Chapter 19 #3
Something in his tone drew my attention. He wasn't looking at Brewster. He was looking at me.
“What?”
Flint hesitated, then said, “We heard him.”
My stomach tightened. “Heard who?”
It was Brewster who answered. “The Auditor.”
Simon. Again, the internal correction came almost automatically but it felt far less interesting when compared to what they were saying.
“What do you mean, you heard him?”
Brewster's attention sharpened. “We had surveillance on the meeting.”
I did not roll my eyes, but I did look at Flint. He didn’t apologize. I would have been more irritated if he had. We’d discussed the plan at length before I went in.
“What surveillance?” I returned my attention to Brewster.
“The feed from the room,” Brewster said.
“There wasn't a feed.” I never did find any cameras.
“Yes, there was.”
“I was sitting right here.” I motioned to the room.
“And we watched you.”
Cold moved through me. Not fear, but something adjacent. “You watched me?”
Flint stepped in before Brewster could answer. “We had video and audio.”
I stared at him. “You heard me?”
“Yes.”
“Talking?” I couldn’t quite put that together with the interaction I’d had with Simon.
His expression shifted. “Yes.”
My mouth went dry. I looked toward the chair. Then the monitor. Then back at Flint. “I barely talked.”
Now Brewster went completely still.
Flint's face changed.
“What?” I asked.
Neither answered.
“What did you hear?”
Brewster's response was immediate. “We'll do this somewhere secure.”
“No.”
“Mallory—”
“No.” I pointed at Flint. “He just said you heard me talking. I want to know what you heard.”
“We need to preserve your independent recollection before contaminating it with ours.”
That was objectively reasonable. I hated it. “You already contaminated it by telling me there was another version.”
Brewster's eyes narrowed.
Another version.
Neither man corrected me and that was more than enough of an answer. I looked at the monitor again. Simon hadn't simply brought me here to talk.
He'd created an audience. No, that wasn’t right. He’d created two conversations. Two interactions. One for me. One for them.
And suddenly I understood why he'd been so particular about facts.
About narratives.
About names.
My skin prickled.
“What did he say to you?” Flint asked quietly.
Brewster looked at him sharply. “Don't.”
Flint ignored him. His attention remained on me. “What did you actually hear?”
I opened my mouth. Then stopped. Because that was exactly the question, wasn't it? What had I heard?
Nothing.
I'd read words on a screen. I'd attributed intention to them. Personality. Humor. Curiosity. A man.
A man called Simon. One I had constructed from language this time rather than a pattern.
Just as Flint and Brewster had apparently constructed something from whatever they'd been shown.
The thought made me cold. I closed my mouth.
“Mallory?” Flint asked.
I looked at him. For the first time since he'd come through the stairwell door, I didn't know whether telling him the truth was the safest thing I could do.
Not because I didn't trust him. Because I no longer trusted the space around us. “We're done here,” I said.
Brewster stepped forward. “No, we're not.”
I met his gaze. “Yes, Elliot. We are.”
“We need your statement.”
“You'll get one.”
“Now.”
“No.”
His frustration surfaced. “You walked voluntarily into a controlled meeting with an unidentified serial offender, disappeared from every surveillance system we had in place, and emerged from a floor that doesn't exist after we watched you spend more than an hour communicating with him. You don't get to decide this can wait.”
Flint shifted.
I put out one hand before he could say anything. Not because Brewster was right. Because I wanted to answer him myself.
“I went to twelve.”
Brewster stared at me.
“So did you.”
I pointed toward the identical number outside.
“Apparently we're both going to have to get more specific.”
Something dangerous flickered across his expression. Then vanished.
Simon would have liked that answer. The mental head pat I gave myself annoyed me so much, I turned away.
“Take me somewhere secure,” I said. “Then you can show me what you think happened.”
“What we think happened?” Brewster repeated.
I looked back at the dead monitor. “No.” I corrected myself. “What Simon wanted you to think happened.”
The room went silent.
Fuck.
Flint's head turned toward me. Brewster didn't move at all. I had spent the last several minutes refusing to give them anything Simon had given me.
Then I'd handed them the one thing I hadn't intended to surrender. It was a calculated strategy to deliver it like an error. It would test Brewster and Simon.
Brewster spoke first. “Simon?”
I stared at the black screen. For the first time all night, the cursor didn't appear to save me. Lifting my chin, I said, “We’re done. And I want my lawyer.”
Even if it couldn’t be Colin. Maybe especially because it couldn’t be Colin.
“Mallory—“
“Agent Brewster.” The interruption came from a female agent I didn’t know or recognize. “She’s asked for her attorney. Questioning can continue downtown.”
Yes. It could.