Page 55 of Chameleon Killer

Then he had died, allegedly a victim of the Auditor. We had accepted the connection because everyone had.

The killer had provided an accusation.

Obstruction.

Complicity.

Profiting from deception.

Words broad enough to sound damning when attached to an attorney. Words broad enough to mean almost anything.

The Auditor had never worked in almost.

He liked numbers.

Dates.

Transactions.

Specific victims.

A ledger detailed enough to prosecute the dead after he finished punishing them.

Colin’s accusation had been rhetoric.

“He didn’t fit,” Mallory said. “He doesn’t fit.”

I said nothing.

She circled his name once. Then again. “He never fit.”

“Not cleanly.”

“Not at all.” She looked at me.

I couldn’t argue.

Her gaze moved back to the board. “Why didn’t we see it?” Why didn’t I see it? She included me in there, but she was still blaming herself.

“Because he died under similar circumstances.”

“No.” Her answer came hard and immediate. “We don’t actually know how he died. We know his body was found. We were then told by the FBI—“ she didn’t say Brewster. “—that he was another victim and that they had the evidence left at the scene.”

The signature had framed the scene and defined it all at once. The body, the accusation, and the paperwork.

Mallory crossed out the three question marks.

Under Colin’s name, she wrote one word.

ACCESS

I read it.

“To what?”

“Me.”

Every muscle along my shoulders tightened.