Page 2 of Main Event

He reaches across the table and turns the notebook so that he can read it. He reads it the same way he does his physical conditioning—thoroughly, without rushing, and making sure he understands the terrain before he commits to moving through it.

“She’s on the philanthropy review board,” he says.

“Which has jurisdiction over our federal funding structure.”

“She’s already inside.”

“Yeah, she’s been inside,” I say. “That’s the point. She didn’t come to the center to get access. She came to the center because she already had it, and she wanted to look at what she was dealing with.”

Something moves across his face. Not anger—Luke’s anger is its own animal, deliberate, carefully aimed. This is the precursor to it. The moment before.

“She wanted to look at you,” he says.

“Yes, that’s what I think.”

“And what did she see?”

I think about Evelyn’s face when I walked back into the office, sat across from her, and offered her coffee. The unabashed directness of her gaze. What she was reading.

“A woman who could use some help,” I say. “A center that’s had a difficult year. A target who had no idea what was sitting across from her.” I meet Luke’s eyes. “That’s what she saw. Because that’s what I showed her.”

He looks at me for a long moment.

“Good,” he says. Quiet. Certain.

We let the details simmer for a while. The coffee. The notebook. The morning coming in through the kitchen window in gradual increments.

“She looked at the photos,” I say. “The kids on the wall. The mural. She looked through the window into the activity room.”

“And?”

“And she meant it when she said the work speaks for itself. She genuinely believes in the institutional structures she’s built. She thinks what she does serves a purpose.” I pause. “That’s what makes her dangerous. She’s not running a conspiracy because she’s cruel. She’s running it because, in her framework, it’s correct. The people she protects are worth protecting. The people she removes are acceptable losses.”

Luke sets down his mug.

“She will not think that forever,” he says.

“No,” I agree. “She won’t.”

Bill meets us at nine.

His office feels like a room designed for difficult conversations—good chairs, set at a careful distance, and a window positioned so you have somewhere to look when you need a moment that isn’t the person across from you. I’ve spent a lot of time in this office this year. I’ve learned to read it the way I read other rooms.

He has Evelyn Carrington’s public profile pulled up before we sit down. He knew we were coming about her before I said what it was about, which tells me he’s been running the same math we have.

“She chairs the philanthropy review board,” he says without preamble.

“I know.”

“Which has oversight of your federal funding structure.”

“I know that too.”

He looks at me over his glasses. “She’s not coming from outside, Andi. She’s been inside the architecture of this center’s funding for—,” he checks the document, “fourteen months.”

Luke makes a sound that isn’t quite a word.

“Since before the board pressure started,” I say.