra had OI then, we might be able to prove what her father has said all along — that she broke her back falling out of a stroller, not because he abused her.”

There was no response. I waited. Then I prompted, “Doctor, you still with me?”

“I’m here. I’m deciding whether I want to get involved in this.”

“David Snow, Cassie’s father, is dying. He’s got cancer. The prison doctors have given him nine months to live. Cassie wants to bring him home. She never believed he did the things he was accused of. He has always denied it, even when admitting it could have gotten him parole.”

This time I waited out the doctor’s silence.

“Okay, send the X-rays,” he finally said. “I’ll take a look and tell you what I think.”

“Thank you, Doctor,” I said.

I hung up and immediately called Brenda Randolph back.

“I really don’t want to take a deal” were the words she opened with.

“I understand that completely,” I said. “But I’m obligated to bring this to you. I mean, lawyers have been disbarred for not bringing settlement offers to their clients. Besides, they have jacked up the offer significantly, and, I’m just saying, you might want to think about it.”

“No, but go ahead. What is it?”

“I’m going to read you the email so you get exactly what they’re offering.”

I was two-thirds through reading and well past the money offer when Brenda interrupted with a loud “No!”

“Let me just finish reading it,” I said. “Then we can discuss it.”

“I don’t want to discuss it,” Brenda said.

“Okay, well, let me finish, all right? I need to give you the full offer and the parameters.”

“Go ahead, but I’m not doing this.”

Thirty seconds later I finished delivering the offer.

“Brenda, I know what you said, but I have an obligation to tell you to think twice about this,” I said. “It is a lot of money. You could do a lot of good things with it. You could set up a foundation in Rebecca’s name. It could be a force for advocacy. And you have to remember, anything can happen in a trial. I think we’re in good shape, but anything can happen.”

I, of course, was not telling her that we might have lost a key witness, Naomi Kitchens. I wasn’t going to reveal that until I took a run at bringing Kitchens back into the fold.

“Even if we lose, we’ll still get the story out,” Brenda replied. “In the trial. And that’s more important to me than the money.”

“You’re right about that. The media will be all over this trial.”

“Have you talked to the Coltons? I’m sure Bruce wants this.”

“I did, and you’re right, he wants to take the money. But you control this, Brenda. What you decide goes.”

There was a long silence on the line before she spoke again.

“I don’t think I could live with myself if I took it,” she said. “A foundation sounds nice but this whole thing is about holding that company accountable. Publicly accountable. And this... this is just a payoff. Fifty million dollars to shut up and just accept what happened to Becca. I can’t do it, Mickey. How could I live a rich life on blood money? Her blood.”

“I didn’t expect that you could, Brenda,” I said. “But it was my duty to bring it to you.”

“Are you mad at me? You would have made a lot of money yourself. You could start a foundation.”

“Maybe a home for wayward lawyers? No, Brenda, I’m not mad. I’m proud of you. I’m proud I represent you. And I won’t let you down next week. We’ll tell the world.”

“Thank you, Mickey.”

“Listen, I’m going to call you tomorrow. I’m not ready now, but I want to go over your testimony and how that should go.”

“I’ll be here.”

After we disconnected, I grabbed the file of X-rays and left the office. Lorna and Cisco were in the cage. When I pushed through the copper curtain, I was already talking.

“I just got off the phone with Brenda Randolph,” I said. “She turned the offer down and we’re going to trial. Cisco, I need you to go to San Francisco and set up a watch on Naomi’s daughter.”

“Copy that,” Cisco said. “All right if I bring in some backup? One-man surveillance is always a recipe for failure.”

“Do it,” I said. “The more the merrier, because I’m going to use this show of force to help convince Naomi to come back on board as a witness. Just try to keep the expenses down.”

“You mean I can’t stay at the Hopkins?” Cisco asked.

I smiled and shook my head.

“You’re not staying anywhere,” I said. “I want you on the street outside this girl’s dorm. You can get her details from Jack.”

“What about Harry Bosch?” Cisco said. “Can I call him?”

“You can call him,” I said. “But last I heard, he wasn’t doing so good. You might want to get somebody who can move quickly if they have to.”

“Got it,” Cisco said.

“What’s wrong with Harry?” Lorna asked.

“He’s now got some heart stuff going on,” I said. “He’s on blood thinners for blood clots, stuff like that.”

“Oh boy,” Lorna said.

“What about Bamba?” Cisco asked. “Could use him if he’s free.”

“No,” I said, a little too quickly. “Uh, I’d prefer it if you used people with legit PI licenses for this. I have to make some calls now.”

“What do you need from me, Mickey?” Lorna asked. “I could go to Frisco with Cisco. Has a nice ring to it.”

I handed her the file.

“No, I need you down here running the show, Lorna,” I said. “And I need you to get these X-ray copies to Cassandra Snow’s doctor.”

“Will do,” Lorna said.

Back in my office, I sat down and felt relieved that I had stopped Cisco from calling Bamba Bishop to be part of the Lily Kitchens protective detail. Possible disaster averted. I called Jack McEvoy up in Palo Alto.

“Jack, I want you to stick around up there,” I said. “No settlement. We aren’t folding our tent.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” McEvoy said.

“I bet you are. Wouldn’t be much of a book if everybody signed NDAs.”

“There would be no book.”

“That still might be the case if we don’t get Naomi Kitchens back on our witness list.”

“So what do you want me to do?”

“I’m sending Cisco up with a crew to watch over her daughter. Tell her that.”

“She doesn’t want to talk to me.”

“Come on, Jack, you’re a journalist. You must encounter a lot of people who don’t want to talk to you. But you always find a way, I bet. Same thing here. You have to impress upon her that she and her daughter won’t be safe until she testifies. Once her story is on the record, there’s no reason for Tidalwaiv to do anything to them.”

“Got it.”

“We need to get her down here so I can work with her a little bit before the trial starts. She’ll be on the stand by Tuesday, I’m thinking.”

“Okay, I’ll try.”

“By the way, did you ever look into the voice Tidalwaiv used for Clair?”

“I did. They tested several voices. There was a lot of research put into it, but I haven’t had time to dig further.”

“Okay, let me know when you do. And let me know if anything changes with Kitchens. If you need me to come up there, I will.”

“I’ll let you know.”

I hung up, took a few deep breaths, then picked the phone back up and called Bruce Colton. It would have been easier to deliver the news to Trisha, but I kind of relished the idea of giving the bully the bad news.

When he answered, I said, “Bruce, I’ll make this short and sweet. We’re going to trial. Brenda has turned down Tidalwaiv’s offer.”

There was only silence.

“Bruce, are you there?” I asked.

“You convinced her to go to trial, didn’t you?” he said.

“Actually, no. I read her the email like I did with you and she said no. That’s it.”

“Then all I can say is that you better not fuck this up, Haller. And you better get us more than fifty million dollars.”

“I can’t make you any promises, Bruce. Like I’ve told you many times, anything can happen in a trial and usually does.”

“Fuck that. It was a big mistake bringing this to you in the first place. Last time I ever listen to my wife.”

I was surprised to hear that he had ever listened to his wife.

“We’ll see,” I said. “I’m going to hang up now, Bruce. I’ve got a lot to get done by Monday. Have a good weekend and I’ll see you in court.”

I disconnected before he could hit me with another verbal threat. It wasn’t what I needed to hear. I already knew how high the stakes were in this case.

I set an alarm on my phone for 4:59 p.m. and went to work sketching out what I would say to the jury in my opening statement Monday. While the opener was not evidence and the judge would instruct the jury to that effect, to me it was one of the most important moments of a trial. It was when I would stand before the jury and sell myself and my clients to them. It would be my first chance to draw their sympathy to my clients. And it would be when I laid the foundation I would build my case on. I would make this stand directly in front of the jury, and that was why they called that spot where there was nothing between you and the jurors the proving ground. It was where you put up or shut up.

In the last hour before five o’clock, I got two calls from Marcus Mason that I let go to voicemail.

“What’s it going to be, Haller?” he said in the first message. “You got an hour and then fifty million goes away.”

His voice was a couple of octaves higher in the second message.

“Haller, what the fuck, your time is running out,” he said.

The increased tone of desperation in the second message told me that Tidalwaiv was seriously concerned about what would come out at trial and how it would affect the prospects of an acquisition or merger.

At 4:59 my phone alarm buzzed. I put down my pen and sent Mason a text.

Then I sent him a second text.

These messages brought another call from Mason, but once again I let it go to voicemail. I wasn’t interested in talking to him.