“Your Honor,” Garrison pressed, sensing blood in the water. “I respectfully move to strike her request for a continuance. Let’s end this charade so we can all move on with our lives.”Judge Henderson sighed. It was the sigh of a man who’d lost too many battles with the calendar. He picked up his gavel, and I felt my heart stop. This was it. I was going to lose everything—the apartment, the savings, my dignity—because I’d been stupid enough to believe that someone would actually show up for me.
“Mrs. Simmons, I’m sorry,” the judge said, and he actually did sound sorry. “We cannot wait any longer. We will proceed with—”
BAM.
The double doors at the back of the courtroom didn’t just open. They were thrown wide with a force that rattled the frames, the brass handles slamming against the walls with a sound like thunder.Everyone turned. Keith spun around in his chair, his expression shifting from smug satisfaction to annoyed confusion. Garrison Ford frowned, his pen hovering over his notepad like a conductor’s baton frozen mid-beat. The law clerks in the back straightened up, suddenly alert. The courtroom fell into a stunned, breathless silence.
Standing in the doorway was not a frazzled public defender clutching a battered briefcase. It was not a cheap strip-mall lawyer in an ill-fitting suit.
