He sensed the shoots of poison winding themselves deeper within him, reaching out to wrap around all his organs. His head felt like it was going to explode.
No longer thinking clearly, Jim let his shirttail fall away. It didn't matter, did it? It was too late. Too late. He tried to take another breath, but his lungs refused to move.
He staggered backward. Grabbed at his chair and missed. Fell over.
Horrified, Victoria started screaming. A shiver ran through Jim's body, his arms and legs twitching. And then Jim Fate was still. His eyes, still open, stared up at the soft, fuzzy blue ceiling.
Two minutes later the first hazmat responders, suited up in white, burst through the studio door.
Chapter 2
Mark 0. Hatfield United States Courthouse Federal prosecutor Allison Pierce eyed the 150 prospective jurors as they filed into the sixteenth-floor courtroom in the Mark 0. Hatfield United States Courthouse. A high-profile case like this necessitated a huge jury pool.
The seats soon filled, forcing dozens to stand, some only a few inches from the prosecution table. Allison could smell unwashed bodies and unbrushed teeth. She swallowed hard, forcing down the nausea that now plagued her at unexpected moments.
"Are you all right?" FBI special agent Nicole Hedges whispered. Nicole was sitting next to Allison at the prosecutor's table. Her huge, dark eyes never missed anything.
"These days, I'm either nauseated or ravenous," Allison whispered back. "Sometimes at the same time."
"Maybe the Triple Threat Club can find someplace to meet that serves ice cream and pickles."
The club was an inside joke, just three friends with connections to law enforcement--Allison, Nicole, and TV crime reporter Cassidy Shaw--who were devoted to justice, friendship, and chocolate. Not necessarily in that order.
The courtroom deputy called for everyone to rise and then swore them in en masse. Allison eyed the would-be jurors. They carried backpacks, purses, coats, umbrellas, bottled water, books, magazines, and--this being Portland, Oregon--the occasional bike helmet. They ranged from a hunched-over old man with hearing aids on the stems of his glasses to a young man who immediately opened a sketchbook and startled doodling. Some wore suits, while others looked like they were ready to hit the gym, but in general they appeared alert and reasonably happy.
There would have been more room for the potential jurors to sit, but the benches were already packed with reporters who had arrived before the jury was ushered in. In the middle of the pack was a fortyish woman who had a seat directly behind the defense table. She wore turquoise eye shadow, black eyeliner, and a sweater with a plunging neckline: the mother of the defendant.
After those lucky enough to have seats were settled in again, Judge Fitzpatrick introduced himself and told the jury that the defendant had to be considered innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, and that she did not need to do or say anything to prove her innocence. It was solely up to the prosecution, he intoned solemnly, to prove their case. Though Allison had heard the words at every trial, and the judge must have said them hundreds of times in his nearly twenty years on the bench, she still found herself listening. Somehow Judge Fitzpatrick always imbued the words with meaning.
When he was finished, he asked Allison to introduce herself. She stood, offering up a silent prayer, as she always did, that justice would be served. She faced the crowded room and tried to make eye contact with everyone. It was her job to build a relationship with the jurors from this moment forward, so that when the time came for them to deliberate, they would trust what she had told them.
"I am Allison Pierce. I represent the United States of America." On some of the potential jurors' faces, Allison saw surprise as they realized that the young woman with the pinned-back dark hair and plain blue suit was actually the federal prosecutor. People always seemed to expect a federal prosecutor to be a silver-haired man.
She gestured toward Nicole. "I'm assisted by FBI special agent Nicole Hedges as the case agent."
Nicole was thirty-three, the same age as Allison, but with her unlined, dark skin and expression that gave away nothing, she could have been anywhere from twenty-five to forty. She was dressed in her customary dark pantsuit and flats.