"What do you need?"
"I need you to do something that you aren't going to like."
"I'm listening."
"Stay at Greenridge."
He doesn't answer right away.
"Don't quit. Don't file a complaint. Don't give Hudson a reason to push you out. Right now you're the only person I have with direct access to Jude. I need eyes on the sedation protocols, who's authorizing them, anything Kennedy changes before the hearing."
"You want me to keep working for the people who just had her removed."
"I want you inside that building. You've been watching for months without anyone noticing. Keep watching. Keep documenting."
"And when do you need me to testify?"
"Not yet. The moment you go on record, you're done at Greenridge. I need you inside longer than I need you on the stand, but your time will come."
"How long?"
"Through the hearing at minimum. Weeks, maybe months, if you can hold it."
"Hope's not going to like me sitting on this."
"Tell her what you're comfortable with. But the strategy stays between us until I say otherwise."
His voice is flat when he answers. "Fine. But I'm not lying to her."
"I'm not asking you to lie. I'm asking you to wait."
"There's a line between those, and it's thinner than you think."
I don't argue the point. He's right, and we both know it.
"The sedation logs. Can you get copies?"
"Not copies. But I can give you what I've observed on rounds. Dates, times, dosages, who administered."
"My personal email, not the firm address. I need it by Sunday."
"Fine."
I hang up and sit with it for a minute.
I have Hope building the case from outside, Gage watching from inside, and a judge angry enough to act on Tuesday. Jude is three weeks into solitary, sedated and restrained.
I pull up the contempt motion I drafted months ago. The template was ready before Hope set foot in Greenridge. I built the framework around her appointment, her documentation, thepattern of institutional obstruction I expected to escalate until the facility overreached.
I just needed them to do it. And they did it on a Friday afternoon, by email, because they thought I wouldn't see it until Monday.
They don't know me very well.
The final version takes ninety minutes. Twenty-three pages, every argument built on Hope's reports. Clean, uncoached, written by a woman who documents what she sees because she doesn't know how to do anything else.
The court appointed her. I didn't ask for her, but I spent the first two weeks trying to figure out her angle. Pulled her background, her record, her track record at other facilities. Looked for the leverage, the bias, the thing that would make her unreliable.
I never found it. What I found was someone whose work I could build a case around.
