Page 71 of Chameleon Killer

Flint stepped into the room. “What did he want?”

“I’m not sure.” The lie arrived easily. Not because I wanted to lie to Flint. I was still trying to deconstruct what the Auditor had said and what he hadn’t said.

He had called knowing I would follow the question wherever it led. Knowing I would push past locked records, federal warnings, and every reasonable limit placed in front of me.

There had been no threats. But then, he hadn’t needed to, had he?

He hadn’t needed to.

I looked at Guy’s timeline. Attack. Hospital. Eleven days. Death. Until tonight, I had seen a straight line. Now I saw a gap wide enough to hide another crime.

“He wants us to find out what happened to Guy in the hospital,” I said.

Flint followed my gaze to the board. “Or he wants us to believe that something happened there.”

“Maybe.”

“And you’re going anyway.” It wasn’t a question.

I set the receiver back into its cradle. “Yes.”

Flint’s jaw tightened, but he didn’t argue. “Then so am I.”

He crossed to the table, picked up my phone, and held it out to me. Brewster’s missed calls still filled the screen.

“And we need to stop pretending we can do this without the files.”

I didn’t take the phone.

Flint waited.

The Auditor’s final question moved through my head again.

Who is choosing the road?

Maybe he was.

Maybe Brewster would.

Maybe they both thought the difference no longer mattered.

I took the phone from Flint. It vibrated in my hand before I could unlock it. Another call.

ELLIOT BREWSTER

Flint looked at the screen, then at me. “Interesting timing.”

The phone rang again.

Chapter

Eleven

BREWSTER

Sleep had become an administrative suggestion sometime around my third year chasing the Auditor.

Coffee, paperwork, and the illusion that exhaustion sharpened instincts carried most agents for a while. Eventually you stopped pretending your body agreed.