Jordon Danner concentrated on the long yellow pad in front of her. While everyone else waited, she ticked off each question she’d intended to ask. Certain they’d all been presented, she slowly moved her hazel eyes up toward Judge Thomas, and smiled.

She was finally at the top of her game. She’d always been attractive, but now having reached middle age, experience, confidence, and poise further enhanced her beauty.

“No further questions, Your Honor.”

No more questions were necessary. Police Officer Paul Howe had been a perfect witness. With his help, she’d finally nailed Marshall Riverstone, (an infamous child pornographer), and from the expression on the face of Bert Feller, the District Attorney for Santa Barbara County, she knew he thought so too.

Sitting there, anticipating the defense attorney’s cross-examination, she overheard Feller telling his two new female prosecutors, “That’s how to handle a Defendant’s Motion to Suppress. And that’s how I want you to perform when you work for me.”

Although Jordon knew her boss personally disliked her and her politics, his comments still added to the adrenaline rush of pleasure. Her mother had always taught her to embrace approval only from those she respected, but to enjoy whatever appreciation came her way.

Alan Stern, the defense attorney, scraped his chair back in an attempt to stand up. The screech of the chair made Jordon cringe. Stern looked down. It appeared as if he had to make sure he’d cleared enough room for his button-straining midsection. Upon rising, he shifted his weight onto his hands, and tilted his torso toward her. “Sorry,” he whispered. “Sorry to do this.”

In spite of Jordon’s competence and confidence, she lost the hearing; having been blindsided by the manipulative defense attorney and the cantankerous judge. As a result of her persistent unwillingness to accept the judge’s ruling, he held her in contempt and ordered her friend James, the Bailiff, to place her in a temporary holding cell. Later James returned to check up on her…

She was seated on a bench, jacket off, eyes closed, long legs fully extended, delicate ankles crossed. Only her head and bare shoulders touched the cell wall. Jordon looks completely out of place, James thought, sort of like my daughter’s Career Barbie doll, now abandoned on the floor of her cluttered closet.

Jordon opened her eyes and looked up at him. Her colorful eyes and flawless skin stood out in stark contrast to the cracked and peeling gray paint, which surrounded her. They each smiled. She spoke first, “You know that judge of yours can be a real schmuck.”

“Yeah, so, you knew that before this morning and still you chose to piss him off.”

Jordon didn’t respond.

James’ smile broadened. “And I, for one am glad you did.”

While still incarcerated, the DA confronted Jordon and banished her from the office for one week --without pay. In response, she decided to retreat to her log cabin in the mountains, with her patient and adoring husband, Greg. Still, before Greg arrived, contrary to the DA’s edict not to, she snuck back into her office. When Greg picked her up, he noticed she was carrying a large brown envelope. He was incredulous...

“I can’t believe you brought work with you.”

“It’s just my mail.”

“Personal or work-related?”

She knew it was work-related, but didn’t know what it was, nor did she volunteer the fact that the DA had ordered her to stay away from the office. She wasn’t always forthcoming with Greg. More often than not, it was because she wasn’t interested in rationalizing her own irrational behavior, especially not to someone who knew her as well as he did.

Greg was still waiting for her answer.

“Jordon looked down at the large brown envelope. “This? Oh, it’s probably just my copy of the photographs I ordered for next month’s trial.” She pulled the documents out of the envelope. “I’ll just take a quick peek at them, make sure they’re all here…”

“Did I,” Greg began to ask, as he abruptly pulled out of the parking lot and into the stream of traffic, “misunderstand you earlier today? Haven’t you been placed on a leave without pay? JoJo,” he said, looking over his shoulder at the merging lane, “ego aside, aren’t you off the clock?”

Jordon leaned forward; ready to tell Greg to back off, when suddenly she caught sight of the suspect’s name at the top of the report. Her retort died in her throat; she sat back…

After having read the cover letter:

She crumpled the note and threw it at the windshield. It bounced off the window and landed in Greg’s lap. Jordon hurled herself back onto her seat and placed both hands over her face.

As she began to rub her eyes, an image of the suspect arose. Why him and why now?

When she finally could, she explained her reaction to Greg:

“Twenty-five years ago, a kid named Emily was allegedly molested by a someone I know, and now it’s up to me to decide, by tomorrow, whether to file these old charges or not.”

Hours later, after stepping out of their car and into a majestic grove of tall pine trees, she concluded she’d have to spend an all-nighter in order to make that decision. She soon determined the best way to sort out her dilemma was to review two related files...

Those two files were amidst the 20-odd cases she’d copied and brought up to their mountain retreat. They were the cases she occasionally went through, because she felt they still had something to teach her. The two she was now looking for were among those she’d reviewed most often. Jordon found them frayed and pressed up against each other. As she retrieved them, disturbing images of Marcos, Sophia, Pat, and Colin began to come into focus”