Chapter 10 #2
“Why did you choose your targets?” I asked again.
“What are you willing to do for the answer?”
The change in direction was so abrupt I almost missed its significance. “This isn’t about me.”
“Isn’t it?”
“What do you want?”
“What do you want, Ms. McBryan?”
“The truth.”
“That is an ambition, not an answer.”
I leaned back, studying the reflection of the board in the dark window. “What are you asking?”
“How far are you willing to go for your story?”
My grip tightened around the receiver.
There were questions reporters pretended had simple answers.
How much risk was acceptable?
What could be justified in pursuit of the public interest?
Where did persistence end and obsession begin?
Most journalists developed careful responses for panels, lawyers, and ethics seminars.
None of those answers survived contact with a real story.
“As far as the evidence takes me.”
“Convenient.” And now he was almost dismissive. Almost.
“It’s accurate.”
“Is there no point at which you would stop?”
“No.” The answer came before caution could interfere. I stared at Colin’s name on the board.
“I was invested before,” I said. “I wanted to understand how you chose them and why you chose this method.” I wanted to know everything.
My throat tightened, but I forced the next words out evenly.
“Then Colin died.”
My stomach bottomed out. Each time I remembered that Colin was never going to be there again, it struck me.
“And Guy,” I continued. “If killing them was meant to frighten me away, it failed.”
“Was it meant to frighten you?”
My frustration welled up. “I don’t know.”
“Then why assign a motive to those actions without evidence?”
If I thought venting my frustration would get me anywhere, I’d scream. Since it wouldn’t, I kept a deathgrip on my calm. “Because their deaths changed the investigation.”
“Did they?”
“They changed me.” The admission escaped before I could reconsider it.
Not for the first time, he didn’t immediately respond.
I looked at the phone as though the shape of the silence might be visible there.
“I’m not backing off,” I said. “Whatever this is—whatever you think you’re teaching me—Colin and Guy made walking away impossible.”
“Impossible?”
“There is no too far anymore.” The words sounded reckless once they were spoken aloud. But they were true.
“Every person believes there is no limit,” he said, “until the price is named.” His voice softened and that was worse than if he had threatened me.
My pulse beat hard against the receiver. “Name it.”
A beat passed. Then another. “Why did Mr. Reardon survive?”
Everything stopped. For one impossible second, even the newsroom seemed to hold its breath. “What?”
“Why did he survive?”
I frowned. “He didn’t.”
“Did not survive the attack?”
“He was in intensive care.” All at once, that was the answer. “He lived for eleven days.”
“Yet, that does not answer the question.”
I balled up a piece of paper that had older notes on it. I needed to squeeze something. “He survived the initial attack. Why does that matter?”
I looked toward Guy’s name. There were surgeries, neurological assessments… more issues. He had never woken up so I just treated the days as a medical delay between the attack and his death.
The silence grew louder. “What are you saying?” I asked, needing to understand.
“What conclusion did you accept without examining it?”
“That the attack killed him. Or at least, he died as a direct result of the attack.” If he had died a year later due to complications from the assault, he would still have died from the attack.
“Did it?”
Rubbing a hand against my face, I studied the timeline we’d been constructing. Guy had been found alive. Transported. Stabilized. Operated on. Monitored. Then, eleven days later, he had died.
I rose from the chair and crossed to the board, pulling the phone cord as far as it would reach.
“Was Guy supposed to survive?” Had that been the clue? Had the attack failed—or had his survival created a second opportunity?
“What evidence would answer that?” He sounded so even-handed, like a professor, prodding me to understand.
“His medical records.” Another reason we were trying to get them.
“And yet you don’t have them.”
“If you know, then tell me.” It came out more of an order than a question.
“Why?” The soft emphasis on the word grated.
“Because you called me.”
Another pause. Not too long this time, I could have sworn I heard a smile when he asked. “Did I call to provide answers?”
“No.” I stared at Guy’s name, like the answers were right there. All I had to do was grab them. “You called to see whether I could find them.”
“Better.”
The word no longer felt like approval.
“If you believe there is no distance you will not travel for the truth, Ms. McBryan, you should first determine who is choosing the road.”
The line went dead. For several seconds, I remained beside the board with the receiver pressed to my ear, listening to nothing.
A throat cleared behind me.
I turned.
Flint stood in the doorway. His coffee was gone, and whatever he had heard had stripped the usual dryness from his expression. “Was that him?”
I lowered the receiver. “Yes.”
His gaze moved over my face as though he expected to find damage there. “How long?”
“I don’t know.”
“That wasn’t what I asked.”
I looked at the phone. Then sighed. Long enough for the Auditor to assess my work. Long enough for me to answer questions I hadn’t known he was asking. Long enough for him to point me toward Guy’s eleven missing days without offering a single fact I could verify.
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.