Nick recognized the line as a caption that must have run under a photo that appeared with no story. He wondered how he could have missed it. He checked the date it ran: January 21 of last year.

Nick had not been aware of anything during that month or the February after that. He'd been on an extended leave of absence. Death in the family.

He refocused on the screen and called up the next mention of Ferris. But with continued delays of the hearing dates, each story got smaller and was placed deeper on inside pages until they were barely noticeable.

Nick knew that information about court hearings and calendar calls wouldn't make the paper. He switched out of the stories and called up a website from his favorites list on the Internet: Florida Department of Corrections. From here, he could enter Ferris's name and date of birth and find out where he had been held in the prison system. While he was waiting, his phone rang.

"Nick Mullins," he answered.

"Hey, Nick. It's Lori. I've got some court docket stuff on Ferris that I got online. The last entry was a request by defense to show cause for a change of sentence that looks like it had been delayed a couple of times."

"Let me guess," Nick said. "Rescheduled for today."

"Two in the afternoon in Judge Grossman's courtroom," she said.

Nick could hear the tinge of disappointment in her voice that she hadn't been ahead of him.

"Was that in the clips?" she asked.

"Nope. Hell, the guy was off our radar for almost a year," Nick said, as much to himself as Lori. "Can you print that stuff and send it over?"