Page 65 of Chameleon Killer

Autopsies.

Hospital records.

Neurological assessments.

Someone had looked harder after Guy died. Someone already knew there were questions. I just needed to find whoever that someone was.

My phone buzzed.

Not a message.

Just another reminder that Agent Elliot Brewster had called.

Again. Three missed calls. One voicemail. Two texts asking me to call him.

I still hadn't listened to any of them. Part of me knew he could probably get the reports in ten minutes.

The rest of me remembered everything that had happened before—and after—we'd crossed a line that should have stayed exactly where it was.

Professional boundaries were easy.

People weren't.

Ever since that night, I'd caught myself replaying moments that probably didn't deserve a second thought. A glance that lingered. A turn of phrase or the way his voice changed when it was just the two of us.

The way he'd looked at me after I heard about Colin. Concern. Affection. Or maybe guilt.

The problem wasn't that I couldn't read people. The problem was that I no longer trusted myself to read him.

That made him dangerous in a way no serial killer ever could. I set the phone face down on the desk.

Brewster wanted to manage every variable around me—who I spoke to, what information reached me, where I went, how much risk I was allowed to take.

Objectively, I understood why.

If the Auditor was communicating with me, I had become evidence as much as I was a reporter. Maybe even bait. I could respect the strategy without surrendering to it.

Because the moment someone else decided what I was allowed to know, I stopped being a journalist and became an asset.

I'd spent my career refusing to let powerful people decide what questions I could ask. I wasn't about to start now.

Across the newsroom, Flint hung up before he strode across to the conference room we’d taken over.

“Any luck?” I asked, picking up the coffee I’d brewed and sipping it. The sludge wasn’t burnt and at least this late, I was the only one making it.

“They elevated me to their supervisor.” His bland expression didn’t say much for that individual.

“Congratulations?”

“He also said no.” Dry as the desert, he crossed to the board and added another dead end to our list. “I have a few other irons in the fire.”

With that, he went to retrieve a cup of coffee for himself. The fact he grimaced on the first swallow almost made me laugh.

Of course, he didn’t complain any more than I would. How many stories had we researched, pulled apart, and put back together fueled by coffee strong enough to put hair on your chest?

“How are you doing?” He was back in the doorway, his blue-gray eyes locked on me.

“Thinking.” I spared him a glance before I went back to staring at the board. We had so many puzzle pieces up there. We had more on the board back at his place. But each time we found another dead end, we narrowed the path we could follow.