Chapter 21
Chapter
Twenty-One
FLINT
By the time they let us leave, dawn was in the process of arriving.The sky beyond the narrow windows of the CPD building had gone from black to that ugly bruised gray Chicago wore before sunrise.
Streetlights still burned. A sanitation truck groaned through an intersection below while somebody in the lobby argued with a vending machine.
Normal life. It seemed so damn far away at the moment. I barely remembered what that felt like.
Alisha stood in front of Mallory with one hand braced on the conference table and the other holding a business card Mallory already had two copies of.
“If Agent Brewster calls you about this investigation, you call me.”
Mallory folded her arms. “Before or after I answer?”
Alisha stared.
Mallory sighed. “Before.”
“If anyone from the Bureau calls.”
“Before.”
“CPD?”
Mallory glanced toward Ortiz. The detective was pretending not to listen from across the room.
“Before,” Mallory repeated.
“Anyone claiming to represent any agency, task force, prosecutor, coroner, medical examiner, elected official, hospital system, insurance carrier, or unusually persistent Girl Scout?”
A tired smile crept across Mallory's face. “Before.”
“Excellent.” Alisha nodded. “You're trainable after all.”
“Let's not get carried away.”
I snorted.
Alisha pointed at me without looking. “You aren't exempt.”
“I figured.”
“Good. And because I'm representing both of you for the moment, neither one of you gets clever and decides the other person's silence constitutes permission to speak.”
Mallory looked offended.
I didn't bother pretending.
“That warning feels specifically targeted,” she said.
“It is.”
Ortiz finally gave up and laughed.
Alisha collected her bag.
“I'll call both of you this afternoon after I've slept enough to remember why I went to law school.”
“Money?” Mallory offered.
“Obviously not.”
Then Alisha looked at her more seriously. “Go somewhere safe.”
Mallory's expression changed just enough that I caught it. She didn't look toward me. Didn't have to.
“My place,” I said.
Alisha's gaze shifted to me. “Security?”
“Building desk. Controlled elevator. Cameras. Private garage.”
“And?”
“Me.”
Her brows rose. Fair.
“I also have better locks than Mallory’s place,” I added.
“That is objectively true,” Mallory said.
Her agreement amused me. “You don't know what locks I have.”
“I've watched you lose your keys three times.”
“That's not the same thing.”
“It's adjacent.”
Alisha lifted one hand. “Please stop.”
Ortiz pushed away from the wall and crossed toward us.
She also handed Mallory a card. “If Brewster contacts you directly about tonight—”
“My lawyer first.”
Ortiz's mouth twitched. “Good.”
Mallory studied the card. “And then?”
“Then you decide whether you want to call me.”
That got my attention. Mallory's too. But Ortiz didn't elaborate. She didn't need to. Something had happened behind that glass after Brewster's supervisor took his credentials.
Whatever it was, CPD expected it might not be over.
Mallory slid the card into her wallet. “Thank you.”
“Don't let her do anything stupid.” Ortiz looked at me.
Mallory gasped.
I rubbed a hand over my face. “You realize that's not within my skill set.”
“I am standing right here.”
“Yes, Mal.”
“I don't require supervision.” Irritation hazed through her words in a surprise burst of energy.
“No, not you at all.” I kept my tone light and sage.
She narrowed her mis-matched eyes that I adored. For the first time in hours, the look in them wasn't exhausted or hunted or calculating. Just Mallory.
It helped.
Ortiz laughed again. “Good luck, Carter.”
“I've needed it for years.”
Mallory elbowed me. But she let me take her hand and we left. We took a car to where the van had been parked. From there, I drove the van back to the garage and left it in the basement per my agreement.
Then we took an elevator up to the sixth floor. We didn’t say anything. We didn’t need to. There were a lot of unanswered questions, but we’d tackle those later when we’d dealt with the adrenaline and the crash.
Mallory leaned against the stainless-steel wall with her eyes closed. Her hair had been pulled loose from whatever arrangement she'd started the night with, and dark strands curled around her face.
She was wearing someone else's oversized CPD sweatshirt because her blouse and coat had been taken as evidence.
The sweatshirt nearly reached her knees. I should not have found that attractive.
Her eyes opened. “What?”
I looked toward the floor indicator. “Nothing.”
“You're doing the face.”
Despite everything, I smiled. “I don't have a face.”
“Tragic design flaw.”
The elevator doors opened. Neither of us moved immediately. Then Mallory sighed. “We need new material.”
“Absolutely not.”
We stepped into the garage. My Jeep sat where I'd left it nearly the night before.
The night before. Ha. It felt like three days. I unlocked it.
Mallory stopped before getting in.
“What?” I frowned at her.
“My phone.”
I looked at her. “What about it?”
“Evidence.”
“Right.” I grimaced. “You got your wallet back?” I was checking my pockets.
“Yes,” she said with a sigh, then asked, “Recorder?”
“Evidence.” I blew out a breath. They’d pretty much taken all the equipment from the van.
“Notebook?”
“Also evidence.”
She made a face. “I feel naked.”
I looked at the CPD sweatshirt. “That's unfortunate phrasing.”
Her eyes narrowed, then she laughed. It came out tired and husky and real. The sound stroked over me harder than ever before.
Because I'd spent an hour listening to a manufactured version of it. It was nothing on the real woman. Circling the car, I opened the passenger door. “Get in.”
“Bossy.” She wrinkled her nose at me.
“Exhausted.”
“Pfft. Exhausted or well-rested, you're always bossy.”
“That too. So get your gorgeous ass in the car and stop arguing with me.”
She climbed in. I shut the door and walked around to the driver's side.
By the time I started the engine, Mallory had pulled the seat belt across herself and tucked one leg beneath the other.
I stared.
“What?”
“Boots.”
She looked down. “What about them?”
“Off my seat.”
“Your seat has survived war correspondents.”
“It hasn't survived you.”
She deliberately tucked the other leg underneath herself with a smirk.
I shook my head. Some fights weren't worth having. I pulled out and accelerated toward the exit. The garage arm lifted. Morning waited outside.
Chicago at seven-thirty on Sunday looked almost civilized.
Traffic remained light. Delivery trucks occupied loading zones. Joggers moved along the lakefront as if getting up voluntarily at this hour constituted evidence of moral superiority.
Mallory watched the city through the passenger window. I let her.
Ten minutes passed.
Then fifteen.
I wanted to ask. I wanted to ask so badly my teeth hurt. What did he say? Why Simon? What did he tell you about Reardon? What did he ask about me? What did you tell him? Was your smile real?
Were any of them?
The questions lined up behind my teeth.
I swallowed every one.
Mallory had spent the last several hours being interrogated by men who believed they were entitled to her answers and obedience.
I wasn't becoming another one.
She eventually noticed. Of course she did. “You're awfully quiet.”
“So are you.”
“I'm traumatized.”
I looked at her. She stared straight ahead.
Then one corner of her mouth lifted. “Too soon?”
I didn’t laugh, though I did smile. “Probably.”
“Okay,” she said in an agreeable tone. “I'll put it in the maybe pile.”
The silence returned.
Three blocks later, she said, “You can ask.”
“No.”
She glanced at me. “No?”
“No.”
“You have questions.”
“Yes.”
“Lots of them.”
“Yes.”
“But you’re not going to ask?” She sounded puzzled, and maybe a little disappointed? I wasn’t positive on the last.
“No.”
“Hmm.” She studied me. But I kept my eyes on traffic. “That doesn't seem healthy.”
“I'll risk it.”
“Flint.”
“Mal.”
“What did you hear?”
My hands tightened around the steering wheel. There it was. Not what Simon said. What did you hear?
I took the next light before answering. “A version.”
“That isn't an answer.”
“It is the only one I'm sure of.”
She went still beside me. Good. Maybe she'd understand.
“We thought we were listening to you.”
“But you weren't.”
“I know.”
I flexed my hands on the steering wheel. “We thought we were hearing him.”
“I know.”
“We weren't.” That pissed me off on a very primitive level.
“Probably not.”
I glanced toward her. “Probably?”
She gave me the same look she'd given Brewster approximately a thousand times.
“I never heard a voice,” she said. “That means I can’t confirm or deny that the voice you heard wasn’t his.”
Annoyingly fair. “That sounded like him,” I said.
“How would you know?” The implied how the hell would I know? echoed beneath her words.
“We wouldn't.” Because at the moment, neither of us could confirm having heard from the unsub. Auditor. Simon. Whatever name he wanted to use.
Traffic moved.
Mallory turned back toward the window.
“We don't know if the voice was generated from someone real,” she said. “Or assembled. Or whether he was speaking somewhere and they changed it. Or whether Simon even built the feed.”
“But we know someone did.” Because someone had gone a long way to set up that encounter, to facilitate a meeting between her and the unsub right under the nose of law enforcement.
And me. I had to admit, he’d done an excellent job of fooling me too.
“Yes,” she said with a sigh. “Simon seems to be a very clever man. Maybe too clever.”
Frowning, I looked at her.
“Flint, stop.”
“Stop what?”
“You’re reacting every time I say his name.”
Was I? I hadn’t paid attention to my reactions. “Simon.” I tested the sound of it. The name sounded different when she said it. Too personal. Far more personal than The Auditor. That pretentious as fuck name was preferable to Simon.
I grimaced. She was right. I was reacting. I didn’t like it. For every rational and irrational reason. I disliked that she knew it because… “He gave it to you.”
No amount of effort kept my voice even on that one.