Page 14 of Chameleon Killer

Every elevator required badge access.

Visitors checked in with security downstairs, surrendered identification, received temporary credentials, and were escorted through restricted floors.

The newsroom itself never really slept.

Assignment editors.

Producers.

Interns.

Camera operators.

Anchors.

Not to mention all the damn FBI agents coming in and out since they’d hijacked Mallory’s schedule.

Someone was always walking past Guy's office.

Someone should have seen something.

Someone should have heard something.

Instead... Nothing. Bupkis. Total fucking mystery. No screams, struggles, or even a witness to say what happened.

Not until Guy was found gravely wounded in his own office, as though violence had waited politely until no one happened to be looking. Then, after they were done, they stepped out as neatly as they came in. My sources said they couldn’t even narrow down when the attack occurred to something less than a six to eight hour window of time.

There was no such thing as a perfect crime. Nor were there stories that just lined up perfectly, all the i’s dotted and the t’s crossed.

I walked inside the office slowly. The FBI hadn't left much undisturbed. They’d cleared out all of his files, his hard drives, everything that wasn’t bolted down or the network’s lawyers couldn’t block.

What was left behind was an immaculate, but empty desk. They’d even taken the little lamp.

His framed MBA diploma still hung beside the window. Industry awards occupied an entire shelf, flanked by photographs from shareholder galas, advertising summits, and media conferences where he'd spent years preaching audience metrics, quarterly growth, and the business of broadcasting.

Guy loved news. Just not as much as he loved profitable news. He wasn't the journalist in the room. He was the executive who figured out how to monetize the stories and the people who reported on them.

We'd argued often enough. He wanted spectacle. I wanted substance. Mallory wanted both. She'd somehow managed to deliver both. Guy had really wanted to make a mint off of the whole Auditor thing. Now the network wanted to run in the other direction.

My gaze drifted toward the leather visitor chairs. According to the official timeline, Guy had met with someone between scheduled executive calls.

No one knew who. His secretary said he blocked out the time himself—a habit he was known for—and didn’t give her any information on it. She was also not here the day of the attack.

No one could explain how that visitor entered. Or left. The security footage offered nothing. Camera twelve outside the executive corridor had glitched for exactly eleven minutes.

Long enough for someone to appear and then disappear with no one the wiser. The glitches were a regular, albeit not quite predictable occurrence that maintenance had been working on.

The FBI labeled it unfortunate timing. Particularly because there were multiple documented cases of the cameras failing randomly around the building. Tech currently thought it was related to backups and transitioning from one server to another.

I called it all pretty damn convenient.

"You're doing it again."

I smiled before I turned around. Only one person I knew could recognize overthinking from twenty feet away.

"You've been staring at that chair for five minutes." Mallory leaned against the doorway, one shoulder resting against the frame as she balanced two coffees and a paper bag from Rossi's.

Twenty-four hours had passed since her television interview. The polished version of her—the careful makeup, the studio wardrobe, the answers measured down to the syllable—had been abandoned. This was the Mallory I knew.