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the parking garage, and the mall. Two Ransom River PD cars raced up, lights popping.
    Jerkily, Reagan ran to the window. “They’re swarming us. What…”
    Nixon turned. “Get away from there.”
    Reagan’s shoulders spasmed up. “We need a lookout, we need a way out…” He pressed a hand against the window and peered at the frame. There were no shades, no curtains, and, on that side of the building, no ledge outside.
    “Get away from the window,” Nixon said.
    Reagan turned his head, hand still pressed to the glass. Though his face was obscured, Rory swore he seemed confused.
    This was not good.
    More police cars pulled up outside. Officers jumped out and ran into the building.
    Nixon yanked Reagan back from the window. “They see you, they shoot you.”
    “We can’t stay here,” Reagan said. “Oh, man.”
    Nixon stalked back to the center of the room. He pointed to Rory. “Against the window.”
    He snapped his fingers at Red Check. Or tried to. The sound was muffled by his glove. “You too.”
    Heart drumming, Rory walked to the west-facing window that overlooked the front entrance to the courthouse, the street, the mall, and the parking garage.
    “The judge needs help, bad,” she said. “Let him go. Somebody can carry him out and—”
    Nixon shoved her. “Forehead to the glass. Hands flat against the window, level with your face. And shut up.”
    She pressed her palms to the window and leaned her forehead against the glass.
    Outside, through the glare of her own reflection, the morning gleamed. Five police cars had pulled up outside. With their lights spinning, it looked like a carnival ride, lurid and out of kilter.
    From the corner of her eye she saw Nixon shove Red Check against the window to her left. Reagan pushed Cary Oberlin against the window to her right. She heard a sharp cry as Nixon grabbed another person from the floor.
    “Stand there. Forehead to the glass. Don’t move,” Nixon said.
    Rory breathed. In the glass, her see-through reflection did the same. She saw, in the V-neck of her sweater, the turquoise stone in her silver necklace. She saw herself swallow.
    Nixon and Reagan rounded up enough people to block all—what were there, nine?—windows in the courtroom.
    On the floor behind her, the volume diminished to a vicious hum. The air seemed charged, but the pitch of fear had changed. Whatever this was, whatever it had started out to be, it was now a siege.
    The sirens continued to come. She waited. Somebody would be appointed spokesman. If they were wise. Were they? Were they competent? The cop she had known best on the Ransom River police force certainly had been.
    Police cars kept arriving, black-and-whites. They turned sideways at either end of the block, barricading the road. Officers jumped out and stopped traffic. Outside the River Mall, pedestrians paused on the sidewalk and stared and pointed.
    Moms with strollers. Elderly mall walkers in their mom jeans and sun visors. A cop jogged toward them, radio to his face, and brusquely waved them back.
    Her gaze clocked each of the people on the sidewalk. She was hoping not to see her parents.
Please, don’t let them be here for this.
    And yet she felt a catch in her throat and a low, sad longing. She wished her mom could pull her around a corner, laughing her melancholy laugh, saying,
Don’t be silly. Get your keester out of there, kid.
Her mom, calm and practical and no-nonsense after thirty years of teaching at Ransom River High School. Samantha, who hugged hard, as though the earth’s gravity had evaporated and she had to anchor Rory.
    Her eyes stung. In her mind her dad appeared, stern and warm, his hair too gray, his arms tanned and strong from a life spent working outdoors. He seemed to shake his head and say,
Let her go, Sam. World’s a big place and she needs to get started if she’s going to see it.
    Her eyes welled. She wanted to wipe them but didn’t dare move her hands from the glass. She blinked and tears fell