Page 51 of Split Decision

Aname. Listed underprior professional affiliations of firm principals.Garrett Cole.

I know that name.

Garrett Cole was a senior communications director for Jackson Rhoades's congressional office. He left the position eight months before Jackson's death—quietly, no announcement, no public statement about where he went next. At the time, I noted it in the context of the broader situation and moved on. Political staff changes in a congressman's office aren't unusual. People leave.

But Hewitt's disclosure shows a consulting arrangement with Cole's current firm in 2021. Two years after Cole left Jackson's office. The disclosure characterizes it as a routine subcontracting relationship. Standard language. The kind of thing that might not raise flags if you weren't already thinking about it.

I am already thinking about it.

I lean back in my chair.

The connection isn't evidence of anything. Consulting relationships are common, and overlapping networks are normal. Garrett Cole, a former Rhoades staffer, isn't compromised, nor does it make anyone he's worked with suspect. I know this. I'm a careful, methodical person, and I know how to distinguish between a pattern that means something and one that's just proximity.

What I can't explain is why Marin didn't mention it.

She knows who Garrett Cole is. She knows the Rhoades situation and its connections because that's the entire context of why she's here. If she vetted this firm—and she's thorough, she vetted everything—she found this. She made a conscious decision not to surface it.

That decision might be entirely reasonable. The connection might be so tangential in her assessment that it didn't rise to the level of disclosure. She might have judged that bringing it up would create noise around a firm that doesn't deserve it.

Or she might have had a reason to want the connection to stay quiet.

I close the file.

I'm not going to make an accusation based on an omission. That's not how I operate, and it's not fair to Marin. What I'm going to do is put the Dalton Group recommendation on hold—indefinitely, without explanation—and watch what happens next.

I tell her in person.

Not over the phone. In person, because I want to watch her face when I say it.

We're at the small conference table in my office. She has the board presentation materials open in front of her—the Dalton Group deck, the board approval timeline, and the rollout strategy. She's been preparing this for a week. Everything is in order.

"I'm going to put the firm recommendation on hold," I say.

She looks up from the material. Her expression doesn't shift. "Okay," she says. "Is there a specific concern?"

"I want to do some additional due diligence before I bring it to the board."

"Of course." She closes the deck. "Do you want me to pull additional materials?"

"No, I'll handle it myself."

She pauses. Briefly. But her demeanor is still contained.

"Understood," she says.

That's it. No pushback. No request for specifics. No expression of surprise that a week of preparation is being shelved without explanation. She simply closes the materials, makes a note on her tablet, and moves to the next item on the agenda.

I watch her do all of this.

She's good enough at her job to know that pressing me will make things worse. That's one explanation for the lack of resistance. The other explanation is that she already knows what I found, and she knows pressing me will confirm that she knows.

I don't know which it is.

That's what troubles me most—not the connection, not the omission, not even the possibility that she intentionally put something compromised in front of me. What troubles me is that I genuinely can't read her. I've been in rooms with many people over the course of my career, and I'm good at reading them. Marin Caldwell is the first person in a long time who is perfectly legible in every register except the one that matters.

She's gathering her things when she pauses at the door.

"Brandon."