EPISODE 4: The Blank Ledger ## Chapter 1: The Cuffs First The conference room on the thirty-second floor of the courthouse annex smells of recycled air and the faint metallic tang of handcuff lubricant. Quinn Harland keeps her wrists loose as the deputy tightens the second cuff. Leverage first: the deputy’s pulse jumps once at the base of his throat when the ratchet clicks past the third tooth; he has never cuffed someone who looks like she bills six hundred an hour. Theo Crane stands three paces back, palms open, the precise angle of a man already calculating the bail motion. His matte-black cufflinks do not catch the fluorescent light. A choice that says he expected this and still let it happen. “Jury tampering,” the lead detective says. She is not Imani Cole. This one is broad-shouldered, badge polished to a mirror, nameplate catching the overhead strip: DET. R. MALLORY. “We have the burner phone records. Texts to Juror 7’s number. Two meetings at the Mercer walk-up. Photographs of you entering with a folder that matches the dimensions of the voir dire packet.” Quinn does not look at the folder Mallory holds up. She looks at the microexpression that flickers across Theo’s mouth—half a millimeter of tightness at the left corner. He knows the texts were never sent by...