Clara Reed's apartment was neat, quiet, and illuminated by the blue glow of her laptop screen. A single cup of cold tea sat forgotten beside her. The hour was late, the city outside her window a grid of distant, sleepy lights.
The county's public medical database portal stared back at her. Her credentials as a judicial officer granted access to certain sealed records—mostly related to competency hearings or victim reports. What she was doing now was a violation of ethics, privacy laws, and common sense.
Her finger pressed ENTER.
The case file for Incident Report #VPD-11487 loaded. "Residential Gas Leak, 1247 Oak Lane. One casualty: Daniel Thorne (35), male, transported to Veridian General, critical condition."
She scrolled past the boilerplate. The responding officer's narrative was brief. Called to scene by neighbor reporting smell of gas. Found back door of study ajar, victim unconscious on floor near overturned space heater. No signs of forced entry. Pilot light out. Apparent accident.
Then, the attached EMS report. Her eyes scanned the clinical language.
*Vital signs upon arrival: BP 70/40, HR 130 and thready, SpO2 82%. Pupils fixed and dilated. Glasgow Coma Scale: 3 (unresponsive). Evidence of minor contusion on left temple, consistent with fall. No other visible trauma.*
A contusion. A bruise. From a fall.
She opened another tab. The county coroner's office had a public log of cases received. She cross-referenced the date. No body from 1247 Oak Lane was received. Daniel Thorne had lived.
But then she found the transfer record. Patient transferred from ER to Neurological Intensive Care Unit. Attending physician: Dr. Felix Abrams. Diagnosis: Anoxic brain injury due to prolonged hypoxia. Prognosis: Grave.
She knew Dr. Abrams. He'd testified as an expert witness in her court. A brilliant, arrogant man. She found his direct extension and, before she could talk herself out of it, dialed her desk phone at the courthouse, using the line that would show as the main judicial chambers number.
It rang three times.
"Abrams." The voice was sharp, tired.
"Dr. Abrams, this is Clara Reed, judicial assistant to Judge Daniel Thorne. I'm calling for some clarification for the court's records regarding His Honor's medical leave."
A pause. "Clara? Yes. I remember you. What clarification?"
"The police report mentions a contusion on the temple. The EMS report notes it's consistent with a fall. But the cause was a gas leak. I'm just trying to understand the mechanism. For our insurance forms." She kept her voice light, bureaucratic.
Another, longer pause. She could almost hear his mind working. "The contusion was superficial. Likely from striking the desk on the way down. The primary injury was cerebral hypoxia. Why is the court concerned with this?"
"Just dotting i's, Doctor. Thank you for your time." She hung up quickly.
Her heart was pounding. He was hiding something. His pause was too long. His answer was too pat.
She looked back at the EMS photo log, a subfolder often overlooked. There were two low-resolution images from the paramedic's chest-cam. The first showed Daniel Thorne on the floor of a study, lying on his side. The second was a closer shot of his face, taken for neurological assessment.
She zoomed in.
The contusion on his left temple. A small, purpling mark. But the shape… it wasn't the ragged edge of a desk corner. It was too uniform. Almost circular.
Like the muzzle of a small-caliber pistol pressed firmly against the skin before discharge.
Her breath caught. They'd missed it. In the chaos of the gas leak scare, the soot, the focus on respiratory distress, they'd missed a contact wound.
It wasn't an accident.
The official story was a lie. Daniel Thorne had been shot.
And he knew it. His bizarre, precise statement in the hospital—".22 caliber, silenced pistol, shot to the temple"—wasn't a trauma-induced delusion. It was a memory. Or… a truth he somehow knew.
Clara leaned back, her mind racing. Who would do this? The OmniCorp case. It had to be. He'd ruled against them. He'd been a problem. And now he was back, his brain seemingly rewired, his judgment terrifyingly acute.
He was a walking target. And he was sitting in his chambers every day, waiting for the next case.
A wave of protective fury washed over her, so sudden and fierce it startled her. It wasn't just professional loyalty. The man in that courtroom today—with his white hair and disconcerting eyes—had done something pure. He'd looked at a broken, lazy system and for one moment, made it work as it was supposed to. He was an island of unsettling, absolute integrity in a swamp of compromise.
She had to warn him. But how? 'Judge, I illegally accessed your medical files and I think you were murdered'?
No. She needed proof. And she needed to watch his back.
She closed the laptop. The darkness of her apartment felt different now. It felt watched.
**---
The next morning, Daniel entered his chambers to find a new case file centered on his desk. A sticky note in Clara's precise handwriting was attached.
"Your Honor, this one just got expedited to your docket. Per Chief Judge's order. It's… sensitive."
He sat and opened the file.
STATE vs. LENA MARTIN
Charge: Aggravated Assault (DUI resulting in grievous bodily harm)
Victim: Officer Sean Miller, Veridian PD.
The summary was stark. Lena Martin, a 28-year-old nurse, had allegedly driven her sedan through a red light, T-boning a police cruiser. Officer Miller was in critical condition with spinal injuries. Her blood alcohol level was recorded at 0.09, just over the legal limit.
Daniel's eyes scanned the attached police report, the witness statements, the diagram of the intersection. He read it once. Then again.
The pieces did not fit.
The accident occurred at 11:45 PM at the intersection of Harbor Drive and 3rd Street. Witness #1 (another driver) stated the police cruiser "sped through the intersection on a late green or early yellow." Witness #2 (a homeless man cited in the report as 'unreliable') claimed he saw the cruiser "run the red."
The traffic light sequencing report, requested by the defense and appended, showed a known fault in the light at that intersection. The east-west yellow light (the direction the cruiser was traveling) was short by 1.2 seconds. A city engineering defect.
Furthermore, Officer Miller's onboard computer log showed he was not running his siren or lights. He was off-duty, driving home.
And Lena Martin's blood draw… it was taken at the hospital two hours post-accident. The rate of alcohol metabolism was not accounted for. At the time of the crash, her BAC could have been under the limit.
This wasn't just a DUI. It was a political hot potato. A nurse versus a wounded police officer. The police union would be baying for blood. The DA would want a swift, harsh conviction to show solidarity.
And Chief Judge Harold Miller—no relation to the officer—had expedited it to his docket. The judge who just publicly humiliated the DA's office.
It was a test. Or a trap.
Clara entered with his coffee, placing it silently on the desk. She watched him read.
"This case is logically flawed," Daniel stated, not looking up.
"It's a minefield," Clara agreed, her voice low. "The officer is a hero. The city engineer's office is already circling the wagons on the light fault. The police union has picketed the courthouse twice this week demanding 'justice.'"
"Justice is not a mob's demand. It is a process of truth." He finally looked at her. Her eyes were shadowed. She looked like she hadn't slept. "You are concerned."
"Aren't you?" The question was blunt.
"Concern is an emotional state that clouds analysis. I am… focused. This case has been deliberately placed before me. The variables are too perfectly aligned for conflict."
Clara marveled at him. He saw the conspiracy as plainly as the typography on the page. "What will you do?"
"My job. I will hear the evidence. I will find the truth." He closed the file. "Arraignment is this afternoon?"
"Yes. The gallery will be packed with blue."
Daniel nodded. "Then we should prepare."
As Clara turned to leave, he spoke again. "Clara."
"Yes, Your Honor?"
"Thank you for the note. And for the coffee."
It was the second time he'd thanked her. This time, there was the faintest hint of something in his tone—an acknowledgment of her as a co-pilot in this turbulent flight. It warmed her despite the chill of fear in her stomach.
**---
Across the city, in a modest, well-kept bungalow, an old man named Walter Henderson watered his rose bushes. He was seventy, with knotted hands and a kind face.
A black sedan pulled up to the curb. A man in a dark suit got out. He had the build of a soldier and the eyes of a clerk.
"Mr. Henderson? I'm with the City Attorney's office. Following up on that incident at the Quick-Stop. Mind if I ask a few questions?"
Walter smiled, friendly. "Of course, son. Anything to help."
The man asked simple questions. What did you see? What time did you leave? Did you touch the young man?
Walter answered honestly. He'd bought his coffee, gone outside to wait for his bus, saw the clerk run out yelling, saw the young man look confused. He'd helped detain him, just by standing there. He never touched him.
"And after the clerk went back inside to call the police?" the man asked, his voice casual.
"Oh, I just stood there with the boy. He was scared. I told him it would be alright."
"Did you put your hand in his pocket, Mr. Henderson? Maybe to see what was in there?"
Walter's smile faded. "What? No. I'd never do that."
The man from the City Attorney's office nodded, smiling. "Of course not. Thank you for your time, sir. You've been very helpful."
He got back in the sedan and drove off.
Walter Henderson went back to watering his roses, a slight frown on his face. That man hadn't shown any ID.
In the sedan, the man dialed a number. "Henderson is clean. Just a good Samaritan. The judge's 'deduction' was a lucky guess, or intentional misdirection. It doesn't matter. The new case is in play. The pressure will do the work for us. If he rules against the police, he'll be crucified. If he rules for them, he proves he's back in the machine. Either way, we win."
He listened for a moment.
"Understood. If the pressure doesn't break him… we revert to direct action. The gas leak won't work twice."
The car merged into traffic, disappearing into the stream of the city.
Two blocks from the courthouse, Clara Reed used her lunch break to visit a small, private pharmacy. She used cash to buy a compact, high-lumen tactical flashlight and a roll of heavy-duty forensic tape.
She didn't know what she was looking for. But if someone had shot her judge in his own study, maybe they'd left more than just a bruise. Maybe they'd left a answer.
The threads were multiplying. One tied to a nurse's future. One tied to a rose gardener. One tied to a bullet no one else believed in.
And Daniel Thorne, at the center of the web, sat perfectly still, reading the same file for the third time, waiting for the truth to reveal itself.