Page 155 of Chameleon Killer

No.

You changed the relationship.

My breath caught. Before I could answer, the final words appeared.

Until next time.

The screen went black.

Completely.

No cursor.

No green light.

Nothing.

I sat alone in the soundproofed room with a blank notebook, one page of frantic notes, a stolen name, and far more questions than I'd brought in.

Simon.

I tested the name silently. It meant nothing. Which meant, for now, it meant everything.

Chapter

Eighteen

BREWSTER

The unsub had made a mistake. Finally! I continued to stare at the monitor long after Mallory stopped speaking.

Beside me, Carter hadn't moved or said anything.

Neither had Agent Ruiz at the communications station. The only sound inside the van came from the low whir of equipment and the faint static bleeding through one of the open channels.

On the center monitor, Mallory sat alone at the desk. Her hands were folded loosely in front of her.

Waiting.

But, the bastard had made a mistake.

I repeated that silently because I needed that win and to view it as a tactical one. Particularly because he’d let us listen..

Not all of it. Maybe not even most of it. The signal had dropped twice, video had lagged behind the audio for nearly six seconds at one point, and whatever routing architecture he'd built into the system had turned us into spectators.

But we'd heard enough. More importantly, I'd heard him.

After three years of chasing evidence, behavioral residue, written communications, reconstructed timelines, and the occasional recording too degraded to be useful, I had finally heard the unsub’s voice.

He was calm, educated, and very particular in his language choices.

Probably between thirty-five and fifty-five, although vocal age estimates were notoriously unreliable. Midwestern inflection flattened by either education or intention. No obvious speech impediments. No significant regional markers. Controlled cadence. Minimal filler language.

And absolutely no anxiety.

He'd known we were there.

That conclusion had arrived sometime around the second interruption.