"Yeah." I watched the ambulance disappear around the corner. "Just thinking."
Shane just nodded, like he understood. He probably did.
The call from Detective Diaz came while I was cleaning equipment at the station, my hands already sore.
Her name on the screen. I picked up before the second ring. Good news or bad news. With this case, there was no such thing as neutral news.
"Torres."
"Are you somewhere you can talk?" Diaz’s voice was low, guarded. Not the confident detective I knew. "Privately?"
I stepped away from the rig and ducked into the empty hallway by the locker room. "I am now. What's going on?"
"What I'm about to tell you—I could lose my badge for this. Maybe worse." A pause. "But you deserve to know. And honestly? I'm tired of watching the system protect people who don't deserve it.”
I braced. "I'm listening."
"I found out who ordered my reassignment." Another pause, longer this time. "It came from Captain Hendricks. He's the one who pulled me off the case and handed it to Morrison."
"Hendricks." The name didn't mean anything to me.
"Twenty-two years on the job. Decorated. Respected." Her voice hardened. "And three days ago, I found financial records linking him to a shell company called Crescent Holdings."
The name landed. Crescent Holdings. I'd seen it in Charles Rothwell's folder.
"You're saying Hendricks is on the Langs' payroll."
"I'm saying he's received four payments totaling eighty thousand dollars over the past eighteen months. All routed through Crescent Holdings. All timed suspiciously close to cases involving the Lang family or their associates." Diaz exhaled. "Morrison isn't just incompetent, Torres. He's following orders. The whole investigation was designed to die."
I leaned against the wall, my grip tightening around the phone. A police captain. Bought and paid for. No wonder the case kept hitting dead ends.
"Why risk this?"
"Because I believe in what you and Dr. Rothwell are doing. Because Derek Edwards deserves justice, and the system that was supposed to give it to him has been compromised." Her voice was steady now, resolute.
"Diaz, if anyone finds out you gave me this?—"
"Then I'll deal with the consequences." A bitter laugh. "I became a cop to put bad people away. Not to watch them buy their way out of murder charges while my bosses look the other way."
I was quiet for a moment, the weight of what she was risking settling over me.
"Thank you," I said finally. "I mean it. This is?—"
"Don't thank me yet. This is just information. What matters is what you do with it." She paused. "Be careful, Torres. The Langs have more reach than you know. If they find out you're getting close..."
She didn't finish the sentence. She didn't need to.
"I'll be careful."
"Good." A breath. "I'll reach out if I have more, but don't try to contact me through the precinct. It's not safe."
"Understood."
The line went dead.
I stood in the hallway, phone in hand, Diaz's words echoing in my head.The Langs have more reach than you know.
A police captain on their payroll. An investigation designed to fail. And Ava, caught in the middle of all of it.
