Chapter 29 #2
The doors slid open to the news floor and noise rushed in like a held breath finally released.
Phones ringing. Producers talking over each other. Assistants moving too fast, eyes flicking up when they saw me step out flanked by federal agents. Screens along the wall scrolled with breaking banners, half-written lower thirds, red ALERT boxes blinking like warning lights.
The building hadn’t locked down.
It was bracing.
I felt it in my gut before I saw it on the monitors.
“Okay,” I said quietly, already walking. “What’s breaking?”
Flint didn’t answer immediately. He guided me toward the glass-walled office he used when he wanted to overlook the studio floor, his hand still light on my arm. When we passed a bank of screens, I caught enough to make my stomach sour.
Not one network.
Three.
Same headline. Same phrasing.
UNCONFIRMED REPORTS OF FEDERAL ACTION.
SOURCES SAY WARRANTS IMMINENT.
FINANCIAL MISCONDUCT INVESTIGATION EXPANDS.
No body.
Not yet.
But the timing—
Four days since Masters. Two since Colin. Way too soon.
“This feels way too convenient,” I said. Not asking. It was like pulling the fire alarm and seeing who ran and who didn’t. The one who knew where the fire actually was, wouldn’t bother.
“Yeah,” Flint elongated the single word as he studied the screens, a fourth network popped up with a new, but fairly similar headline. Only this one suggested the Federal investigation was taking its lead from the Auditor. “Really convenient.”
Producers trickled into Flint’s floor office without being told. The agents had already taken up position around the room, save for Sterling who remained just outside the glass, speaking into his cell phone with his posture telegraphing frustration.
Shuttling their presences aside, I stepped closer to the screens. The material they were reading looked to have been delivered to them.
I unmuted the closest screen.
Darrin Rather was on, seated at his desk with that sober, practiced gravity he reserved for moments when the line between reporting and consequence had already blurred. His tone was careful—measured in a way that suggested legal had been hovering just off camera.
“…earlier today,” he was saying, “multiple newsrooms received what is being described as a written communication from the individual calling himself the Auditor.”
The graphic over his shoulder read LETTER RECEIVED — AUTHENTICITY UNCONFIRMED.
“The communication,” Rather continued, “does not claim responsibility for recent deaths, nor does it issue a threat. Instead, it details itself as a clarification.”
My stomach tightened.
Rather glanced down briefly, then back up, like a man weighing every word before he let it out of his mouth.
“In the letter, the author suggests that recent developments in the federal investigation were not influenced by him—but rather forced by the exposure of systemic misconduct. He argues that institutions only move when they are embarrassed into action.”
Flint exhaled quietly beside me.
Rather went on. “The letter emphasizes that accountability is not violence, and that violence is not justice—language that echoes themes raised on-air earlier this week by Mallory McBryan.”
There it was.
The hook.
“The author claims,” Rather said carefully, “that the current wave of audits and rumored warrants are the result of pressure already applied—not direction given. He describes himself not as a leader, but as… a witness.”
I let out a short, incredulous breath. “That’s new.”
Flint murmured, “He’s denying ownership—” I could hear the question lingering at the end of that unfinished thought. “But of what?”
Onscreen, Rather’s jaw tightened almost imperceptibly before he continued.
“Federal officials have declined to comment on whether the letter is authentic. They have also declined to confirm the existence of any imminent warrants.”
The chyron shifted: DOJ: ‘NO COMMENT’.
Rather leaned forward slightly. “It’s worth noting that the language in this letter appears deliberately restrained. No demands. No timeline. No instruction.”
He held the camera’s gaze.
“Which raises an important question—if the Auditor isn’t claiming responsibility for this moment… who is?”
I didn’t realize I’d stopped breathing until my chest burned.
Onscreen, Rather concluded, “We’ll continue to follow this story…”
Flint muted the channel and gave me a look. “Thoughts?”
“It doesn’t sound like him. Did we get a letter?” I pivoted to look at the producers around the room.
“We’re checking already,” Flint said, his own phone in hand now as he studied the screens.
The language was wrong. Not inaccurate—wrong.
Carefully vague. Loaded with implication. Phrases designed to travel faster than facts. “Sources say.” “Developing.” “May indicate.” Words that sounded authoritative without committing to anything that could be sued.
“This isn’t a leak,” I murmured, talking aloud. “It’s not from him either.”
Why I knew this? I had no idea. His communications had all been… pithy. Sharp. To the point. That letter had rambled from the sound of it.
Flint raised his brows at me—did I need him right this moment? I shook my head and waved him back to his call. If we’d gotten a letter, I wanted to see it. I wanted to read it in its entirety.
I felt the edges of the pattern press in around me, ugly and deliberate.
The unsub wasn’t accelerating. Based on the tense expressions the agents wore, I was pretty sure this hadn’t come from them. So—who was using this moment to manipulate and what was their target? The story? The unsub?
Me?
My phone buzzed.
Then again.
Then again.
I didn’t even need to look to know what it was—my followers, my inbox, my DMs lighting up like a switchboard. The same cadence as before, only it seemed louder and far more insistent. Pulling it out, I glanced at it anyway.
The messages stacked across the scene.
Same sentence structure. Same punctuation habits. Same clipped sympathy, same urgent insistence that now was the moment.
You were right. This is what accountability looks like.
They’re finally listening to you.
Don’t stop now.
It made my skin crawl. The letter that had been sent to the other networks was amplifying my reporting.
My messaging. The social media posts, the private messsages—they were something else entirely.
They weren’t responding to the reporting from any of us, but reacting to what they wanted me to do next.
“They want me to go live,” I said, more to myself than anyone else. They were trying to force me out there. Flint pivoted to stare at me.
“What?”
“They want me to support this—” I gestured to the screens and ignored the sudden silence rippling across the room as the producers quieted. I had everyone’s attention, including Sterling. “They want me to validate this and support the messaging.”
To his credit, Sterling seemed far more concerned than irritated when he glanced in at us. Then he was at the door and stepping inside.
“Ms. McBryan,” he said through the door. “We’re getting chatter too. Not just press.”
“Define chatter,” I said.
He hesitated.
“That’s never good,” I added.
He closed the door behind him. “Off the record?”
I almost smiled.
“Give us the room,” Flint ordered and the producers suddenly burst into action. Calls were ended, material grabbed up and they trailed out, until all that was left was me, Flint, and the three agents in the closed room. “Off the record,” he confirmed.
Sterling nodded. “We’re seeing a lot of internal alerts. Accelerated. Someone’s pushing information into the system that appears to be federal action. It’s triggering responses.”
Appears.
Cold bloomed through me. “But none of it is legitimate?”
“Yes and no,” Sterling said carefully, a muscle ticked in his jaw.
He wasn’t angry, he was really worried. The strain around his eyes and the way his lips flattened confessed that.
“The material we’re seeing looks like we generated it, and it’s being fed into our system and out to other law enforcement—they are acting on it. ”
“Oh shit,” I whispered and sat in a chair one of the producers had abandoned.
“He’s not killing faster,” Flint said slowly. “He’s going to point the finger at someone else.” It sounded like he was testing the theory.
“But this is a complete and total change from his M.O.” Except… was it? He had to be educated enough to handle sophisticated systems. Intelligent enough to weed through the noise and identify the troublemakers. Savvy enough to distinguish real leads from false trails.
Was this a change? Or was he just widening his scope?
“Whatever this is,” I said slowly, “whether it’s the unsub or someone trying to use this story for their own gain, whatever is coming isn’t a body drop.
They are going to take people down, publicly.
It’s going to force accountability from a lot of different companies and individuals without any kind of due process. ”
Fraud clothed in justice. That didn’t make it fair or right, even if the targets were legitimate. Fruit of the poisonous tree and all of that.
My stomach turned.
“And if I go on air right now,” I continued, “they get exactly what they want.”
Sterling swallowed. “Ma’am—”
I held up a hand. “I’m not going live.” No way in hell would I back a story without fact checking it to hell and back. “But, I am staying.”
Flint gave me a firm look. “Then get to work, McBryan, we have a story to tear apart.”
Yes, we did.
Whatever the next mistake was, it wouldn’t belong to me. It wouldn’t be committed by hijacking my voice to back their version of the story.
I left Flint then and headed for my office. I needed the space and the quiet to think and to work. After the agents cleared the room, they moved to stay outside. I didn’t have any windows in here, which made it pretty damn secure.
No sooner did I pull up my computer and log in than my phone buzzed.
With a long sigh, I turned my phone over. The screen lit.
And everything in me went very still.
Oh shit.