Updated Mar 23, 2026 • ~6 min read
Chapter 28: One year
DOMINIC
A year after the parking structure, she won the award.
The Baxter Award for Investigative Journalism was announced in October and her name was in it — not the Hargrove piece alone, which had been nominated, but all three: Hargrove, the planning commissioner, Antonov, submitted as a body of work. The committee’s note said: *rigorous, independent, and courageous.*
He read the committee’s note twice.
He had the Tribune alert. He read it at six in the morning before she was awake.
He thought: *rigorous.*
He thought: *yes.*
He thought: *that’s the word.*
She found out at nine when Tom called.
He was in the library when he heard her voice change — the specific quality of surprise breaking through the professional register, the sound she made when something she had been working toward became real.
He did not go to the doorway.
He waited.
She came to the library at nine-fifteen with her phone in her hand and the expression he had seen twice before: when the Hargrove story landed and when the notebook was accepted for the Sunday magazine.
She said: “The Baxter.”
He said: “I know.”
She said: “All three.”
He said: “Yes.”
She said: “Tom said the committee note says *rigorous.*”
He said: “I read it.”
She said: “Of course you did.”
He said: “Six-fifteen.”
She shook her head.
She said: “Marcus would have—” She stopped.
He said: “He would have called at six-fifteen-oh-one.”
She said: “Yes.” She looked at her phone. “He would have had notes on what the committee should have said differently.”
He said: “He would have been right about the notes.”
She said: “Yes.” She sat in the reading chair. “He would have been very proud.”
He said: “Yes.”
She said: “Tom says the committee specifically mentioned the notebook. The long-form piece.”
He said: “Yes.”
She said: “The section about the code.”
He said: “Yes.”
She was quiet.
She said: “I want to read something to you.”
He said: “All right.”
She opened her phone. She said: “The committee note says: *Winters’ long-form investigation represents a genuine contribution to public understanding of the systems that operate beneath the city’s official architecture. Her willingness to sit with complexity — to refuse the easy frame of villain or hero — and to report what she found with honesty and precision is exactly what investigative journalism should be.*”
She lowered her phone.
She said: “Beneath the official architecture.”
He said: “Yes.”
She said: “That’s the piece.”
He said: “Yes.”
She said: “It’s about you.”
He said: “It’s about the system.”
She said: “The system includes you.”
He said: “Yes.”
She looked at him.
She said: “They’re describing the piece you let me write.”
He said: “You wrote it.”
She said: “You let me in.” She met his eyes. “You gave me the access and the honesty and the factual corrections and then you let me publish exactly what I found.”
He said: “Yes.”
She said: “That’s—” She stopped. “That’s rare.”
He said: “You wouldn’t have written it if it wasn’t.”
She said: “No.” She looked at the top shelf where the notebooks were. “The next one is about the legitimization.”
He said: “I know.”
She said: “It’s going to be the same process. Access, honesty, you read it before it runs.”
He said: “Yes.”
She said: “Factual corrections only.”
He said: “Yes.”
She said: “And then it runs.”
He said: “And then it runs.”
She said: “Even if—”
He said: “Sera.”
She said: “Even if it’s complicated.”
He said: “It’s always complicated. That’s why you write it.” He held her gaze. “Run it when it’s ready.”
She said: “Yes.”
She was quiet for a moment.
She said: “The ceremony is in December.”
He said: “I know.”
She said: “Will you come.”
He said: “The Baxter Award ceremony.”
She said: “Yes.”
He said: “You want me there.”
She said: “I want you there.” She met his eyes. “Not— I’m not asking you to perform anything. I’m asking if you want to be there.”
He said: “Yes.”
She said: “Even though—”
He said: “I want to be in the room when you receive it. That’s what I want.”
She said: “Okay.”
He said: “Okay.”
She said: “December.”
He said: “December.”
She stood.
She said: “I’m calling Priya.”
He said: “She already knows. Chen told her.”
She looked at him.
He said: “Chen monitors—”
She said: “Chen monitors the Tribune awards page.”
He said: “Chen monitors relevant situations.”
She said: “She texted Priya.”
He said: “They’ve been talking since July.”
She said: “Chen and Priya.”
He said: “About the legitimization framework. Also, I believe, about other things.”
She stared at him.
She said: “Are Chen and Priya—”
He said: “I don’t ask Chen personal questions.”
She said: “Are they—”
He said: “I genuinely don’t know.”
She said: “But they’ve been talking since July.”
He said: “Yes.”
She said: “About other things.”
He said: “That’s the inference.”
She looked at him for a long moment.
She said: “My best friend and your intelligence analyst.”
He said: “I don’t ask Chen personal—”
She said: “Dominic.”
He said: “Yes.”
She said: “That’s—” She stopped. She put her hand over her mouth. She was laughing. “That’s—”
He said: “I know.”
She said: “They’re—”
He said: “I think so. Potentially.”
She said: “Since July.”
He said: “That’s the timeline as I understand it.”
She said: “Neither of them told us.”
He said: “No.”
She said: “Because we would have—”
He said: “Made it complicated.”
She said: “Made it complicated.” She was still laughing. “That is—we are apparently extremely difficult to be adjacent to.”
He said: “Yes.”
She said: “Priya told Chen I make things complicated.”
He said: “And Chen told Priya I make things thorough.”
She said: “They bonded over us.”
He said: “Apparently.”
She said: “That’s beautiful.”
He said: “It’s something.”
She kissed him in the library on the morning of the Baxter announcement and he kissed her back and thought about thirty-two people in a room and Chen and Priya and the specific way that some things happened because other things happened and you could not have planned any of it.
He thought: *she walked into my club.*
He thought: *Marcus Webb left the folder labeled February Receipts.*
He thought: *she came back from the parking lot.*
He thought: *all of it.*
He thought: *yes.*
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