Her breath stuttered once. Just once. She recovered fast—but I heard it.
“This isn’t your fault,” I said immediately. Too fast. Too rehearsed.
“I know,” she said. That scared me more than if she’d argued.
“I’m coming down to you,” I continued. “Don’t go anywhere. Don’t talk to anyone until?—”
“I’m not in the studio,” she cut in.
Fuck. Of course she wasn’t.
“I’m at the safe house.” With Brewster, though she didn’t say that, she didn’t have to.
Another pause.
“But I want to be there. I need to be…”
I closed my eyes.
“Listen to me,” I said. “This just changed everything.”
“Yes,” she replied. Calm. Focused. Already building the next move in her head. “It did.”
Because nothing any of us said would stop her from wanting to be here, from being on the story, from going after Colin’s killer the only way she knew how.
The last thing I wanted to do was prevent her from exercising her control and her grief, even if the only place she needed to be was the last place I wanted her to have to be.
“You need an escort.”
“I’ll have one.” There was no disguising the soft exhale of surprise.
“I’ll notify security. You’ll have ours on you too. No arguments.” It came out brutal, and clipped. I was in the elevator and when someone went to get in with me, I pointed them out. I needed privacy. They raised their hands and backed out.
“I won’t argue,” she said in a voice that was far too small for this woman who knew how to make her words count.
“Mallory—” I hesitated, then said the thing I’d been avoiding for days. “Whatever’s going on between you and Brewster? Leave it outside. It doesn’t get to compromise this or you.”
“It isn’t,” she said.
I didn’t believe her, but I also didn’t say so.
“How long until you’re here?” I asked as the elevator doors opened to the floor hosting my office.
“Twenty minutes—make it twenty-five.” I didn’t miss the hesitation.
“Be in my office in thirty,” I told her. “We’re not letting this turn you into the story.”
A pause.
“Flint,” she said softly. “I already am.”
The line went dead.
I stared at my phone for a long moment, then slid it into my pocket and strode into my office. The Auditor had broken his own rules.
That meant one of two things.
He was losing control.
