He fell into step beside her. He didn't speak again until they had turned into the private hallway leading to the judges' chambers and the door behind them had swung shut.
"I saw them take you," he said. His voice was controlled, but thin. "I should have..."
"You couldn't have stopped it."
"I could have, but, uh..."
"Thomas." She stopped walking and turned to look at him directly. "What you are going to do right now is go to my chambers, open the top right drawer of my desk, and call the number written on the card taped to the inside of the drawer. You tell whoever answers that Judge Ellison needs a secure line before 9:00 a.m. You say exactly that. Nothing else. Can you do that?"
He straightened. The shame on his face didn't disappear, but something steadier moved in underneath it.
"Yes, ma'am."
"Go."
He went.
Naomi continued down the hall alone. She pushed open the door to her chambers and stood in the doorway for a moment, taking in the quiet of the room. Her desk. Her bookshelves. The window that looked out over the side courtyard. The oak tree that was beginning to lose its leaves in the October wind.
Her judicial robe was hanging on the back of the door. She had pressed it herself the evening before.
She moved to the small bathroom attached to her chambers and stood in front of the mirror.
The woman in the mirror looked back at her with a bare scalp marked by uneven lines. Some of them red. One of them faintly bleeding at the crown. Her blazer was slightly askew. There was a small piece of lint on her left shoulder.
She straightened the blazer. She brushed off the lint. She ran cold water over a paper towel and pressed it gently against the crown of her head for 45 seconds. Then she folded the paper towel, set it on the edge of the sink, and walked back out into her chambers.
She lifted her robe from the hook and put it on. The familiar weight of it settled across her shoulders like something she had earned.
A knock at the door. Soft, almost tentative.
She already knew who it was before she opened it. She had been expecting this. Not the timing, but the moment itself. Some part of her had understood, from the second the clippers went silent, that there was a witness somewhere in that lobby who had not looked away.
She opened the door.
Camille Ross stood in the hallway. Gray blazer, wide eyes. Her phone pressed flat against her sternum with both hands, like she was trying to keep something inside it from getting out.
"Judge Ellison," she said. Her voice was barely above a whisper. "I have it all."
The gallery was full by 8:55. Every bench packed. Standing room along the back wall, three deep.