Angela nodded. She was glad Diana had said it out loud, partly because she did not want the case to become a story about powerful connections defeating a local police captain. The people Holt had pressured included widows, shop workers, renters, and teenagers who had never known anyone in the armed forces. If Angela and Marcus succeeded only by proving they deserved unusual treatment, Brookside would still be vulnerable when the next developer found the next officer willing to cooperate.
Jack Morrison came by the following afternoon with a photographer and spent an hour interviewing residents without turning the front porch into a stage. He asked about the police calls, the property offers, and who had seen what before the raid, carefully separating first-hand observations from neighborhood rumors. Mrs. Carter spoke about her husband's roses and the day Holt had warned that legal trouble might follow her refusal to sell. Angela told Jack about being forced to the pavement and said she wanted the city to explain why it had deployed an armed response against a woman checking the mail.
"Do you want us to publish the video?" Jack asked.
"It's already online," Angela answered. "But I'd rather you show the records beside it. People know the officer pushed me. They also need to know why Captain Holt was at my house in the first place."
Jack left with copies of documents and the promise that he would contact the police department and Vision Heights for comment. He would not promise a headline, which Angela respected more than a grand declaration that he would bring everyone down. That evening, she and Marcus ate Sarah Thompson's soup at the kitchen table while a temporary door panel rattled in the breeze. For a few precious hours, the house felt like a place where they might begin healing.
Around ten, the last visitors went home. Angela washed her hair, sat on the edge of the bed, and tried to read the book she had left open on the nightstand before the first raid. Every time she heard a car pass outside, she lost her place. Marcus set his phone beside the bed with Diana's number visible and offered to sleep on the couch near the damaged entrance if it helped, but Angela asked him to stay because she was tired of having the house divided into places to guard and places to fear.
They were drifting toward sleep when the light bars returned. This time the vehicles came without sirens, their blue reflections sliding across the ceiling before the engines stopped. Angela sat upright, recognizing the sensation before her mind found words for it. Marcus was already at the window, looking toward the curb where three cruisers and an unmarked SUV had stopped beneath the maple trees.
"They're back," Angela whispered.
A fist struck the front door, hard enough to shake the temporary repair. "Police. Open up. We have a search warrant."
Marcus picked up his phone and began recording before moving toward the entrance. Angela did the same, following at a distance and keeping the cameras visible, because the last time they had tried to rely on someone's professionalism it had left bruises and broken furniture. Through the peephole Marcus recognized Holt, Griggs, and several officers from the previous operation. Holt's face looked composed in the way a person can look composed when he has already decided how to describe whatever happens next.