Chapter 14
It's four in the afternoon, and Chicago is unusually sunny for this time of year.
There are no windows in the room — or none that face the outside — but Eleanor knows the sun is blazing out there, and all she wants right now is to lift her face and feel its warmth.
It's a conference room on the third floor of the party's building: a rectangular table, six chairs, a pitcher of water nobody has touched, and two FBI agents sitting across from her who have spent the last ten minutes asking questions with a friendliness that masks an aggression far too pointed for her taste.
Eleanor came alone. She decided the night before, sitting in the library while the cigarette she'd lit on the balcony burned down by itself in the cold of the early morning.
She doesn't need lawyers because she has nothing to hide, and showing up with legal representation when you haven't been formally charged sends a message Eleanor can't afford and won't allow.
Innocence, transparency, full cooperation — that's the message, and the only way to prove it is to be here alone, no shields, answering every question with the same clarity she's brought to every matter in her career.
That's what she thought last night.
Now, ten minutes into this room, Eleanor is starting to understand she made a mistake.
The agent doing most of the talking is named Reeves — hard to place in age, because Eleanor thinks his way of dressing and his thinning hairline belong to a man in his mid-fifties, but the boyish face and the braces that ruin his smile belong to someone younger.
He's measured, and his questions sound like easy conversation, the kind you'd have with a friend.
The second agent hasn't left his notepad and hasn't said a word yet, but he's writing everything down.
There's something dark between them, a combination that takes Eleanor exactly those ten minutes to identify.
She realizes they're not looking for information — they're looking for the mistake.
"How often did you meet with Cooper outside official hours?" Reeves tosses the question and arranges his face into something pleasant that Eleanor reads as the look of a predator that's finally spotted its prey.
Every question carries a second question inside it, a lateral angle from which whatever Eleanor says can be read differently than she intends. This isn't a question about the frequency of meetings — it's about whether there were meetings that weren't official.
"Were you aware of Cooper's relationships with the state contractors?" Reeves continues after Eleanor answered in the negative.
They're good. But so is Eleanor; she's spent years navigating conversations where every word carries consequences, and she does what she always does: pause before answering, choose each word carefully, and offer nothing beyond what she's asked.
"Would you like some water?" This time it's the other agent who speaks, sliding a plastic cup closer to Eleanor. "You seem a little tense."
The nerves are there — she won't deny that to herself — but Eleanor Montgomery doesn't show them on the surface, except when she's in a garage that smells like oil or in a guest bathroom with the lock bolted.
Right now she feels them in her chest, in that pressure that starts building when Reeves asks his fourth question and Eleanor has to think a beat longer than she should to make sure the answer can't be used against her.
"Congresswoman Montgomery," Reeves says — and he uses the title, even though Eleanor no longer holds it, which could be a courtesy or could be something else — "let's go back to the September fifteenth event.
You mentioned you were present at the reception along with Cooper and several representatives of Oxxien Construction.
Do you recall having a private conversation at any point with any of the company's representatives? "
"Not that I can recall," she says after a two-second pause.
Reeves nods while the second agent writes.
"Is it possible you had that conversation and don't remember it?"
The question is a small, perfect trap. If she says no, she's claiming she has a flawless memory of every conversation she had at every political event over the past few years — which is impossible, and Reeves knows it.
If she says it's possible she had those conversations, she's opening a door she doesn't want to walk through.
Eleanor draws a breath to answer, because silence is the worst option; she walked into the lion's den herself, and she has to find the most professional way out. She opens her mouth — and at the same moment, the door to the room flies open.
The younger agent jumps to his feet, a reflex that says he didn't expect an interruption and doesn't appreciate it one bit.
Abigail Lawson is standing in the doorway.
Eleanor has seen her in many versions and many contexts, but Abigail in an all-black suit, chestnut bob immaculate, dark green eyes sweeping the room in half a second with the look of someone who walks in and makes the place hers before she says a word — this version Eleanor hadn't seen before.
Or she had, but not here.
The second agent opens his mouth. Abigail speaks first.
"I'm Eleanor Montgomery's attorney." Her voice fills the room with a calm full of authority, the way it always does when she's working. "From this point forward, no one speaks to her without my authorization."
Reeves looks at her from his chair and seems to weigh the situation for a moment.
"This is a voluntary statement," the agent says. "The congresswoman came without legal representation."
"And her legal representation just arrived.
" Abigail takes two steps toward the table and sets her briefcase down with a sharp thud.
"Which is her right at any point in this process, as you know perfectly well.
" She pauses to look him in the eye. "Today's statement is over.
If you need to continue, contact me and we'll agree on a date and conditions. "
The second agent is red in the face, jaw tight, staring at Reeves.
Reeves looks at Abigail, working out how to respond. The silence stretches longer than she's willing to tolerate, but she has no intention of moving until the agent finally closes his notepad.
"We'll be in touch." He says it without looking at either woman in the room and stands to leave.
Eleanor has gotten to her feet without realizing it.
She's standing beside her chair when Abigail's eyes find hers, and in that moment — that exact second when Abigail's dark green eyes meet hers — something happens that Eleanor can't explain in any language she has.
The world that's been spinning nonstop for days, the headlines, the agents, the calls from Washington, Daniel, her resignation, and everything that came after the mug broke into three pieces on a Tuesday morning — all of it stops.
It doesn't disappear, no, it's still there, but it stops, like a deafening noise cut short when someone shuts the window.
"Let's go," Abigail says.
Eleanor nods, picks up her bag, and follows the lawyer out of the room.
The hallway is long and they're alone in it.
Their footsteps sound different: Eleanor's more measured, Abigail's with that near-perfect stride she always has when she's moving toward something with purpose.
They don't say anything — they don't need to.
The building's doors swing open and the sun Eleanor had been craving hits her face, but so do the reporters, and there are more than she'd counted on, a dozen at least, with cameras and microphones, circling like vultures.
Eleanor takes a firm step toward them, ready to speak, but a chill runs through her when Abigail's hand touches her arm.
"Not a word," the lawyer murmurs, right by her ear.
Eleanor stops and nearly stumbles. Abigail steers her the other way with light pressure on her arm, unhurried — a quiet way of saying they're not running.
"Over here," Eleanor says when she spots the car that takes her everywhere.
Tom steps out of the driver's seat and opens the door for both of them to get in. A few seconds later the engine hums to life and he starts driving without a destination, waiting for instructions.
The inside of the car is completely silent, a mixture of discomfort and familiarity. It's a tense silence, and neither Abigail nor Eleanor knows what to do with it.
"I need somewhere private," Abigail says — and before the request can be read as anything else, she adds, "To talk."
Eleanor doesn't look at her.
"Tom, home," Eleanor tells her driver.
Tom nods, changes lanes, and makes a left to carry out his employer's request.
The drive takes several minutes — at least thirty, Eleanor would say. They've been quiet the whole time, Abigail with her head turned toward the window and Eleanor fighting her own eyes to keep them from tracing the lawyer's delicate profile.
When they arrive, Eleanor is quietly grateful there are no press vultures camped outside her house, though she knows they're out there somewhere, lurking — so she doesn't waste time and walks straight to the front door.
Abigail pauses on the sidewalk for a second to take in the house before she steps inside; it's her first time here.
Eleanor notices the curiosity in the way Abigail's eyes move over the entryway as they come in, the staircase, the living room visible from the door, and the details that make this house Eleanor's — and Daniel's too.
"Put your things wherever you like," Eleanor tells her as she sets her keys on the table by the entrance.
"How are you?" Abigail asks suddenly, and for the second time today Eleanor nearly stumbles.
Eleanor doesn't know what to do with that question. It's short, but the answer could run as long as the sleepless nights she's spent over the last twenty years.
"What are you doing here?" she says back.
"Don't answer a question with a question, Eleanor."
They hold each other's eyes for a moment, challenging each other, the way they've been so close in their recent encounters.
Eleanor huffs.
"I'm fine."
Abigail huffs louder.
"Right," she says, and the sarcasm lands like a slap.
"Listen to me." Her voice shifts — now it's attorney Lawson speaking.
"From this moment on, nothing happens without going through me first. No exceptions.
If the FBI wants another statement, they come to me and I decide if it happens, when, and on what terms. Press conferences — none we haven't prepared together.
Any communications the party sends you, I get copied. "
"Abigail—"
"I'm not finished." She runs a hand through her hair. "Have you spoken with anyone from the party since you resigned? Anyone from Washington?"
"Two calls," Eleanor answers.
"Recorded?"
"I don't know."
"From now on, assume everything is recorded.
" Abigail moves around the living room — she seems on edge.
"Tomorrow we start working on strategy. Tonight I need you to walk me through everything, from the beginning — everything you know about Cooper, how long you've known him, what kind of relationship you had, meetings, conversations, all of it. "
They sit in the living room, and Eleanor feels a faint wave of nausea.
They're on the couch where Daniel used to settle in with his bourbon and his laptop.
She can't help feeling the bitterness of betrayal — she knows she spent years cheating on him with the woman now sitting in her own home, though never outside the walls of her parents' house in Pittsburgh, always with discretion and never with her eyes on anyone else, because Eleanor Montgomery only has eyes for one person.
They talk for hours. It's a conversation unlike any they've had in all the years they've known each other, because this one is work — Abigail asking questions, Eleanor answering, neither of them stepping onto any ground that isn't the case.
No lingering looks, no loaded silences; just Cooper, the FBI, the contracts, and the events.
It's the closest thing to a normal conversation they've had in two decades, and it's also, paradoxically, one of the most intimate.
When they finish it's almost nine o'clock. Abigail closes the notebook she's been writing everything in and tucks the pen into her jacket's inner pocket.
"Tomorrow I need access to all your communication records with Cooper from the last two years." She stands and winces — her back aches and she's genuinely exhausted. "I'll head to my hotel and—"
Eleanor frowns.
"Don't even think about it," she cuts her off, and Eleanor doesn't bother pointing a finger, but Abigail feels as if she has.
Eleanor doesn't take the trouble of explaining herself — she simply tells Abigail to follow her and heads toward the stairs. Abigail does, because she's spent years following Eleanor in different directions, and this is a move she recognizes, even if the context is entirely different.
The guest room is at the end of the hall upstairs — not the one Daniel used to sleep in; Eleanor would never let Abigail so much as touch that bed — and when they step inside, Eleanor turns on the light and checks that there are clean towels in the bathroom.
"The bathroom has everything you need," she says. "If anything's missing, there are extras in the hall closet."
Abigail looks around the room, then at Eleanor, who holds her gaze just long enough before turning toward the door.
"Good night, Abigail."
Eleanor leaves the room and closes the door.
She stands still for a moment in the hallway, her hand still on the knob, alone in the silence of her own house, listening to the sounds of Abigail on the other side of the door — in the same space where there is air and darkness and all the years of everything between them that has no name.
She lets out a breath heavy with something she can't quite name, releases the knob, and walks to her bedroom.