Marcus picked up soon after, groggy for exactly one sentence, then sharp. He confirmed everything Layla had said and added two more details she had not had yet. By early morning, both attorneys were on the same call building the framework. Jade listened; she asked the questions that needed asking; she made notes.
Then she said, "There is one more call I need to make."
She had the number saved under a first name only: Carla. Lieutenant Carla Mendoza, County Internal Affairs Division. They had met months ago at a federal K9 training symposium—one of those brief, direct conversations you have with certain people where you both understand within minutes that you are cut from the same cloth. Carla had handed her a card at the end of it and said quietly, "If you ever see something in Clover Ridge that needs to go somewhere safe, call me."
Jade had held onto that card because she trusted her instincts about people. She had never called because she had not needed to; she needed to now.
Carla picked up on the third ring. "I have been watching this case," Carla said before Jade had finished her second sentence. "Tell me everything."
So she did.
Carla was silent for a long time after Jade finished. Not the silence of someone processing; the silence of someone who already had pieces of this puzzle and was now holding the ones that completed it.
"I have been building a case on Harlan for months," Carla said finally. "I have documentation going back years. What I have been missing is a direct line to whoever has been protecting him from above."
"Caldwell," Jade said.
"I suspected, but suspicion is not enough. I need something direct, something financial." A pause. "Is there anything that ties Caldwell to a personal benefit from what is happening to you specifically?"
Jade looked at her legal pad. She thought about the discovery records. She thought about the thing Layla had said days ago: "This case is bigger than one bad officer."
"Let me call you back," she said.
She called Layla back soon after. "The discovery motion," Jade said. "The financial records we pulled from Caldwell's office: I need you to pull them again, all of them. Look for anything connected to private security firms, K9 program contracts, anything related to what I do."