Romero looked at me from across the conference table.
"You realize you're not going home alone tonight."
"I'm not accepting a police escort from Westbridge."
"I didn't say Westbridge."
The inspector general's office arranged a plain vehicle and a state investigator to drive me to a hotel registered under the office's account. It felt dramatic, and I hated it.
I wanted my apartment.
My own coffee mug.
The stack of laundry I had ignored for four days.
I wanted to believe Vance's attempt at the courthouse had been one frightened man making a reckless decision.
Then Jonah Reed called.
His voice was whisper-quiet.
"Elena, somebody just disabled my building access."
I stood in the courthouse stairwell with the phone pressed to my ear.
"Where are you?"
"Across the street from headquarters. I went out for coffee. My badge won't let me back in. My supervisor isn't answering."
"Do not go back inside."
"I wasn't planning to."
"Any work equipment with you?"
"Just my city phone."
"Turn it off. Don't delete anything. Call Romero from a personal device."
There was a pause.
"They know, don't they?"
I looked through the narrow stairwell window toward the courthouse roofline.
"They know enough to be scared."
Jonah exhaled shakily.
"I found something else."
"Tell Romero, not me."
"I know. But you need to hear the phrase."
I closed my eyes.
"What phrase?"
"Clean the blue before Carter opens it."
My hand tightened around the phone.
"Where did you see that?"
"A message queue on the admin server. It flashed before my access died. Sender was Vale's office. Recipient group included Vance and three others."
The hallway confrontation had not been improvised.
It was part of a coordinated response.
And whatever Marcus Vale believed was inside the Blue Ledger files frightened him enough to interfere with a court delivery in broad daylight.
Jonah Reed spent that night in an interview room at the inspector general's office instead of his apartment.
Not because he was under suspicion.
Because the moment his badge stopped working, Romero treated him as a potentially retaliated-against employee whose access, devices, and safety all needed to be documented before anyone could rewrite the reason for his removal.
Jonah arrived carrying one city phone in an evidence bag and a paper cup of coffee he never touched. His supervisor had finally called him while he was on the way there. The message was simple: administrative leave pending a security review. No explanation. No allegation. No return date.
"Did they tell you not to talk to us?" Cho asked.
"They told me not to discuss internal systems with unauthorized third parties."