"Then give them to her attorney through the proper process."
Holt rose, trying to make the conversation physical by closing the distance. Marcus stayed where he was. He had spent enough time around people who used rank as a substitute for judgment to recognize the maneuver. He also understood that the fastest way to lose control of the situation would be to let Holt decide where the next confrontation happened.
"I know about Vision Heights," Marcus said. "I know residents have been receiving offers after repeated police contacts. You're going to have to explain why my wife was the target of ten cruisers when nobody would tell her who you were looking for."
Holt's jaw tightened. "You've got a suspicious imagination."
"I've got questions," Marcus said. "The answers will come from documents, not from a fight in this office."
Diana arrived before one in the morning and immediately insisted on seeing Angela's booking record. She photographed the marks on Angela's wrists with consent, arranged for a medical assessment, and formally requested preservation of dispatch audio, body-camera recordings, vehicle-camera footage, search logs, and the officers' written reports. When she learned the department had seized Angela's damaged phone from the street after Holt stepped on it, she added the phone and its handling record to the request.
"Don't assume they'll preserve everything because we asked nicely," Diana told Marcus in the hallway. "We need written notices, receipts, and more than one copy outside the department."
Angela spent the rest of the night in a cell. She did not sleep much. When the lights dimmed, she pictured her living room, the photographs on the wall, and the front door that had been broken in front of her neighbors. The fear came in delayed fragments, arriving each time there was nothing else to occupy her mind. She found herself counting the seconds between sounds in the hallway as though an old part of her training could measure the uncertainty into manageable pieces.
The following morning Marcus was at Mrs. Carter's porch by seven. The widow opened the door in a blue housecoat and looked as though she had aged years overnight. She had seen the police take Angela away and had stayed awake long after the cruisers left. Every noise outside made her look toward the windows.
"Angela would be furious if you stopped eating because of this," Marcus said, accepting the coffee Mrs. Carter offered him. The gentle attempt at humor made her mouth move, though it did not quite become a smile. He asked permission to review the letters and messages from Vision Heights, and she spread them across the kitchen table in careful stacks.
There were more than Angela had known. The earliest offer had been followed by notices from a code inspector, a police report about an unexplained disturbance, and a letter from the development company suggesting a quick sale would help Mrs. Carter avoid financial and legal stress. The letters were not proof of a conspiracy by themselves. Together, they showed a pattern with enough dates, names, and overlapping events to demand independent investigation.