Page 43 of Chameleon Killer

I fell into step beside another departing couple, matching their pace without appearing to do so. By the time we reached the revolving doors, we looked like we'd arrived together.

I had work to do. It was finally time to audit everyone else.

Chapter

Eight

MALLORY

Iwoke beneath a ceiling I didn’t recognize. For one disorienting second, I lay still and listened. A refrigerator hummed somewhere beyond the bedroom. Pipes ticked softly inside the wall. Morning traffic moved several floors below in a steady wash of tires against damp pavement.

Then came the smell of coffee.

Flint.

My memory served up the answer in pieces that I could put together. The memorial. The ballroom. Guy’s face projected twenty feet high while men who had barely tolerated him praised his integrity.

The sideways glances between board members. Brewster trying to corner me near the exit. Flint steering me through the revolving doors without touching me.

Then rain.

A cold, needling Chicago drizzle that turned every passing headlight into a smear of white across the windshield.

Flint had driven me home. We had sat outside my building for less than a minute before noticing the dark sedan parked halfway down the block.

Maybe FBI. Maybe press. Maybe neither.

He hadn’t asked which possibility bothered me most, just said, “You can stay at my place.”

My answer? A little sharper than he deserved and a bit more biting. “I’m not sleeping with you.”

His eyes had remained on the sedan. “I was offering you a locked door, McBryan. Try not to make it weird.”

So I went home with him.

His bedroom smelled faintly of cedar, laundry detergent, and the clean mineral scent of rain that had clung to his coat. The room was spare without feeling sterile. A dresser. A chair with two shirts folded over the back. Three books stacked on the floor beside the bed because apparently even owning a nightstand would have required too much commitment.

I pushed myself upright.

The other side of the mattress was untouched.

Flint had changed the sheets before giving me the room. I knew because the corners had been tucked with military precision and because he had mentioned, too casually, that the linens were clean. He had slept on the sofa despite my telling him twice that I could take it.

The second time, he had looked at the couch, then at me.

“You’re five foot six.”

“Five-seven.”

“In shoes.”

“You know, I could still go home.”

He pointed. “Bed’s down the hall.”

End of discussion.

I found my dress hanging from the back of the bedroom door, the fabric smoothed as much as possible. Beside it sat a folded T-shirt and a pair of gray sweatpants that would have fit two of me.