(Cole)
The courtroom was smaller than most people expected the first time they walked into one.
Not small exactly, but not the dramatic space that people imagined from television. Functional. Wood panels and fluorescent light and rows of seats and a bench at the front where the judge would sit. I had been in rooms like this more times than I could count and they had stopped meaning anything to me beyond what happened inside them a long time ago.
I got there before Lena and before Gerald and found our table and set my files down and arranged what I needed in the order I needed it. That was habit. I never walked into a courtroom without knowing exactly where everything was before anything started.
Lena came in a few minutes after me. She had on a dark jacket and her hair was back and she
