Judge Warren didn't answer the call.
She stared at the screen for three full seconds, then turned the phone face-down against her palm.
Her expression hadn't changed — but something behind her eyes had closed like a door.
"Your Honor." Reeves stepped closer, lowering his voice.
"What is it?"
"Get me inside," she said.
"Now."
Two Marshals formed up on either side of her.
A third collected her scattered papers from the wet pavement, stacking them carefully, pressing them back into her briefcase like they were evidence.
Miller was still pinned against the cruiser hood.
The fight had gone out of him, but his mouth hadn't caught up.
"This is insane," he said.
"I didn't know who she was.
That's not a crjme.
I was following protocol—"
"Stop talking," I said.
"You can't tell me to—"
"Miller." I stepped in front of him.
"Stop.
Talking."
He looked at me.
Whatever he saw made him go quiet.
Reeves paused on the steps and turned back.
He looked at me for a long moment — assessing, measuring — then spoke to the Marshal nearest me.
"Bring him in too.
The senior officer."
"Am I being detained?" I asked.
"You're being interviewed," Reeves said.
"There's a difference.
For now."
They walked me through the bronze doors and into the courthouse.
I had been inside hundreds of times.
I knew the security desk, the marble floors, the echo of footsteps under the high ceiling.
But that morning it felt like a different building entirely.
The Marshals moved with a quiet urgency that told me something larger was happening — something that had started before Miller ever opened his mouth on that plaza.
They took Judge Warren into a private corridor to the left.
A courthouse physician was already waiting.
I caught a glimpse of her sitting down in a chair, finally allowing herself to press two fingers against her cheek, before the door closed.
They put me in a small conference room off the main hall.
Plain table, four chairs, a window that looked onto an interior courtyard.
One Marshal stood by the door.
He didn't speak.
I sat down and thought about what Reeves had said.
*After the last thr3at on her life.*
Not the only thr3at.
The *last* one.
Twenty minutes passed.
Then Reeves came in and sat across from me.
He set a folder on the table but didn't open it.
"Tell me exactly what happened," he said.
"From the beginning.
Leave nothing out."
I told him.
All of it — Miller's attitude from the moment we arrived, my request to have him reassigned, the way he'd moved toward her before I could stop him.
I told him about the coffee cup, about running, about hjtting Miller in the chest.
Reeves listened without writing anything down.
When I finished, he was quiet for a moment.
"You struck your partner," he said.
"I stopped him from putting handcuffs on a federal judge."
"That's not what I asked."
"Yes," I said.
"I hjt him.
I'd do it again."
Reeves nodded slowly, like that was the answer he'd expected.
He opened the folder and slid a single photograph across the table.
It was a still image from a security camera.
Timestamp: 7:58 AM.
Seventeen minutes before Miller and I had even arrived at the courthouse.
The image showed a man in a gray jacket standing at the far end of the plaza, partially behind a news van.
He was looking directly at the VIP entrance.
"Do you recognize him?" Reeves asked.
I studied the face.
Late forties, clean-shaven, unremarkable.
Nobody I'd ever seen.
"No."
"He was there for forty minutes," Reeves said.
"He left the moment the Marshals came through the doors." He tapped the photograph.
"He was watching for her."
The room felt smaller.
"The phone call she received," I said.
"Was it connected to him?"
Reeves didn't answer.
He closed the folder.
"We'll need your full statement in writing," he said.
"And your badge and sidearm, pending the departmental review."
I set them on the table without argument.
He stood to leave.
I stopped him with one question.
"Is she safe?"
Reeves picked up the folder.
His jaw tightened once.
"That's what we're trying to determine," he said — and walked out.