Chapter 5
Chapter
Five
brEWSTER
The Bureau taught that surveillance was a tool.
It never warned that the longer you watched someone, the easier it became to mistake possession for protection.
Every obsession began with the same lie: I'm only trying to keep them safe.
Surveillance simply gave that lie a badge, a case file, and paperwork.
Why? Because a camera didn’t care why you watched. It only recorded that you did.
I stood behind the analyst’s chair in the temporary command room we’d carved out of a conference suite three floors below the network’s executive level in the Cartwright building and watched Mallory McBryan appear on the monitor for the fourth time in seven minutes.
She moved through the newsroom with Flint Carter beside her. I focused on their positioning for far too long before I noticed the man with the visitor badge.
It should have been the other way around. The realization landed like grit beneath my collar. I'd let myself become distracted.
“Back it up twelve seconds,” I said.
The analyst, Flores, tapped the keyboard without comment. The image jerked backward.
Mallory reappeared at the edge of the screen, her head angled toward Carter as he said something I couldn’t hear. Whatever it was made her mouth curve.
Not her broadcast smile or even her interrogation one. This was a genuine smile. Tired? Yes, and gone almost immediately, but real.
Carter had gotten that out of her.
I kept my expression neutral. “Again,” I said.
Flores replayed the clip.
This time I watched the corridor.
The consultant entered the frame from the far side of the bullpen carrying a leather portfolio. Male. Mid-forties, maybe older. Navy blazer, gray slacks, polished brown shoes, visitor badge clipped properly to his jacket pocket. He moved like he belonged.
“Who is that?” I asked.
Flores enlarged the frame. “Visitor badge says Radley Pike. Company listed as Northbank Risk Assessment.”
“Run it.”
“Already started.”
Good. At least someone in the room was watching the correct thing.
The consultant passed near Mallory’s desk but didn’t stop. On the footage, he paused by the copier, opened his portfolio, removed papers, waited, collected them, then moved on toward the executive elevators.
Nothing overt.
Nothing dramatic.
Nothing anyone would remember.
“Does he have authorization for executive access?” I asked.
“Badge logs say yes.”
“Who approved it?”
Flores hesitated. I looked down at him.
“Corporate operations,” he said. “Generic admin clearance. Looks like it was pushed through this morning.”
“By whom?”
“Still tracing.”
“Trace faster.”
He nodded and turned back to the keyboard. On the monitor, Mallory stopped at her desk. Her body language changed before her face did.
Shoulders tightened and her hands flexed. She shifted her weight as she studied the desk.
She noticed something and on the second monitor, I caught Carter noticing her attention.
Good reporters noticed details. Great ones noticed people noticing details. Carter had done exactly that. I disliked how quickly he'd read her.
Mallory spoke. No audio. But Carter’s attention sharpened immediately.
Flores brought up a second angle.
Mallory pointed to the chair, then the flowers.
Flowers? I made a note to check those and who delivered them.
“Audio?” I asked.
“Not from that camera.”
Dammit.
We had installed enough cameras to make executives feel secure but not enough microphones to make their lawyers nervous.
“Get me the elevator footage.”
Flores switched feeds.
The consultant entered the executive elevator alone.
“Pause.”
The frame froze.
Radley Pike stared slightly away from the camera, face partially angled down as though reading from the folder in his hand. Not hiding. Not standing out. The faint slouch to his posture encouraged the eye to slide past him.
I’d seen it before in suspects, in undercover operatives, and in men who made it a study of how to be unremarkable.
“Agent Brewster?”
I didn’t turn.
Special Agent Marla Sykes stood near the conference table with a stack of reports tucked beneath one arm. She’d been with the Bureau eighteen years, which meant she’d earned the right to sound unimpressed before breakfast.
“We have a briefing in five,” she said, she spoke with flat As that were a bit on the nasal side. Would have made me think she was from somewhere in New England, even if I didn’t already know that.
I kept my attention on the screen. “We’re in one.” Power play? Perhaps. I didn’t like the new teams rolling in to take over my case.
“We’re supposed to be reviewing the full victimology.” The schoolteacher primness in that statement irked.
“I am.” But I kept my tone civil even as I waited for Flores to find the answers I wanted.
“No, you’re reviewing Mallory McBryan’s office traffic.”
I finally looked at her. “She’s part of the victimology.”
Sykes didn’t blink. “Convenient.”
I let the comment pass because reacting would give her more power than she deserved. On the screen, the consultant exited the elevator on the executive floor.
“Track him,” I told Flores.
Sykes stepped closer.
“Elliot.”
There were three ways people said my name.
Superiors used it when they wanted my attention and my compliance. Immediately.
Colleagues used it when they thought I was overlooking something. Or when they suspected I'd started trusting my instincts more than Bureau procedure.
Mallory used it when she wanted to remind me I wasn't in charge of her.
She never raised her voice. She didn't have to. She clipped each syllable with just enough irritation to remind me she considered my authority situational at best.
She was wrong.
Everyone else called me Agent Brewster.
"What?" I asked, keeping my voice level.
Sykes had abandoned the conference table and closed the distance between us. Close enough that anyone else might have mistaken it for discretion. Flores wouldn't miss a word.
"You need to be careful."
"I am careful."
She held my gaze without flinching. Square jaw. Brown eyes behind practical glasses. Hair pulled into the kind of severe braid that suggested she believed casual was a character flaw. She'd built an entire career on caution.
"With the case," she clarified.
As though I'd somehow forgotten how to do my job. “I am.” I hated to repeat myself.
“With her.”
That time I said nothing.
Sykes lowered her voice even further and put a light hand on my arm. “She’s a reporter. A witness. Maybe a target. But she is not your asset.”
“She’s alive because I’ve treated her like one.”
“Is that what you’re calling it?” The judgment-laden skepticism in her tone had me turning fully.
This went beyond overstepping.
“She gave a serial offender a name on live television. She created a feedback loop. The offender adjusted behavior in response to her coverage. Two people close to her are now dead.”
I ticked off each item like a bullet I was firing.
“So yes, I’m going to monitor her movements, her contacts, and anyone who gets near her until we know how the killer is using her.”
I meant every single word.
Sykes studied me anyway. “Then monitor everyone equally.”
“I am.”
Her gaze flicked to the screen where Mallory stood beside Carter in Guy Reardon’s office.
“No,” she said. “You’re not.”
The room went quiet enough that I heard the HVAC cycle on. Flores kept typing. Smart man.
I looked back at the monitor.
Carter stood too close to Mallory as they spoke. He didn’t reach for her. Didn’t guide her. Didn’t interrupt. He simply stood where she could feel him if she needed to.
“He’s becoming a problem,” I said, more to myself than anyone else.
Sykes followed my gaze. “Carter?”
“He enables her.”
“He’s her news director.”
“He’s encouraging her to take greater risks.”
“Is he?” Sykes sounded skeptical. “From what I’ve seen so far, he protects his sources and his reporters.”
I watched Mallory say something to Carter. He answered. She looked down at the file in her hands and then back toward the door.
The consultant appeared in the hallway feed again, exiting Reardon’s office.
“Hold,” I said.
Flores froze the frame.
Mallory appeared a second later.
She and the consultant faced each other.
No audio.
Only body language.
Mallory’s gaze dropped. She was assessing him.
Good girl.
She was suspicious of everyone. Good. It kept her alive. It also made managing her more difficult.
Mallory said something over her shoulder to Carter, and he turned toward her with a fierce expression.
“What did she say?” I asked.
Flores shook his head. “No audio.”
“Lip read.”
“I’m not trained for that.”
“Find someone who is.”
Sykes folded her arms. “Or you could call her and ask.”
I gave her a look. She didn’t retreat.
“McBryan has made it clear she doesn’t intend to cooperate unless cooperation suits her story,” I said.
“She’s not obligated to cooperate with us.”
“She will be if I make it official.”
Sykes went still. “You need to be more careful.”
I hated that word. Careful was what people said when they were willing to let someone die.
“We should have moved her after Reardon,” I said, and I’d tried to get her back into protective custody but she refused.
“We didn’t have grounds.” Sykes folded her arms.
She wasn’t the expert on this case. Not the way I was. “We had threat indicators.”
“We had concern,” Sykes countered. “Unfounded concern as it turned out. The threat pattern has been quiet for nineteen days.”
Unfounded? I spared her a dark look. “Quiet is not the same as inactive.”
“No,” Sykes agreed. “But quiet also isn’t probable cause.”
I looked back at the monitor. The consultant entered the elevator. Mallory and Carter remained on the executive floor.
Together. Again.
“She needs protective custody.”
“She won’t agree.”
“I didn’t say ask.”
Sykes’s expression hardened. “That’s a problem.”
I ignored her.
“That’s also unlawful restraint if you don’t have a credible imminent threat.”
“Then we establish one.” The words came out too easily.
Flores’s typing stopped and I could feel the way Sykes’ gaze drilled into the side of my head.
I heard the sentence after I said it. Damage control time.