Page 238 of Chameleon Killer

Withheld.

Flint heard it too. His eyes narrowed.

I looked at the screen. Brewster seemed to realize what he'd admitted.

For once, he didn't attempt to correct it.

“Why?” I asked.

His jaw tightened.

“Why did you withhold it, Elliot?”

Silence.

I leaned into Flint when he raised an arm and he draped it over my shoulder. No, he didn’t want to do this here, but he wasn’t running away from it either.

Brewster looked into the camera. “He told me to ask you the question I was actually afraid to ask.”

My skin prickled. I remembered Simon's cursor. The pauses. The maddening insistence on specificity.

“What was the question?”

Brewster didn't answer. That told me enough.

“You asked him about me.” It was a guess.

A muscle moved in his jaw. Yeah, he had. Simon had interviewed him, pressed his buttons—a lot like he had mine

“So what did you ask?” I said.

Brewster's gaze remained fixed on the camera. “What he told you about me.”

Flint’s muscles tensed, but he stroked his hand through my hair, slowly working free some of the knots. “And what did he say?”

For the first time since Brewster appeared on the monitor, something moved across his face that looked less like anger and more like uncertainty.

“Nothing you hadn't already begun to see.”

My heartbeat stumbled. Beside me, Flint went silent. Not still. Silent.

There was a difference. I looked at him. He was staring at Brewster. And suddenly I understood something that hadn't occurred to me before.

Simon had told Brewster almost nothing. He hadn't needed to. He'd sent him here.

No badge. No gun. No Bureau. No authority.

Just Elliot Brewster standing outside Flint Carter's door asking to see me. Whatever Simon wanted to learn from him—we might be about to find out.

“Mal.” Flint’s voice was low and I glanced up at him. His eyes held mine. There was no command, just a question.

“Your house,” I reminded him quietly. “Your call.”

His thumb moved once against my pulse. Then Flint looked toward the door.

Brewster couldn't see the decision happen between us. But Simon probably could.

And that thought made me wonder whether opening the door was the trap—or leaving Brewster standing outside it was.