Chapter 31
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
ANDI
We go to talk to Bill together the next morning.
Luke drives. I have the folder with the photographs—the board communication analysis, the Katelyn donor list connection, and the notes from yesterday's break-in. The documents themselves are already in Bill's office. What I'm bringing now is everything that happened after I left.
Bill's assistant waves us straight through when we arrive, which means he's been expecting this too.
He looks at Luke when we walk in—not with surprise, but with the discerning look of someone who has been working on a case alone with one person and is now receiving the complete picture. He stands and shakes Luke's hand.
"Luke Woods," he says. “Good to meet you.”
"You too, Bill." Luke sits in the chair beside me rather than behind me, which is where I'd half-expected him to position himself. Side by side. That's what we are now.
Bill sits back down. "Tell me what happened after you left yesterday."
I tell him about the break-in. The back door, the study, and the laptop were moved and replaced at a slightly different angle. Nothing taken. Professional entry.
He listens without writing anything down, which is what he does when he's mapping rather than recording.
"When did you leave the house yesterday morning?" he asks when I finish.
"Eight-fifteen. I came straight to you."
"And the break-in was discovered when you came home? When was that?"
"Early afternoon."
He nods slowly. "So the window was roughly six hours. Professional entry, assessment only, clean exit." He picks up his pen. "This is not someone acting desperately. This is someone who sent a resource to establish what you have."
"That's what I thought," I say.
"She knows you have her name," Bill says.
"The board communication language you brought me in June—specific phrasing, specific framing that tracks back to conversations between the two of you.
She's been informed. Someone in your circle has been feeding her.
" He looks at me directly. "What she doesn't know is whether you have documentation.
If she knew about Daniel's package, she wouldn't have sent someone to look—she'd have moved differently. "
"She thinks we're working on pattern and inference," Luke says. "Not documents."
"Yes. Which gives you a window." Bill sets the pen down. "A short one. When she concludes you can't produce documentation, the operation shifts. She repositions. Everything you've built becomes harder to act on."
"How long?" Luke asks.
"Weeks. Not months." Bill looks at us both. "Which is why I need to tell you what I found yesterday after Andi left."
I go still.
"Evelyn Carrington's current positions," he says.
He opens a folder on his desk—he's been working on this too, which shouldn't surprise me but does.
"She sits on three philanthropic oversight boards in Atlanta.
Two federal advisory councils with jurisdiction over nonprofit compliance.
And—" He pauses. "The Georgia State Athletic Commission's governance oversight committee. "
Luke's jaw tightens.
"She's been on it for four years," Bill says. "The Commission escalation against Luke's license last spring—the one that prompted your situation to accelerate—ran through a committee she advises."
The room is quiet for a moment.
"She didn't just respond to us," I say. "She had the infrastructure already in place."
"She built it before she needed it," Bill says. "The Commission specifically."
Bill opens a second page in the folder. "This one has a clear origin point. Andi's connection to Mack Weaver and the Tough Enough gym is documented going back years—public appearances, the gym's community programming, your name attached to several fighters' professional development records."
He sets the page down. "Mack is one of the most respected figures in Georgia boxing.
His gym intersects with the Commission's regulatory world constantly—licensing, sanctioning, oversight.
If you wanted a relationship with the Commission's governance structure, cultivating a presence in Mack's orbit was the logical path. "
He looks at us both.
"She wasn't in those circles because of Luke," he says.
"She was in those circles because of you.
Luke became relevant later—once the relationship became public and a licensed boxer with a conduct file became a usable pressure point.
" A pause. "But the groundwork existed before he was in the picture.
She mapped your world, Andi. Every professional circle you move in.
The music industry through MaxMorgan. The foster care governance network.
The philanthropic oversight boards your center depends on.
And boxing—because of your relationship with Mack. "
The room is quiet.
"She didn't stumble into a position adjacent to your life," Bill says.
"She built one. Methodically. Over years.
That's how she operates. Every position she holds is insurance for the next operation.” He closes the folder.
"The Commission escalation wasn't improvised.
It was activated. She built a relationship with that committee well ahead of time and used it when the situation required it. "
Luke is very still beside me. I know what he's thinking.
The doctored pictures of Travis and me, the rumors and innuendos online, the smear campaigns meant to drive Luke and me apart.
The license review that kept him away from home, that gave Marin unobstructed access to me, that was presented to us as an unrelated institutional process.
All of it activated when she snapped her fingers.
"She used the Commission to move Luke out of the way," he says. His voice is level. A man who has learned to hold this kind of information without letting it become fuel for the wrong kind of response.
"That's what the evidence suggests, anyway," Bill says carefully. "It's not provable yet. But it's consistent with the methodology." He looks at me. "There's also the Katelyn connection you mentioned."
"Evelyn's niece," I say. "On the tour. The bus line in the fabricated transcript came through her—she was talking to her aunt the way you talk to family. She had no idea what she was feeding."
Bill writes this down. "That establishes a direct information pipeline from your tour to Carrington.
The fabricated transcript used your actual words from two contexts—the boardroom, which Marin had access to, and the bus, which came through Katelyn.
" He looks up. "That's the methodology in action.
She doesn't need to be in the room. She just needs to be close enough to the people who are. "
"Marin through Brandon," Luke says. "Katelyn through the tour."
"The auditor," I add. "The Commission relationship. The PR firm through Garrett Cole." I look at Bill. "Every point of contact we've had this year—someone she'd already positioned."
"Years of groundwork," Bill says. "For a target she's been managing since you were fifteen.
" He holds my eyes for a moment. Then: "Here's what this means for where you are.
You have the origin document. You have the methodology chain.
You have Carrington's current positions establishing ongoing operational infrastructure.
You have a direct information pipeline through Katelyn.
" He pauses. "What converts this from a pattern to a prosecutable case is still the same thing I told you yesterday. Evidence of instruction. And Daniel."
"We can't find him," Luke says. "But he found us once."
"He found you because he decided you were ready," Bill says.
"The question is whether he'll decide you need him specifically—not just his documents.
" He folds his hands. "He sent the package after the Phoenix accident became public.
Something about that timing told him the window was open. If the situation escalates further—"
"It already has," I say. "The break-in is an escalation."
"Yes." Bill looks at me steadily. "And if Carrington escalates again—if she moves from institutional pressure and surveillance to something more direct—that changes Daniel's calculus.
A woman who has operated cleanly for thirty years, making a physical move creates the kind of evidence she's spent thirty years avoiding.
" He pauses. "That may be what brings him in. "
Luke looks at his hands on the table. "We're supposed to wait for her to escalate."
"I'm not telling you to wait," Bill says.
"I'm telling you that escalation on her part is both a danger and an opportunity, and you should be prepared for both.
" He stands. "What I need from you is to keep me informed of every development.
Don't move on, Marin or Brandon, without talking to me first. And—" He looks at Luke directly for the first time since we sat down.
"If anything physical happens—anything at all—you call me before you call anyone else and before you say anything to anyone. "
Luke holds his eyes. "Understood."
Bill nods once.
Something passes between them—an unspoken understanding of what kind of restraint is being asked for, and why it matters. Luke has spent his life training his body to move toward a threat. That instinct doesn’t disappear just because he wants it to.
Bill sees the tension in his shoulders, the way his hands curl and then open again. This isn’t hesitation. It’s control. And everyone in the room knows what it costs him.
"The documents are secure," Bill says. "Chain of custody is established. You've done the work." He looks at us both. "Now we wait for Daniel to decide we've done enough."