Page 10 of Jury Woman, Part 2 of 6

Somewhere in the middle of describing Josh's soccer schedule, I heard myself add, without quite meaning to, "We're supposed to be in family therapy. Court-ordered, from the divorce. But nobody shows up except me. My therapist finally suggested we pause."

"That sounds discouraging."

"It is. I keep thinking if I just find the right way to say it, they'll come around."

"Are you worried about your family right now? While you're away?"

"Of course I am. Things feel like they're coming apart faster than I can hold them together, and I can't shake the feeling that my being here is making it worse instead of better. That I'm the thing unraveling it faster."

Jill let that sit for a moment before she spoke. "That's a common feeling for sequestered jurors, especially parents. You're absent from a role you've spent years occupying, and everyone left behind, including you, is recalibrating in real time. That doesn't mean you're causing harm. It means change is uncomfortable, for you and for them." She tilted her head slightly. "If it ever becomes truly untenable you do have the option to petition the court for release. I want you to know that door exists, even if you never walk through it."

I turned that over, surprised by how much comfort there was simply in knowing the door was there. "Do I have to keep meeting with you? Like this, I mean."

"Not if you'd rather not. It's entirely your choice." A small, genuine smile. "But I hope you will. I think you'd find it useful, and honestly, I've enjoyed this conversation more than most of mine this week."

I found myself smiling back and nodding.

Walking out, past Deputy Wells and down the corridor toward my room, I turned the hour over in my mind. I hadn't cried. I hadn't unraveled anything further. I'd simply talked, and been heard, and that felt like enough.

August 11, Tuesday

THE SOFT pink yarn had been sitting in my knitting bag for two weeks now, waiting for a day slow enough to let me start a new project properly, and today—an entire morning devoted to an FBI organized crime specialist walking the jury through an org chart the size of a parade banner—turned out to be exactly that kind of day.

Special Agent Dana Reyes stood in front of a large projection screen with a pointer, working her way through slides showing diagrams of boxes and connecting lines to explain the criminal enterprise she alleged Robert Blackthorne lorded over. Names became a blur of aliases and nicknames—Sal the Book, Tommy Ice, a man referred to only as "Cousin Ray" for reasons no one bothered explaining. Lines connected them upward, always upward, funneling toward a single box at the top of the chart with Robert Blackthorne's name printed in block letters.

"Every arrow you see here represents a documented financial or operational relationship," Reyes explained, tapping the screen with crisp authority. "What the evidence will show is that regardless of how many layers separate a given transaction from the defendant, the structure consistently funnels decision-making authority to the top."

I cast on the pink baby blanket during the dozens of surveillance photographs—grainy black-and-white stills of men getting in and out of cars, meeting in parking lots, exchanging bags at Atlanta strip malls.

I'd chosen a garter stitch for the border and a simple basket-weave for the body, something forgiving enough that I could work it without much attention. This one wasn't for a friend's shower or a neighbor's niece. It was headed for the pediatric oncology ward at the children's hospital downtown where the little ones could use something snuggly.

While I knitted, Special Agent Reyes moved on to the next slide, this one dense with smaller boxes branching off the mid-level lieutenants—a web of shell companies, front businesses, and cash-only operations that all somehow, according to the arrows, reported upward through two or three cutouts to the man at the top.

"This entity," she said, tapping a box labeled RIVERSIDE HOLDINGS LLC, "shows no employees, no inventory, and no legitimate business activity, yet moved over four million dollars through three accounts in eighteen months. Records show Mr. Blackthorne as the sole signatory."

"Objection." Bryan Stone was on his feet before she'd finished the sentence, his voice pitched for maximum theater. "Counsel is eliciting a legal conclusion from this witness. Whether an entity constitutes part of an 'enterprise' is a question for the jury, not for Special Agent Reyes."

Judge Arnold didn't even glance up from his notes. "Overruled. The witness may testify to the financial structure reflected in the records she reviewed. Continue, Agent Reyes."

Stone sat down and made a small note on his legal pad with more force than the note probably required.

I kept my needles moving, garter stitch clicking along while I watched Blackthorne. He'd been fidgeting during the entire presentation—rolling a pen between two fingers, glancing at the ceiling, exhaling through his nose the way Josh does when he thinks a rule doesn't apply to him. But at the word enterprise, something in his shoulders changed. He leaned toward his attorney and murmured something. Stone shook his head.

Reyes clicked to the next slide. A photograph, timestamped, showing a man I now recognized from three witnesses back—the one they'd called "Cousin Ray"—handing an envelope through a car window in a strip mall parking lot outside a nail salon.

"This transfer," Reyes said, "occurred four days before the murder of Horatio Alvarez."

"That's a lie." Blackthorne's voice cracked across the courtroom like something breaking.

The gallery went dead silent. I froze mid-stitch.

"That is a lie," he said again, louder, coming half out of his chair before his attorney's hand clamped down on his forearm. His face had gone a deep, mottled red. He turned toward the witness, and for one suspended second I thought he might actually get to her—but instead of lunging, he spat.

It didn't reach Agent Reyes. It didn't come close. But the abject disrespect was clear. Everyone—including me—gasped.

"Marshals." Judge Arnold's voice cut through the noise, flat and absolute.

Deputy Wells was already moving. He and another marshal I didn't recognize converged on the defense table in three long strides, flanking Blackthorne on either side, one hand each closing on his shoulders—not rough, exactly, but the kind of grip that ends a conversation. Blackthorne strained against it for a moment, chest heaving, and then went still, breathing hard, glaring at nothing.