Silence on the line for a moment. "How did he respond?" Jade asked.
"He said he would be in touch," Layla said. "Which means he went back to Harlan. And Harlan is starting to understand that this is not going away."
"Good. Let him understand. Keep the pressure on," Jade said.
"Every single day," Layla confirmed.
Caldwell resigned from the public safety committee before midday. He did it with a press release: four sentences, carefully written, that said nothing while pretending to say something—personal matters, time with family, confidence in the city's leadership, gratitude for the opportunity to serve. Not one word about the AG's investigation; not one word about Meridian Group; not one word about the millions-dollar contract that had been sitting behind everything from the very beginning.
Marcus sent her the press release as a screenshot with a single line of text beneath it: "He's running."
Jade read it once and set her phone face down on the table. Running was fine; running meant he already knew what was coming.
Days later, Marcus confirmed that two of Caldwell's former associates—men who had been in rooms where certain conversations happened—had begun cooperating with the AG's investigation. The financial relationship between Caldwell and Meridian Group was entered into the public record by the end of the week: his consulting fees, the lobbying conversations, the contract projections—all of it documented, public, undeniable.
His political career did not end in a courtroom; it ended with a press release and a shuttered phone. That was somehow worse, Jade thought: the quiet of it, the way a man who had spent years making noise to protect himself went suddenly, completely silent.
Chief Whitaker called on a Thursday afternoon. Jade was at the kitchen table when her phone lit up with the number. She looked at it for one full ring, then picked up.
"Dr. Brooks," Whitaker said, "I owe you a phone call."
"You do," Jade said. She kept her voice even. She was not going to make this easy, but she was not going to be cruel, either.
Chief Whitaker was a Black woman who had made a calculation under pressure and chosen the wrong side, and both of them knew exactly what that meant and cost. The chief spoke for several minutes: she talked about the department, about pressure from above, about a decision she had made that she was now publicly walking back. She was careful with her words in a way that told Jade a lawyer had probably reviewed them first.