Page 4 of Chameleon Killer

Mallory didn't look surprised. Why should she? I had no doubts that she’d prepared for any question they could throw at her. This interview had been mostly softballs.

"I believe," she said slowly, "that two people are dead."

The host frowned slightly. "I'm not sure I understand."

"I know."

I almost laughed. Mallory took a measured pause after she acknowledged her own superiority. I doubted she would see it that way, but this host was not one who could ever control the interview. Not the way Mallory could.

"The investigation is ongoing. Federal authorities have not publicly confirmed every aspect of what they're examining, and I won't speculate beyond the evidence."

"But—" The host leaned in. "You've never been afraid to speculate before."

No. She hadn't. Which meant she wanted someone to notice the difference.

"I've learned," Mallory said quietly, "that certainty is expensive."

My fingers tightened against the edge of the workbench. Was she trying to send me a message?

The host waited but when Mallory said nothing more, she pressed again. "So... do you believe the Auditor killed Guy Reardon?"

Mallory met her gaze.

"I believe," she said, choosing each word with surgical precision, "that someone wants us to stop asking questions."

Us.

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."