“Give me your phone and get dressed,” I said. “Warm. Neutral. Dark pants, cream or white shirt, dark jacket. No jewelry.”
Her eyebrows lifted. “That’s a yes?”
“Get changed, I’m leaving in three minutes if you’re with me or not.”
Without another word, she handed me her phone and was already moving before I finished speaking and back at the two minute, thirty mark.
I didn’t tell the team she was coming.
I told them she was asleep.
One agent stayed behind. Young. Reliable. Bought the lie because he wanted to. Everyone else moved like we always did—efficient, contained, focused on the perimeter and the press.
Mallory came down the back stairs in an FBI windbreaker two sizes too big and a ball cap pulled low over her hair. I handed her gloves without comment.
She took them. Our fingers brushed.
She didn’t say thank you. She didn’t have to, we were both well past the point of no return. She rode in the back with me, saying nothing and keeping her head down. I passed her sunglasses before we got there, then slid my own on before I climbed out of the back of the SUV.
The scene was cordoned tight. Media pushed back a full block farther than usual. Too clean. Too quiet.
That was his signature too.
I guided her through the line with my hand at the small of her back. Not intimate. Not gentle. Directive. She let the agents close around her without complaint, head down, posture mimicking theirs. She learned fast.
I stopped her well before the body.
“Here,” I said. “You don’t move past me.”
“I won’t,” she said. This time, I believed her.
The victim lay beneath a tarp near a municipal records annex—one of those buildings no one noticed until they needed something buried. Mid-forties. Male. No visible trauma beyond what the Unsub wanted seen.
First on scene began a recitation of identity, reading us into what they had so far. Vincent Masters. Compliance officer. City level. Not high-ranking. Not low either.
Useful.
I lifted the tarp just enough to confirm identity. The paperwork would come later. The story was already here.
Ledger placed neatly beside the body. Copies of internal audits. Highlighted discrepancies. Red ink. Careful handwriting.
He hadn’t rushed.
“He wants us to read it,” Mallory said softly behind me.
“Yes.”
“He always does.”
I glanced back at her. She hadn’t moved closer. Her eyes tracked everything anyway.
“Mid-level,” she murmured. “Important enough to matter. Disposable enough to delay outrage.”
“Hmm,” I said, aware she wasn’t talking to me, but to herself as she sorted the data. I didn’t ask how she knew.
The medical examiner cleared his throat. “Cause of death pending, but prelim suggests poisoning. Slow onset. Administered over time.”
The Auditor liked patience. He liked the death to come onhisschedule. But this was a first…at least in this case.
