Chapter 8 - "Blueprints in Blood"

Eloise spins out of orbit while Mason studies the killer’s origin story one tick at a time.

The lobby was half-empty, humming with fluorescent lights and the low murmur of dispatch radios behind the front desk. The woman waiting near the wall didn't look out of place: jeans, long coat, a worn canvas satchel at her side. She stood with her hands clasped, as if unsure whether to stay or bolt.

Mason approached slowly.

"You asked for me."

The woman turned, eyes dark and watchful. Early forties, maybe. Hands shaking just enough to notice.

"I-yeah. I think you're the one working the...clock cases."

Mason's spine straightened.

"Name?"

"Sarah Danner."

Mason's world blinked.

"Relation to Eloise Danner?"

"I'm her sister."

Tick.

Tock.

The scalpel lay on a velvet cloth beside the tools, meticulously organized in rows like a surgeon's set. Eloise worked silently, adjusting the leather strap on the armrest of the chair they used. It wasn't about restraint. It was about steadiness.

The original, who never told her his name, was checking his notes. Not digital. Never digital. Pages stained with coffee rings and old fingerprints.

"Do you want this one?" he asked without looking up.

Eloise paused.

"What time?"

"Three-forty-one. You said that was yours once."

Her hands twitched.

"I'll do it," she said quietly.

Tick.

Tock.

Sarah's fingers twisted around the strap of her bag as she pulled out a folder-not a case file, but a personal one. Old notebooks. Letters. Photocopies. Medical records. Mason sifted through them.

"She disappeared when she was seventeen," Sarah whispered. "We thought she ran away. Then we found her...in a motel bathtub. She wouldn't talk. Just kept drawing clocks. Over and over. The same one. 3:22."

Mason froze.

"That matches an unknown timestamp I just found, years before the first official victim."

Sarah nodded.

"She changed after that. Quiet. Empty. But...later, she got strange. She'd disappear for weeks. We thought drugs. Then she stopped coming back altogether."

Mason leaned in, heart pounding.

"Why come forward now?"

Sarah's eyes flicked toward the mirror behind Mason. Her voice dropped.

"Because two days ago, someone slipped a picture of a clock under my door."

Mason's pulse spiked.

"What time?"

Sarah swallowed.

"3:22. Again"

Tick.

Tock.

She dipped the blade in alcohol, then flame. She wasn't nervous anymore. That had gone away long ago.

"Are you sure this one's ready?" she asked him.

He nodded. "He's held onto it long enough. He's made peace with it. Or he thinks he has."

"What was the moment?"

He tilted his head. "His son's last voicemail. He didn't pick up."

She nodded slowly.

"Then it's time."

She pressed the blade against synthetic skin first-a dummy for spacing-and etched the first faint line of 3:41.

Tick.

Tock.