Chapter 21 #3
“You could have asked.” The admonishment gave me pause.
“I did.” Because I’d thrown her a line and she’d refused to catch it.
“When?”
“The morning after.”
She frowned.
“At the board, Mal. You told me I crossed a line.”
Realization softened her expression. “I didn't mean—”
“I know what you meant now.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
“Then explain it to me.”
I laughed once without humor. “You really don't know how to leave anything alone.”
“No.”
“At least you're consistent.”
She waited. I hated when she did that. Mostly because it worked.
“I was angry with Brewster.”
Her expression remained neutral. “Professionally?”
“Oh yeah.”
A beat.
“And?”
I stared at her. She had the decency not to smile.
“Mal.”
“And?”
I rubbed a hand across the back of my neck. “Because he stayed assigned to you after sleeping with you.”
Her gaze didn't move.
“Because he controlled what information reached you.”
Still nothing.
“Because every time you pushed back, he treated it like proof you needed more controlling.”
She listened.
“And,” she prompted again.
I almost told her to go to hell. The words were right there on the tip of my tongue. But I didn’t want to say them and she didn’t need to hear it. Not when she was being deliberately vulnerable.
So, I chose to say the one thing I’d avoided for days. “Because he got there first.”
Mallory went utterly still.
To be fair, that sentence sounded a lot worse out loud. It was possessive, juvenile, and—true.
I looked away. “That isn't fair to you.”
“No.”
“I know,” I said with a sigh. It was pretty crappy on my part, but she wanted to know and that was how I felt.
“I'm not something anyone gets to first.” As gentle as that reprimand was, I felt it all the way to my bones.
“I know.” The words came out snappier than I intended, so I raised a hand. “I do know that, Mal. It’s why I didn’t say anything.”
Her eyebrows rose. “About what?”
I stared at her.
She already knew. She wanted me to say it.
Fine. “You want to hear it?” I asked her, narrowing the space between us. “You want me to say it out loud?” When she didn’t back off or say a word, I went for it. “I didn’t say anything about how much I wanted you—have wanted you and still want you.”
The room became extraordinarily quiet.
No traffic. No refrigerator hum. No city noise.
Mallory set her coffee down. “When?”
That was so far from what I’d expected her response to be, I gaped at her for a moment. “What?”
“When did you start wanting me?”
I laughed quietly, not entirely certain whether I should be amused or annoyed. The woman made me crazy. “You're interviewing me now?”
“Occupational hazard.” She tested the way those words sounded with just a hint of a teasing wince. It was the first sight of her beneath the journalistic facade she’d been projecting.
“A little convenient, don’t you think?”
“I learned from Simon.”
My jaw tightened before I could stop it.
“Oh.”
“What?” I growled the word. No amount of breathing exercise was going to keep my temper in check at the moment.
“You really don't like the name.”
“I don't care about the name.” Before she could jump on that statement, I cupped her chin so her eyes had to stay on mine. I kept my grip light so she could pull away and told myself I wasn’t savoring how soft her skin was. “I don’t like what that name represents.”
She swallowed hard.
“He gave you something no one else had. He invited you to a personal meeting and whether he was there or not, he forged a connection with you.” I hated that so damn much, it made me want to throw things, but I kept my calm. “Now, you call him Simon.”
Because the bastard had been successful.
“Brewster calls him the unsub. The Bureau calls him the Auditor because you named him. Everyone else knows the public version.”
Mallory's expression changed. “And I know Simon?”
“That isn't what I said.”
“It is what you meant.”
“No.”
She waited.
“Mal,” I sighed. “It's what I'm afraid you mean.”
That wiped away her irritation. “Flint.”
“I heard a fake version of you tell him you believed him.”
“I don't.” She assured me and it wasn’t heard to feel the frantic beat of her pulse beneath my fingers as my hand glided along her throat.
“I know that now.”
“I told him I didn't.”
I really wished we’d been able to see the actual interaction. Even knowing he manufactured parts didn’t erase the images in my head. “That's not the version we heard.”
Her gaze softened. “I’m sorry.”
“You didn't do it.”
“No. But you had to sit there believing it.”
“Yes.”
Another silence.
Then she said, “He asked why I became a journalist.”
Of all the things I expected, that wasn't one of them. “What?”
“His first real question.”
I stared.
Mallory retreated from my touch, but not my nearness and retrieved her mug, then seemed to think better of it and returned it to the counter.
“He asked why I became a journalist.”
“What did you tell him?”
“That I didn't like being lied to.”
That fit. “Sounds pretty true to me.”
“He said it was incomplete.”
I snorted. “Of course he did.”
Mallory's mouth twitched. “Then he asked for the origin.”
I waited.
This time because she needed it. Not because I wanted to force the answer. “So, I told him about fifth grade.”
She told me the story. A girl accused of cheating. A teacher unwilling to admit she'd been wrong. A narrative that survived even after the facts underneath it collapsed.
I listened.
Somewhere in the telling, I understood why Simon had asked. Not because he wanted biographical trivia.
Mallory finished. Then looked at me. “He said the facts hadn't changed. Only my understanding of the narrative had.”
I folded my arms. “He's not wrong.”
“No.”
“You hate that.” It might have been an observation, but I was right there with her. I hated how much this man wanted to know her and seemed intent on pulling her apart to know her.
“Yes.”
I almost smiled. “What else?”
She told me. Not everything at once. Pieces.
How he'd challenged the name Auditor. How he'd insisted she had named a pattern rather than a person. How she'd negotiated reciprocity. How she'd demanded something to call him.
Simon.
“Why that name?”
“He said Simon was the first person who taught him that being correct and being believed were unrelated conditions.”
I turned that admission over in my head. “That sounds personal.”
“I thought so.”
“Think it’s true?”
“I have no idea.” She lifted her shoulders. “It might be. It might be total bullshit. At this point, I lean toward it’s probably not true.”
“Good.”
Her eyebrows rose. “What?”
It was a relief to me and I had to admit it. “You're still questioning him.”
“I question everyone.”
“I know.”
A small smile. Then it faded. “He denied killing Colin.”
My whole body went cold. “Clearly?”
“Yes.”
“No games?” Everything else seemed to be word play and sportslike.
“Not on that.”
“What about Guy?”
“Same.”
I leaned back against the counter. “Do you believe him?”
Mallory didn't answer immediately. I watched her consider every possible version. She took her time, and when she finally spoke, she said, “I believe he believes the distinction matters.”
“That wasn't my question.”
“I know.”
“Mal.”
She sighed. “I believe him enough to want to verify what he told me.”
That wasn't reassurance. Maybe it shouldn't be. “What did he tell you?”
“He pointed to the second toxicology.”
I nodded. “We know Brewster knew about it. What else?”
“He told me where to look.”
My attention sharpened. “Where?”
“Laboratory billing reconciliation for the final seventy-two hours of Guy's admission. Compare accession numbers against pathology's specimen log.”
That was incredibly specific. Far too specific to ignore.
“And?”
“One number won't belong.”
I felt the journalist in me wake up despite exhaustion. “Which could mean…”
“I don't know.” The same tiredness wore away at her that dragged at me.
“Missing specimen?”
“Possibly.”
“Different patient?”
“Maybe.”
“Off-book test?”
“We verify.”
Of course. Mallory crossed her arms. “He also said there was more than one gap in the records.”
“That matches the billing anomalies.”
“Yes.”
He gave her a lot. “Anything else?”
She looked at me.
I knew immediately there was. “How bad?”
“That depends.” She hedged. I really didn’t care for it when she hedged. She usually only did that when she thought whatever she was going to tell me would piss me off.
“On?”
“Whether you believe Simon.”
“No.”
Her expression tightened. Disappointment vied with anger for dominance in her expression.
While she wrestled with that, I just clarified my negative response. “I believe you.”
That stopped her and she stared at me. “Flint…”
“I believe that you're telling me what happened.” I ticked it off on one finger. Then another. “I believe you know when you're being manipulated.”
“Usually.” Too agreeable.
“Usually?”
“I'm trying to account for uncertainty.” The admission cost her and it made me smile.
“Fair.”
“And I do believe Simon is manipulating me.”
That surprised me. “You do?”
“Of course I do.”
“Then why—”
“Because manipulation doesn't automatically make the information false.”
I exhaled. Of course it didn’t and now that her spidey senses were tingling, she wasn’t going to let this go.
“That's a problem.”
“Yes.”
She came closer. “He didn't tell me not to tell anyone.”
“What?”
“He never told me to keep the conversation secret.”
I frowned. “Not once?”
“No.”
“Hmm.” I turned that over in my head. “That would have been too obvious.”
“Exactly.”
“Instead, he gave you information and let you decide who deserved it.”
“Agreed.”
“Then Brewster convinced you he didn't.” That was definitely not a question. Brewster had gotten shadier and shadier as the day had gone on.
Her eyes held mine. “Yes.”
Damn. As much as I hated the son of a bitch, I had to give fucking Simon some credit. That was elegant as hell. “He's using Brewster.”
“I think so.”