Their word for Mallory McBryan.
They didn’t say her name in that room, not with me sitting there. Not when Washington had already started circling the question of whether my proximity was operational or compromised.
They didn’t need to say her name.
I could feel it in the air, like ozone.
The screen changed again: timeline markers. A neat graphic of the Auditor’s “cycle,” as if murder obeyed formatting.
Masters. Then Thorne. Two days.
Compressed.
Reactive.
A thread pulled too hard.
The supervisor’s voice stayed even. “We’re concerned this indicates a shift into overt targeting. Less about moral instruction, more about leverage.”
Leverage.
Yes.Leverage.
Because Thorne hadn’t been leverage on the Auditor’s board.
Thorne was leverage on Mallory’s.
I watched the suit who’d leaned forward earlier. His pupils tightened. He liked leverage. Leverage meant strategy. Strategy meant a plan. Plans meant the illusion of control.
He wanted this to be the Auditor losing discipline.
He wanted to believe the killer was unraveling.
And I wanted to know why.
The supervisor paused. “Agent Brewster?”
I waited a beat too long on purpose. Let them sweat in the space where my answer should be.
Then I leaned forward, elbows on the table, voice low enough that it forced them to listen.
“What if someone wants us to think he’s escalating?”
Silence.
Not the polite kind.
The kind that snaps tension into place.
The analyst’s pen stopped moving. One of the suits blinked too slowly. The supervisor’s expression held—professional, measured—but her eyes sharpened by a fraction.
She didn’t ask me to clarify. She already understood what I’d done.
I’d given the room a different suspect without naming one.
A manipulation without a face.
A problem that couldn’t be fixed by arresting the right man and holding a press conference.
