Page 44 of Chameleon Killer

The cracked lettering across the chest read:

CARTER NEWS DIVISION

NO MATTER WHO SAYS THEY LOVE YOU—CHECK IT OUT.

(YES, EVEN YOUR MOTHER.)

I pulled it on.

It reached halfway down my thighs.

The sweatpants required the drawstring and an act of faith.

When I opened the bedroom door, I found Flint standing in the kitchen wearing dark jeans and a pale blue dress shirt with the sleeves rolled to his forearms. His hair was damp, suggesting he had already showered. A bruise-colored shadow rested beneath each eye.

He had not slept much.

“This is a horrible thing to put on a T-shirt.”

Flint glanced toward me. "It's also good journalism.”

“Did someone at corporate actually make these?” Corporate didn’t usually have a sense of humor and I had verified that multiple times.

“Retirement gift.” His answer was almost a grunt before he took a sip of his coffee.

I just shook my head. To be fair, it was funny and also, not wrong. Trust but verify everything.

The apartment was larger than I expected and less finished. Exposed brick ran along one wall. Tall windows looked east between buildings toward a strip of silver sky. The furniture seemed to have been chosen for function and then just abandoned wherever the delivery people had set it down.

A battered leather sofa—blanket folded with a pillow neatly at one end—faced a television that wasn’t on.

The dining table had disappeared beneath newspapers, case files, two camera lenses, an unopened package of printer paper, and a chipped ceramic bowl containing loose batteries.

Framed photographs leaned against the walls instead of hanging on them.

Flint in body armor beside a burned-out vehicle.

Flint younger, thinner, and grinning with three other reporters in front of a hotel whose windows had been blown out.

Flint shaking hands with someone cropped mostly out of frame.

No wedding photographs.

No photographs of Blythe. I looked away because my observations were bordering on intrusive.

He glanced over his shoulder. “You sleep?”

“Some.” I shrugged and headed toward the kitchen.

“That good, huh?” Dry humor softened the deadpan remark.

“It was better than none.”

He accepted that and turned back to the stove.

Something sizzled in a pan. Toast waited on a plate beside the coffeemaker. Two tumblers sat on the counter, one black and one dark green. He was sipping from the dark green. The smells of espresso and foamed milk drew me in like a siren call.

“You learned to cook?” I asked, a little dumbfounded. The last time we’d been in the field, his idea of cooking had involved a microwave and pre-packaged meals.