Chris looked at Sandra for a long moment before speaking."How do you know where it happened?" he asked.Sandra set the page down on her knee. "I will tell you. But I want to hear your account first. Exactly as you remember it." Sandra saidChris looked at the wall for a moment. Then he began."My father used to pick us up every day after school. Every single day, without fail. James was younger, so he was in the junior section of the same school." He paused. "That day, school closed, my last day of school, and we were waiting in the compound. My father was usually there before we came out, but that day he was not. We waited maybe ten minutes…" He began his narrationHe kept his voice level. Sandra didn't move."Then we heard it," he said. "A loud bang. From outside the school gate. One sound, very sudden. And then everything on the street went quiet for about two seconds before people started shouting." He looked at his hands. "The teachers immediately started pulling students ba

Sandra set her pen down and looked at him directly."We have a problem," she said.Chris waited."Everything I just showed you, the debt, the accident, the driver, the connected company, none of it constitutes solid evidence yet. Even in its entirety." She held up one hand before he could respond. "I know what it looks like. I know what it almost certainly is. But 'almost certainly' and 'legally provable' are two different things, and in a courtroom against a senator with the resources Daniel Brooks has, 'almost certainly' is not enough. We would need to present facts." She stated"So what do we do?" Chris asked."We start with what we can actually move and prove and work with," Sandra said. "The accident case was closed without charges. That closure can be challenged. We file a request to reopen the investigation, formally, through the correct channels, and we request that the driver be brought back in for questioning and proper prosecution." Sandra explained"He was never charged,

Sandra opened a fresh page on her notepad."Now let’s move to what we are here for," Sandra said"James first," she added."Everything else waits until this is in place. We have to make sure he is okay and safe before we start any move, just so we don't encounter any issues in the middleChris nodded."Two things," Sandra said. "The first is legal. The second is physical. Both have to run together."She set her pen flat on the desk and looked at him directly."People like Brooks have access to channels that ordinary people don't," she said.A senator can make a call to a school registry, a government database, or a records office and get information pulled within hours without raising questions. It is not always legal, but it happens and it works." She paused. "If Brooks or anyone connected to him decides to look for James, they start with institutional records. School enrolment databases, scholarship registries, and state child welfare records. They know that is where they know t

Chris sat back and exhaled."We have a lot running at the same time," he said."We do," Sandra agreed."The court order for James. The private security. The disciplinary board review. The bid and counter-bid. The civil suit. The accident case." He counted them on his fingers. "All of them moving simultaneously, all of them needing to move well." He looked at Sandra. "Just the two of us handling all of that is a problem.""It is, but we have to do it anyway," Sandra said. "Which is why I think we need one more person.""A lawyer," Chris said.Sandra paused for a moment to give it a thought"One. The right one." Sandra was already measured about it "Someone who knows what we're dealing with, who can carry part of the legal load independently, and who has their own reasons to do it properly."Chris nodded. "Who do you have in mind?"Sandra picked up her pen and wrote something on the notepad. Then she set it down and looked up."Jessica Morgan," she said.“Who is Jessica Morgan, a col

The whole place was quiet, signifying that the students were still in the morning class.He hurried his steps through the corridor leading to his class.Chris heard the break siren as he was pushing open the classroom door.He stepped inside and stopped.No teacher. The room had the loose, unsupervised energy of a class that had been free all morning: desks pushed slightly out of alignment, bags open on chairs, and papers scattered in ways that wouldn't have survived forty minutes under supervision. The noise level confirmed it.He was glad.He scanned the room automatically, the way he had learnt to scan rooms at Virell.Tyler's group was gathered in the centre of the class. Five or six of them clustered around pushed-together desks, talking about something that had them smiling in the way his group never smiled around Tyler: the loose, entertained smiles of people who felt good about something. Whatever they were planning or replaying, it was going well in their heads.Chris didn