Chapter 8: Named
The room Reyes took me to had no windows.
A table, four chairs, a camera mounted in the corner.
She closed the door and stood with her back against it for a moment, thinking.
"He's trying to get ahead of us," she said.
"If he names you publicly as a witness before we can protect your identity, he creates a narrative — you're a person of interest, you have a connection to the Vitali family, your credibility becomes the story instead of the evidence."
"Can he do that?
Name a witness publicly?"
"He just did." She sat down across from me.
"It's legally questionable.
It may cost him later.
But right now it puts you in a very exposed position." She leaned forward.
"Ms.
Harmon, I need your statement on record in the next thirty minutes.
Once it's formally entered, it changes your legal standing entirely.
You become a protected federal witness, not a person of interest."
"Then let's start," I said.
I talked for twenty-six minutes.
Reyes recorded everything and her assistant transcribed in real time.
I told them about my father, the drive, the gala, Alessandro, Carla, Marcus Hale's name spoken in a small room in a legal aid clinic.
I told them about the black SUV and the emergency injunction and the phone call in the alley.
When I finished, Reyes set down her pen.
"Your father was a brave man," she said.
"He was careful," I said.
"He thought careful was enough."
She didn't respond to that.
She didn't need to.
Outside the room, the field office had shifted into a different gear — more movement, more voices, the particular energy of something about to happen.
Reyes stepped out briefly and came back with a look on her face that I was learning to read.
"The warrant has been issued," she said.
"Hale is at his office downtown.
We have agents en route."
I let out a breath I had been holding since the bathroom floor that morning.
"His press conference," I said.
"The one where he named me—"
"Three major news outlets have already pulled the clip pending legal review.
His own agency's communications director issued a statement saying the naming of a private individual was unauthorized." She almost smiled.
"He overplayed it.
He thought naming you would create chaos.
Instead it created a paper trail of him trying to interfere."
Liam was in the lobby when I came out.
He stood up immediately.
"It's done?" he said.
"Almost."
Alessandro was on his phone near the window.
He ended the call when he saw me and crossed the lobby in a few strides.
"My father's attorney has filed a motion to dismiss the indictment," he said.
"Based on the new evidence, the judge is reviewing it tonight." He paused.
"My father doesn't fully understand what's happening.
He knows something is wrong.
He keeps asking for Marcus."
The weight of that landed quietly.
"What will you tell him?" I said.
"The truth.
When it's over." He looked at me carefully.
"How are you?"
"I've been better." I looked around the lobby — the agents moving, the fluorescent light, Liam standing a few feet away with his arms crossed and his eyes on me.
"I've also been worse."
Alessandro's phone buzzed.
He looked at it.
"They have him," he said.
I didn't ask who.
I knew.
Reyes appeared from the hallway.
She looked at Alessandro, then at me.
"Marcus Hale was taken into custody eleven minutes ago at his downtown office," she said.
"He was attempting to access and delete files from the company server when agents arrived." She paused.
"He said—" She glanced at her notes.
"He said, and I'm quoting directly: 'You have no idea what you've just done to this city.'"
Nobody in the lobby responded to that.
I thought about my father at his desk, late at night, building a case one careful document at a time.
I thought about Carla choosing her daughter and then choosing courage.
I thought about a drive hidden inside a John Grisham novel on the third shelf.
"I think we have a pretty good idea," I said.
Liam put his hand briefly on my back.
Just for a second.
Just enough.
Reyes looked between us.
"Ms.
Harmon, we'll need you available for the next several days as the case develops.
Don't leave the city.
And—" She paused.
"Get some rest.
You've done enough for today."
Alessandro held the lobby door open.
The three of us walked out into the afternoon.
Chicago was doing what Chicago always did — moving, indifferent, enormous.
The light was going gold over the buildings to the west.
"My driver can take you both wherever you need to go," Alessandro said.
"Home," Liam said.
He looked at me.
"Right?"
"Yes," I said.
"Home."
Alessandro walked with us to the car.
At the door, he stopped.
"Elizabeth." He said my real name carefully, like he was still learning the shape of it.
"I meant what I said in the reading room.
About doing this together."
"I know you did."
"I also know you don't fully trust me yet."
"No," I said honestly.
"Not fully."
He nodded.
Like that was a fair answer.
Like he intended to earn the rest.
"Then I'll keep showing up," he said, "until you do."
He stepped back.
The car pulled away from the curb.
Liam was quiet for half a block.
Then: "He's not what I expected."
"No," I said.
"He isn't."
We rode the rest of the way in silence.
Outside the window, the city moved past — ordinary, enormous, indifferent.
And for the first time in three years, I didn't feel like I was running through it alone.
May you like
But when we turned onto our street, I saw the light in our apartment window was on.
Neither of us had left it on.
