"I'll file it this afternoon."

First-degree murder required intent. Eleanor wasn't sure she saw intent on that grainy screen. She saw panic. She saw a boy who looked like her little brother.

She stared at the message. Full block , she thought. No indents. No extra space for explanation. Just the hard left edge of the law.

Eleanor had reviewed the case file last night. The problem wasn't the evidence; it was the story around the evidence. The clerk, a man named Amir Fayed, had been working a double shift to pay for his daughter’s asthma medication. Jerome Harris, nineteen years old, had been homeless, hungry, and high on something he’d smoked from a soda can. The security tape showed a scuffle. The gun went off.

"Full block," Paul repeated. "No explanatory paragraphs. No mitigating circumstances. Just the facts as the jury found them. Sign it."

"This isn't justice," Eleanor said quietly. "It's architecture."

Her hand hovered over the signature line. She thought of Jerome’s face in the booking photo—not a monster, just a tired, scared kid with a bad haircut. She thought of Amir Fayed’s widow, who had wept on the stand but also said, "I don't know if killing him brings my husband back."