22
Smoke blinked as a judge struck a gavel against his bench.
“Quiet in the court!”
The courtroom of the Coppice Southwest Courthouse was packed with observers and press, all murmuring and whispering as a side door in the court opened and the jury walked out one by one, sullen-faced but resolute.
The room was humid, and not even the ceiling fans whirring at full-speed could dissipate the heat. Smoke sat in his chair, his hands handcuffed and his wrists tied with reinforced titanium chains.
His attorney, a black woman in a black business suit and a ponytail, read the faces of the jury quickly. Then she closed her eyes and rested her forehead on her fist.
“Sorry,” she said. “You’re toast, Smoke.”
Smoke’s eyes widened as the jury took its place on the bench. The foreman walked up to a
