Page 60 of Chameleon Killer

My gaze dropped to the cracked station logo across her chest.

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

The shirt had been a retirement joke for leaving “journalism” to work for the bosses. News Director took me out of the field. Didn’t think I’d miss it.

On Mallory, it looked less like a joke and more like a warning label. A warning label that I might gleefully ignore.

She caught me looking.

I could have jerked my gaze away. I didn’t. Something warm and dangerous shifted through the room. She turned back to the board so quickly that I almost smiled.

“Who handled Colin’s autopsy?” she asked briskly, all business.

“Cook County.”

“And Guy?”

“If the death was ruled a result of the assault, then the Cook County examiner would review it. The hospital may have run additional studies.”

“I know someone in the ME’s office.” Was she being defensive?

“You know everyone.” For that matter, I knew more than a few myself.

She reached for the pocket of the sweatpants, found nothing, then swept her gaze around the living room and toward the kitchen as if her phone might have materialized.

Her expression darkened. “It’s charging on the nightstand,” she said with an almost sigh.

“I’ll get it.”

“I can⁠—”

But I was already moving. The bedroom looked different with her things in it.

Her black dress hung from the back of the door. One heel lay on its side beside the chair, the other upright, as if they had disagreed about how the evening ended. Her phone rested on my nightstand, connected to the charger.

I didn’t own a nightstand. The stack of books beside the bed had apparently been promoted.

I picked up the phone and wrapped the charging cable around my hand.

When I returned, Mallory was staring at the two boxed names.

Colin.

Guy.

Separating them from the others had made the theory visible. Every investigation reached a point when the facts stopped supporting the story everyone had agreed to tell.

We had just found ours.

I handed her the phone.

Three missed calls lit the screen.

Two messages from the newsroom.

One from an unknown number.

I saw her pulse jump at the side of her throat before she opened it.