Chapter III
III.
PERENNIAL
Yates
Sometime later . . .
August 26th, 8:07 am
I’VE PICKED UP MANY SKILLS over the course of this strange life I’ve led.
Policing, for one. I didn’t know anything about policing before I lied my way into the Cape Carnage Sheriff’s Department and worked my way up the ranks.
At first, it felt like the mask it was. But gradually, time has stitched that mask into my flesh and made me whole.
It’s another adaptation, a perfect camouflage.
The boundary between the monster and the laws created to control it have become indistinguishable with time.
Time. Another skill I’ve learned to master. From patience in its endless passage, to a newfound practical skill: watch repair.
Lightning flashes outside, followed by a peal of thunder that rattles the old windows in Harper’s bedroom as I gently pull the case from my pocket and open it, raising it to my ear to listen to the metronomic tick of the TAG Heuer Autavia watch.
The scent of watch oil still lingers faintly in the air.
I smile and set it on the dresser, careful to avoid the fingerprints I know are on the cracked glass.
This was a particularly difficult task, not only because Autumn may have discovered it missing, and I knew nothing about watch repair when I watched the playback on the hidden camera and the idea first took flight, but because of the precision required to avoid smudging Rhodes’s fingerprints.
In the end, I had to replace the original mechanism.
But it works perfectly now, behind the echo of its past.
I open the bottom drawer first and remove all of Rhodes’s pants and shorts, placing them in his own bag. Next, I take the shirts and sweaters. I don’t spread Autumn’s clothes into the empty space—I leave that as another reminder of Rhodes’s absence.
Last of all, I pack his briefs. But this time, I set an automatic watch winder in the empty space of the underwear drawer.
I use the hole saw I brought to cut a slice out of the back of the dresser and thread the power cord through it, plugging it in.
The device starts whirring quietly, spinning to keep an automatic watch wound and working.
I double-check the date and time of the TAG are accurate to this moment, and then I carefully place the watch inside.
For a moment, I watch through the glass as the quiet motor spins the gears, its steady beat of motion like the pulse of a living heart.
The feeling of pristine artistry fills my chest and heightens my senses.
“Art should unlock the fundamental truths of humanity by systematically deranging the senses,” I had explained to Vinny before I killed him.
And now I’m using the precision of this beautifully broken timepiece to systematically derange Autumn Bower and expose her fundamental truths.
Speaking of truths . . .
I open my phone and then the Discord app, navigating to the general channel, one that’s alive with chatter about the KnightofTruth’s recent . . . adventures. He certainly has become the interim leader, a malleable force of chaos.
I open my private conversation with him over direct messages, feeding him my next morsel of bait.
WhisperInsider: I have a theory about what happened to Sam and Vinny.
I don’t think it was really the sheriff’s fault.
My bet is that there was another player in the mix that Yates didn’t know about.
And the woman in the photo I sent you might know something about it.
There’s some stuff at the station that Sam found at an abandoned farm, and I think it’s all connected. Let me know when you’re able to chat.
Another flash of lightning bathes the room in a shock of light, followed closely by a riot of thunder.
Autumn Bower cannot run. She cannot hide. And once she sheds the chrysalis she’s built and the morality she clings to, she will become my legacy.
My smile broadens as I take a final look at the watch and close the drawer. It stays etched across my lips as I pack up the rest of Nolan Rhodes’s belongings, and then I leave the bedroom.
“Life exists for only a short while,” I say as I head to the stairs, “and time demands its toll.”