I stood against my car with my wrists bound behind me and I looked across the street.
Thomas Chen was standing on the opposite sidewalk.
I had known Thomas for six years. He had clerked for me for two years after his clerkship at the circuit court, which meant I knew his capabilities, his work ethic, his way of being in a difficult moment. He had a quality I had valued and tried to cultivate in all my clerks: the ability to see what was actually happening, not what should be happening or what he expected to be happening. The ability to read the situation.
He read this one in about four seconds.
I watched his face move through the sequence: confusion, recognition, alarm. I watched him take out his phone and raise it. I watched him take three steps backward, creating distance between himself and anything that could be called interference. And I watched him begin to dial with the focused speed of someone who knew who he needed to reach.
