I’m sorry for the hour.” I told the judge who I was in my professional capacity — an Assistant Attorney General who runs a unit that does exactly this — and I told the judge what I had found, and what I had documented, and how I had documented it, and I requested, that night, an emergency protective order for a vulnerable adult, and I laid the groundwork for what would come in the morning.

Judge Thorne had known me a long time.

Judge Thorne knew that I did not call at midnight for anything small, and did not exaggerate, and did not bring a matter forward without the evidence to carry it.

I heard the judge’s voice change as I spoke — heard it go from sleep to attention to something colder and more focused, the particular focus of a person who has just understood that a crime is in progress and that they are positioned to stop it.

By the time I hung up, the machinery had begun to move.