Page 32 of Chameleon Killer

Flores checked the live feed. “Still in the building.”

“With Carter?”

A beat.

“Yes.”

I adjusted my cuffs. Control the asset, control the strategy, and control the investigation. People survived when someone made hard decisions before panic or, worse, an attack made them all moot.

Mallory didn’t have to like my choices or even understand them. She only had to stay alive long enough for me to end this.

“Pull her phone location,” I said.

Flores glanced up. “We have authorization for that?”

“We have an active threat.”

“Do we have⁠—”

“Pull it.”

He hesitated.

Then turned back to the keyboard.

Good.

I had no doubt that Sykes would object, then complain to our superiors. Mallory would be furious and Carter would run interference.

None of that mattered.

Not if I was right.

And I was right.

A minute later, Mallory’s location appeared on the screen, a small blue dot inside the Cartwright building.

Another dot populated nearby.

Flint Carter.

Their signals overlapped.

I stared at the screen for too long.

Flores pretended not to notice.

“They’re together,” I said.

The room hummed around me—monitors, servers, fluorescent lights, the quiet machinery of an investigation that had already moved too slowly.

I looked at Mallory’s blue dot then at Carter’s.

If the Auditor wanted her attention, he would come closer. If he wanted leverage, he’d come closer. Hell, if he wanted her, and I wouldn’t doubt that, he would eventually have to get close to her.

Since Carter kept placing himself between Mallory and the investigation, he would draw fire whether he understood it or not. Maybe that was the whole point. He read the situation and backed her plays so she would let him stay there to play guard dog.

They were wrong. His proximity alone wouldn’t protect her. All it did was expose him as a target. And if Flint Carter couldn’t understand that, I would remove him from the equation too.