Page 76 of Chameleon Killer

“After you,” she said.

Flint held the door as we stepped into the newsroom. His attention shifted to me only once. No warning in the look. No threat. Just assessment. He was establishing his own baseline. I wondered whether he realized he was doing it.

Probably.

Carter’s office was just around the corner and next door to the conference room. It was also elevated by two shallow steps and enclosed on three sides by glass. Unlike the conference room, none of it had been covered. Anyone outside could see us, but the closed door would prevent them from hearing.

Mallory’s choice, even if Flint had presented it.

She entered first and moved behind the desk, but didn’t sit in his chair. Instead, she leaned against the edge with her arms folded.

I closed the door.

Her eyes followed the movement.

Not the door.

My hand.

I released the handle and took the chair opposite her.

She remained standing. A height advantage. Control of distance. Access to the exit. All intentional. Or all habits she had developed without realizing it.

That was the problem with a degraded baseline. Every behavior could be interpreted two ways: instinct or adaptation.

“How secure is this office?” I asked.

“Secure enough for whatever brought you here.”

“Has it been swept?”

“By your people yesterday.”

“That wasn’t my question.”

Her expression didn’t change. “Then ask the one you came here to ask.”

There she was. The impatience was familiar. The surgical knife precision wasn’t. Or perhaps it had always been there beneath the layers she no longer bothered using with me.

I studied her for another moment. “When did he contact you?”

Without any traitorous tells, she merely tilted her head. “Who?”

Allowing the smile threatening to crease my lips, I met her gaze, “The Auditor.”

She didn’t look away. “What makes you think he did?”

Another question. Not He didn’t. Not You’re wrong. What makes you think he did?

“You aren’t an impulsive journalist, Mallory,” I told her something she already knew. “You are beyond patient, an expert level hunter ready to refine even the most minuscule of information into a fine resource. Yet, you appear to have abandoned a viable investigative path overnight.”

“We exhausted it.” She shrugged off my compliment without even acknowledging it.

“So Carter said.”

“He was right.”

“And this morning you’re rebuilding Reardon’s medical chronology around a question you weren’t asking yesterday.” Because the details on that timeline had everything to do with Reardon’s hospitalization.