Showed it to the woman.
Pointed toward another elevator.
She smiled.
He smiled.
She walked away.
Nothing happened.
Josephine exhaled.
Leah Barnes appeared beside her.
Now Lieutenant Barnes.
“You okay, Judge?”
Josephine looked toward her.
“Apparently I still supervise strangers in hallways mentally.”
Leah smiled.
“Occupational hazard.”
They walked together.
Josephine asked:
“How’s Brooks?”
“Retirement countdown.”
“She deserves it.”
“She says she’ll last another year.”
“She’s lying.”
“Absolutely.”
They reached Josephine’s courtroom.
Leah started walking away.
Josephine called:
“Lieutenant.”
Leah turned.
Josephine looked at the camera on her uniform.
Red indicator blinking.
“You still keep that thing on?”
Leah smiled.
“Almost religiously.”
Josephine nodded.
“Good.”
Inside chambers, Rebecca Song had long since left for private practice.
Josephine’s new clerk placed the morning files on her desk.
One involved an unlawful detention allegation.
A twenty-two-year-old woman claimed officers stopped her outside a shopping center after confusing her with someone wanted for shoplifting.
The woman did not match the description except age range, gender, and race.
Josephine stared at the file.
Some stories did not end.
They repeated until institutions learned enough to interrupt them.
She opened the complaint.
Read every word.
At lunch, she crossed the same hallway where Marcus Hale had struck her.
Nobody stopped.
Nobody stared.
The polished floor had been replaced during renovation.
The wall repainted.
There was no marker.
No plaque.
No sign announcing what had happened there.
Josephine liked that.
The courthouse did not need a monument to her humiliation.
It needed memory in procedure.
A defendant sat on a bench near Courtroom 4B.
Young Black woman.
Braided hair.
Gray sweatshirt.
Josephine paused.
For one strange second, the description from three years earlier returned.
Maya Turner.
The woman looked up.
“Ma’am?”
Josephine smiled.
“Sorry.”
She started walking.
Then stopped.
“Are you Maya Turner?”
The woman’s eyebrows rose.
“Yes.”
Josephine stared.
The actual Maya.
Older now.
Twenty-six.
Josephine had never met her.
Maya looked nervous.
“Do I know you?”
Josephine removed her sunglasses.
Recognition appeared immediately.
“Oh.”
Josephine almost laughed.
Maya stood.
“You’re her.”
“That sounds ominous.”
“The judge.”