Page 46 of Chameleon Killer

“Denied.” He made a gesture of hammering a gavel with the spatula.

“You can’t be the opponent and the court at the same time.”

With a snort, he flashed me a grin. “This isn’t a democracy, Mal. In my apartment, I’m all three branches of government.”

“That explains the décor. Authoritarian minimalism.” I made a point of giving a dismissive sweeping look around. Though, to be fair, minimalism might be a bit too generous.

He slid eggs onto two plates. “I was going for divorced correspondent and married to my job.”

“Nailed it.” I saluted him with my coffee. But I regretted the joke before the silence draped us in the aftermath.

Something shifted in his expression. Not pain exactly. More like the momentary recognition of an old scar beneath a sleeve.

Flint picked up the plates. “Table’s unusable.”

“I noticed.”

“We can eat at the breakfast bar.”

He set one plate in front of the stool nearest me. There was only one stool and apparently that was for me. Eggs, toast, and sliced fruit. It all looked good and he’d gone to some effort to fix it.

After he set his own plate down a foot away from me, I reached for a piece of his toast.

He looked down at my untouched serving, then at the toast in my hand.

Daring him, I raised my eyebrows. “What?”

“You have your own.” Amusement and irritation muddied his tone as though he couldn’t decide which way to go.

I shrugged. “Yours looked better.”

“They came from the same toaster.” Rolling his eyes, he put another slice of bread into the toaster.

“I could have given you mine,” I said and that earned me a skeptical look but he didn’t comment.

I smiled into my coffee.

His phone vibrated against the counter. He checked the screen, silenced it, and placed it facedown.

“Newsroom?” I asked.

“Three messages from overnight. Two from legal. One from a senior vice president who suddenly wants to know why we’re spending money on investigative research.” No matter what happened in the world, the newsroom had to go on. We couldn’t afford to mourn our losses or even get angry about them.

“Which senior vice president?” There were five.

“Pick one. They’re breeding.” He grabbed the toast when it popped out, locked his gaze on me and licked right across the center of it before he buttered it.

Not reacting required every ounce of discipline. “Anything from the memorial?”

“Nothing useful.” His smile disappeared.

We’d spent a good chunk of the evening listening, watching, and learning. Flint had taken notes and I didn’t doubt that he hadn’t run some searches after I went to bed.

I had. Granted, it had been via my phone, but I’d done some research. “Three board members reacted to the interim VP.”

Flint nodded. “I saw.”

I took another bite of toast as I turned over the reactions in my head. The attorney stopped writing. The CFO tightened up like he’d sucked on a lemon and Creighton? He’d looked at both of them. Blaming them? Giving them a silent order?