CHAPTER EIGHT
He laid the canvas bag on the bed with the same ritualistic care a priest might give to laying out vestments.
One item at a time.
One purpose at a time.
The palette knife—its edge newly re-sharpened, honed to a wicked, glinting sliver—went in first. Wrapped in cloth. Reverent. Precise.
Next, the artwork. A single piece, the paint not fully cured but dry enough to travel.
He held it for a moment, admiring how the colors bled into one another.
How the brushstrokes whispered of judgement.
The perfection of the tiny design in the bottom corner: a masterful union of technology and his own, God-given skill.
In all of it, he saw the reflection of a universe crying out for correction.
Rubber gloves, three pairs. Lockpicks, neatly aligned in a small zip pouch.
Circuit diagrams for the building he planned to enter tonight—photocopies, annotated in the margins with arrows, timings, and reminders.
He'd memorized them already, but having them close comforted him.
A shepherd should never stray far from his staff.
The photograph, in a little clip-frame.
He zipped the bag halfway, then paused, hand resting on the canvas.
He remembered.
Those patient days in the Massachusetts countryside, when he had sat in his car on the dirt track at the edge of that farm, watching the woman who had lived instead of his mother. Watching the one the universe had chosen to spare.
She fascinated him—not because she was beautiful.
She was the opposite. The kind of ugliness that festered inside a person and eventually seeped outward through every expression, every gesture, every word.
The ugliness of someone who treated life as something to be bent, broken, reshaped to suit her whims.
He remembered the day he drove out of Boston, twenty, maybe thirty miles west. The day he had been bold enough to creep up to the farmhouse window—to stand just below the sill, breath held, heart pounding—and look inside.
He saw the old woman in the wheelchair. Frail. Silent. Eyes cloudy with hunger and fear.
And he saw the daughter feeding her with what could only be described as violence—cramming the spoon between her mother’s lips, jabbing it forward, forcing food down with an impatience so sharp it cut the air.
The old woman gagged, shoulders jerking as though struck.
The daughter didn’t stop. Didn’t soften. Didn’t care.
The anger that surged through him had been pure. Perfect. A thing of heat and clarity.
This woman lived, he had realized. My mother died.
What devil in heaven or earth would choose such an exchange?
What malignant deity spared the cruel and allowed the kind to perish?
What cosmic corruption decided that a woman like his mother—gentle, patient, loving, so selflessly kind to her own parents—should be snuffed out, while this creature continued drawing breath?
He hadn’t understood. Not until Elijah Cox.
Cox had shown him the truth. Had unlocked the scripture not as metaphor, but as mandate. There was an imbalance in God’s universe. And from time to time, across the centuries, God chose certain people—gifted them, burdened them—to correct it.
Cox had heard that call.
And so had he.
Tonight was part of that calling. Part of the correction. Another weight to shift on the scales of eternity.
He finished zipping the bag and slung it over his shoulder. The palette knife inside shifted with the soft whisper of steel against cloth.
“Balance,” he murmured.
And he stepped into the night, ready to answer God’s call.
*
Thomas Garrett returned to the Providence office later than he’d planned, shrugging off his coat as he stepped into the dimly lit corridor. The building felt hollow at night—echoes stretched longer, shadows clung to corners, and the hum of the HVAC seemed louder than usual.
He didn’t notice any of that.
His mind was on the papers waiting on his desk. The deal in Pawtucket was finally closing, and once the signatures were collected, he’d be able to tell himself—again—that the long hours were worth it.
Worth the sacrifice.
Worth the silence.
He didn’t let himself think about the emails from his brother. Three of them. Each more frustrated than the last.
Dad’s asking for you again.
The nurse says he’s been confused at night. Keeps saying he wants to talk to you.
Thomas, for God’s sake, just call him.
Thomas pushed the thoughts aside—hard. His father had made his choices years ago. Harsh words, bitter accusations about abandoning the family business… he’d made it clear Thomas wasn’t a son to be proud of.
Fine.
Thomas had learned how to live without his approval. How to thrive without it.
He unlocked his office door and flipped on the desk lamp. The soft pool of light illuminated the stacks of documents, neatly arranged just as he’d left them.
He sat, pulled the first folder toward him, and opened his laptop.
Five minutes later, he heard footsteps in the hallway.
Slow. Heavy. Unhurried.
He glanced at the time. 10:42 p.m. The building was usually empty by nine, but the night security guard sometimes wandered through, doing rounds.
Thomas didn’t look up at first.
But the footsteps paused just outside his door.
He frowned.
“Luis?” he called. “That you?”
Silence answered him.
Thomas looked up.
A man stood in the doorway.
Stocky. Shoulders broad beneath thin overalls. Hands loose at his sides. A baseball cap shadowed most of his face.
He didn’t speak.
He didn’t move.
Just stared.
A small shiver wormed down Thomas’s spine. “This is private office space,” he said, trying for authority and landing somewhere closer to irritation. “You need to tell me what you’re doing here.”
Still nothing.
Thomas stood, pushing his chair back. “Listen, fellah—what is it you want?”
He took two steps toward the man.
That was as far as he got.
The motion was so fast it barely existed—a flick of the arm, a whisper of steel, a sensation like being tapped on the throat.
Thomas blinked.
His body suddenly felt warm. Too warm.
He reached up and touched his neck. His fingers came away red.
The pain followed a second later—white-hot, shocking, a tearing blaze that made his knees buckle.
“Wha—” he tried to speak, but only a wet gasp came out.
The man leaned in close, and for the first time, Thomas saw his eyes.
Calm. Purposeful. Empty of doubt.
“Correction,” the killer whispered.
Thomas collapsed, the carpet rushing up to meet him, his blood spilling across the stacks of neatly prepared contracts.
His last thought, fleeting and useless, was of his father—of the unanswered emails, the years of silence.
Then everything went dark.