Page 118 of The 1 Lawyer

I didn’t reply. My focus was on that computer screen, on the image of Aurora wincing as she was held captive by Joey Roman. My eyes scanned the pictures that followed. They had different subjects now, no more Aurora Gates.

“Go farther back. A year before. See what the pictures show.”

We scrolled back until we found more Aurora Gates, pictures from the early stage of her relationship with Joey. She was smiling in those. In the beginning, anyway. And then she dropped out of sight.

To the hacker, I said, “Let’s look at his videos.”

The kid pulled them up. Compared to the photo files, there were relatively few videos. The tech kid played them for me, starting with the oldest. In the first one, Roman had filmed a stripper giving him a lap dance at some seedy club, maybe on Bourbon Street. In the next, Joey had filmed the water from the beach during hurricane season, when the waves were high and the weather was wild.

Plummer paused before pulling up the next one. The thumbnail was almost black; it looked like it might have been downloaded by mistake. “You want to play it?” the guy asked.

I checked the date. When I saw it, I shuddered. June 13, the day Aurora Gates was murdered. “Yeah, definitely.”

Jenny broke in, sounding anxious. “Stafford Lee, we’ve gotta figure out what we’re going to do with this.”

Plummer’s hands hesitated. I nudged his shoulder and said, “Go ahead.”

He enlarged the video and played it. It was a short recording, taken in near darkness.

The three of us fell silent as we watched. Once I realized what I was seeing, it was difficult for my head to grasp it.

The video ended.

I said, my voice hushed, like we were attending a funeral, “Play it again.”

The second time through, I knew. There was no mistake.

The dim footage of the video showed Aurora Gates, naked. She was bound and battered but still alive as she lay in the hull of a boat that was bobbing in the water.

CHAPTER 94

ON WEDNESDAY morning, I stood outside the courtroom on the second floor of the courthouse in Biloxi. And I waited.

The open design of the 1960s architecture gave me a bird’s-eye view of the main entrance to the courthouse as well as the activity in the lobby. Press had been gathering for the past thirty minutes. At first, there were just a few. Then the news vans began to arrive. Reporters and camerapeople streamed from vehicles. By 8:45, they swarmed into the lobby.

No one tried to hunt me down. They were awaiting the arrival of the main attraction, the DA of Harrison County. Henry Gordon-James drove to Biloxi from Gulfport every day and parked in his designated spot in the lot on the east side of the courthouse.

On Wednesday, he was running late. Because he was tardy, he arrived just as the big county van pulled up to the curb. I saw the vehicle through the lobby windows. It was the van that transported the jury to and from the Best Western.

Talk about timing. This was getting better and better.

I gripped the balcony railing and watched the scene unfold. When the DA strode up to the entrance, reporters converged on him, pelting him with questions. Meanwhile, the fourteen jurors from Jackson slowly emerged from the van, struggling for space on the sidewalk as they awaited their escort to the jury room.

While the bailiffs hollered at the press, trying to clear a path for the jurors, the reporters shouted at Gordon-James. The cacophony of voices was music to my ears.

The bailiffs finally managed to hustle the jurors into the courthouse and up the stairs. But Gordon-James was still making his way through the sea of people in the lobby. I heard him say over the bedlam, “What’s up? Y’all expecting some fireworks today?”

I had to give him credit. He wore his game face, didn’t appear to be shaken, though I knew he must be wondering what the hell was happening. He’d been left out of the loop.

One TV journalist got a microphone right up in the DA’s face and shouted, “Henry, what do you think about the new evidence?”

On the balcony, I tensed as I waited to hear his response. A flash of uncertainty crossed his features, but it was gone in a second. “You know the prosecution can’t comment. Save it for after the verdict.”

Once the DA reached security, he was able to leave the mob behind. He tore up the steps, reached the landing, and walked past me without a glance.

Not a surprise. I hadn’t anticipated a greeting from him. The last time we’d spoken, he called me a monster.

I followed him because we had important business to discuss.

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