Patricia Morse was already in the courtroom when they arrived.
She was tall, late fifties, with silver hair cut short and the kind of contained energy that some people carry in their stillness rather than their movement. She was reviewing documents at the plaintiff's table with a pen in her hand, making small precise marks in the margins, and she looked up when Francis and Jenna came through the door and gave them a nod that was brief and specific and meant she was ready and didn't need conversation to confirm it.
The courtroom was smaller than Francis had expected. Federal but not grand, the kind of room where procedural work gets done rather than landmark decisions, functional and slightly worn at the edges, the wood of the gallery benches darkened from years of use. Two other people w
