Page 31 of Main Event

She tells it clearly and in order, moving through the hard parts without slowing down. I can tell she’s already done the work of organizing it—putting structure where feeling would go if she let it.

When she finishes, she looks at me.

“I keep reaching for something,” she says. “There’s a pattern I can almost see, and I can’t get to it. I’ve been trying for two hours.”

I look at her and feel the tension of it—the way she’s pulled up short by something that won’t yield, no matter how carefully she approaches it.

I think about everything she just told me. About Jackson and Delia, the methods employed, and the thirty years of lying, conniving, and ruining lives while pretending to be a good person in the public eye. About Daniel passing the message on to her, “I should have been louder in 2011.” About Evelyn running the same play for three decades, on people inside the system, on people who knew too much, on anyone who represented a threat to the operation or became a liability to it.

I think about the operation existing before Jackson. Bill said it. Daniel’s file implies it. Evelyn didn’t start with Jackson Rhoades. He was a vehicle. The operation was running before him.

I think about Andi’s parents.

I think about a music mogul who had institutional connections. Who had money. Who might have asked questions about financial arrangements connected to the wrong network. Who died in a car wreck when his daughter was six years old.

I think about a cousin who took the child in and gave her up when the inheritance was out of reach. About a child deposited into a foster system where Evelyn’s network had reach. About a fifteen-year-old who saw something, reported it, and was silenced using the same technique Evelyn has used for thirty years.

The pattern isn’t just thirty years.

It’s longer than that. It’s bigger than that. It’s more than that.

“Andi,” I say.

She looks at me.

“This didn’t start with Jackson.”

She goes very still.

I watch her face as something crosses it—not surprise, but recognition. I know that look. It’s the moment when resistance drops, not because something is wrong, but because it can’t be avoided anymore.

I stay still and let her have it.

It doesn’t hit. It settles. Like a truth she’s carried for years is suddenly allowed all the way in.

“It didn’t start with Jackson,” she says. Not a question. Confirming. Reasoning.

I nod once. “The operation existed before him. Evelyn has been running it for thirty years. Maybe longer.” I hold her eyes. “Your parents died when you were six.”

She’s very still.

“Yes, in a car wreck,” she says.

“A car wreck that left a child with a music company inheritance and a cousin who gave her up when the money was out of reach.” I keep my voice level. “A child who ended up in a system Evelyn’s network had access to. Who saw something at fifteen and was silenced using the exact tactics Evelyn has been running against you ever since.”

The kitchen is completely silent.

“Luke.”

Her voice is careful—like the care someone takes when testing the ground beneath their feet before committing their weight. Her chin trembles, just slightly, as what I’ve put into the open settles into place.

“I’m not saying I can prove it,” I say. “I’m saying the pattern is there. And you’ve been too close to it—carrying too many individual pieces—to see the complete picture at once.”

She looks at the table. At her hands. At the closed laptop, the stacked files, and the cold cup of tea.

“My parents,” she says.

“I don’t know,” I say. “But I think we need to ask.”