Page 262 of Chameleon Killer

Storage units.

Known confidential-source meeting locations.

Places he had visited once.

Places he had visited repeatedly.

Places he had no documented reason to visit at all.

I’d been building his sheets out for a very long time. It started as more of a need to understand the opponent. It had become a necessity, because he was the only one who gained if Thorne and Reardon died.

They were connected to Mallory. Their deaths should have driven a wedge between her and me. At the same time, they should have driven her closer to Brewster.

Thousands of points of data. Too many. So I narrowed them.

Brewster wanted me to follow. Therefore the location could not be impossible to discover.

He needed isolation.

Control.

Time.

He would also need somewhere associated with me—no. No, he needed it tied to the case. I paused on my scroll. A warehouse near the river. Closed fourteen years ago. Scheduled for redevelopment twice. Never completed.

It had appeared peripherally in one of the earliest investigations connected to my work.

Brewster had visited it three times, but only once officially.

I stared at the address. Too tangential. Not enough. He’d want it to be iron-clad.

I checked traffic cameras. The sedan appeared six blocks away. The direction was consistent, but it never appeared on the next set of cameras. Nor on any of the roads he could have turned onto.

I sat back once more. “You finally learned how to ask the right question.”

For years, Brewster had wanted me. He had chased shadows, patterns, inconsistencies. He had constructed me from what I left behind.

Then Mallory named me.

The Auditor.

An imperfect name. But hers. I’d respected the choice, because it was patterned after my work. She’d seen what I was doing. Then she asked me to give her another.

Simon—even more hers than The Auditor because she asked me to give it to her and I’d done that. Brewster never understood why names mattered.

Perhaps I hadn't either, until now. I had not intended for Carter to be hurt. I had not intended for Mallory to be taken. Those were my failures.

I experienced no discomfort with the admission. Facts did not become less factual because they were unpleasant.

I had pushed Brewster. Challenged him. Mallory had pushed him, but from another angle. Now, she could expose him.

Brewster reacted.

Cause. Effect.

I had not intended the harm, but I was still responsible for it. I retrieved what I needed.

Keys. Phone. A weapon I preferred not to use. Another I would. Then I paused.