Chapter 1 #2
The audience heard a journalist speaking about public accountability. The FBI would hear a challenge.
I heard something else.
She wasn't talking to them.
She couldn't be.
Mallory understood conversations didn't always require two people in the same room.
Smiling with practiced warmth, the host abandoned that line of questioning. She apparently recognized that Mallory wouldn’t give her anything more. "I think what so many people admire about you is that you seem fearless."
A ripple of agreement moved through the audience. Mallory smiled politely. Another one that never quite reached her eyes.
Fearless.
No.
That wasn't the word.
I'd seen fear.
Not in her reporting.
In the moments immediately afterward. In the breaths between questions. In the nearly imperceptible tightening of her shoulders before she walked toward another crime scene because someone had to.
Mallory McBryan wasn't fearless.
She was motivated, disciplined, and courageous. A pronounced difference.
"I don't know that I'd call it fearless," she answered after another considering pause. "I've covered wars. Terror attacks. Political coups. I've interviewed mothers looking for children who never came home and fathers asked to identify sons they could no longer recognize."
Her voice remained steady, but professional.
"But journalism isn't about being fearless. It's about believing the truth is worth being afraid for."
While the audience applauded again, I watched her.
The studio lights softened her features without diminishing them.
They caught the deep brown of her hair, coaxing out threads of mahogany and chestnut that only appeared beneath bright light.
She'd worn it shorter during Kyiv, practical and easier to manage beneath a helmet.
It had grown since then, brushing her shoulders now, framing a face that cameras liked because it carried intelligence before beauty.
Most people noticed her eyes first.
Not because of their color.
Because they couldn't decide where to look.
One was a cool blue that reminded me of winter light reflected off Lake Michigan.
The other was a warm hazel that shifted with the studio lights, almost amber when she laughed.
She wasn't laughing now and both eyes seemed so much darker somehow. Darker, deeper, and guarded. She’d closed the doors behind them and pocketed the keys. No one was allowed to know what she was thinking.
The host leaned forward. "You've become... forgive the expression... almost synonymous with this investigation."
Mallory's lips curved. "I'd rather be synonymous with solving it."
"You've spoken publicly before about believing victims deserved to have their stories told." The host leaned forward. "Has that changed?"
"Not at all. I still believe that." The answer came a little too quickly. "What has changed," Mallory continued, "is my understanding that every public statement has consequences beyond the moment it's spoken."
My attention sharpened. Consequences. Not mistakes or regrets. Consequences. I turned that choice over in my head.
"Do you regret giving him a name?"
Mallory lowered her eyelashes for the briefest moment before lifting them again. "I regret," she said softly, "that people died."
Not an answer.
Not the one she'd been asked.
"But do you regret calling him the Auditor?" The host tried again.
The silence extended. Three seconds. Four. Five. Silence was the bane of on-air programs. Most interviewers feared it, but not Mallory. She knew how to deliver a message in the quiet as well as with the noise.
When she finally spoke, her voice was almost gentle. "I think names have power."
"Then why give him one?"
"Because monsters don't become less dangerous when we refuse to describe them. If anything, if you fear to name them, you are giving them more power."
True.
Very true.
"But..." she continued, "sometimes the names we choose tell us more about ourselves than the people we're naming."
That wasn't for the audience. Neither was the way she held the camera's gaze for one heartbeat longer than necessary.
Or perhaps it was.
The distinction was becoming increasingly difficult to make.
I leaned back in my chair.
She'd changed.
The sharp edges remained, but she'd wrapped them in velvet. I doubted it was weakness. No, she’d adapted because of cost. Real or perceived, it had left a mark.
The host folded one leg over the other. "There are reports the FBI has asked you to scale back your coverage."
Mallory laughed, a soft, and almost effortlessly genuine sound. It was—quite beautiful. "The FBI asks for a lot of things."
"And do you listen?"
Another pause. Long enough for me to wonder if she was choosing between truth and diplomacy. "I listen," she said at last. "But listening and agreeing have never been the same thing."
I found myself smiling.
Small.
Involuntary.
She was still there beneath the caution.
Still asking questions.
Still refusing to surrender the story simply because someone with a badge preferred a different ending.
Whatever Brewster had done...
Whatever pressure he'd applied...
He hadn't changed who she was.
Only how she survived.
For now, that would have to be enough.
“…can you tell us what’s next for you, Mallory?” the host asked and Mallory glanced at the camera again. She looked right at me, or that was how it felt. She met my gaze and held it.
“You’ll know when I do,” she said and it was an answer without being an answer. Another careful choice on her part. She never revealed more than she had to, just like she never revealed her sources. She never had. It also meant she hadn’t stopped asking questions.
Good.
Because neither had I.
Somewhere in Chicago, a man was wearing my methods like a borrowed suit.
He’d killed Colin Thorne.
He’d murdered Guy Reardon.
Then he’d disappeared. Men like that didn’t disappear. They went deep. They waited. They prepared.
Mallory was still hunting the truth.
So was I.
And this time, I would not wait for someone else to make the next move.