Chapter 24 - "Teeth Without Hands"

The name Richard Carrow cracked open more than a file.

It split time.

Brandt and LeClair sat across from Captain Lin, the only sound the slow shuffle of scanned reports.

“He was a medical examiner,” LeClair said, jaw tight. “State certified. Retired early. Quiet exit. No infractions. But…”

He tapped a case file stamped C-17 - For Internal Use Only.

“…he processed two deaths tied to the same chemical plant the victims worked. Ronald Teague and Bryce Denton’s site.”

Brandt leaned forward. “The second death was Amelia Carr’s supervisor. Ruled suicide. That’s where the name first surfaces.”

Lin frowned. “He disappeared after 2015. No follow-up. No forwarding address. No trace. That's eight years gone.”

LeClair slid over a printed photo from a municipal zoning hearing.

“Until now. That’s him. Back row. Gloves. Watching, not participating.”

Brandt added a note under the image.

The ghost in the gear.

-

In an interview room, the survivor from Carrow’s tenure finally gave her name: Tasha Linnel.

“I’m not one of his victims,” she said softly. “Not officially. But I saw what he wrote on the back of a transport slip once.”

A pause.

“Some deaths are echoes. Some are adjustments. The rest are rust.”

Brandt watched her carefully. “Did he ever mention gears? Clocks?”

Tasha nodded. “Once. He said time doesn’t fail people. People fail time. And some have to be… corrected back into sync. Like bad cogs.”

LeClair met Brandt's eyes.

“He talked about entropy like it was personal,” Tasha said. “Like the world was trying to rot itself out of rhythm.”

-

Across the city, a final gear was being prepared.

Carrow scrubbed beneath his fingernails. Names unspooled in his head.

Each one a weight. Each one a tick.

Bryce Denton - lied to keep production high.

Ronald Teague - took bribes, let poison seep.

Darren Kravitz - ignored red-tag warnings.

Ernest Harrow - filed no complaints, patched cracks with epoxy.

Eleanor Voss - sold silence, obstructed hearings.

Grace Delaney - Young. Doomed. Her death was a correction-not a punishment.

And now, the final calibration: Amelia Carr.

The one who approved every cut corner. Every reroute. The keystone they never saw.

Not rusted.

Not corroded.

But complicit.

-

At the precinct, LeClair scrolled Carr’s file.

“No death certificate,” he muttered. “They assumed she left town. But her signature's on forms up to a month before the first confirmed kill.”

Brandt frowned. “She’s not just a name. She’s a hinge.”

“And Carrow’s not erasing her,” LeClair added. “He’s preparing her.”

Her last address was a dead end - except the property was bought three months ago by Clockwise Holdings, LLC.

PO box traced to the same city where Carrow's license was once registered.

It was closing in.

-

The boy in the basement apartment watched the news with a strange hunger.

They were saying the word now. Clockmaker.

But they still didn't understand.

He'd seen the gears behind the world - in the patterns, in the way the girl’s wrist bent in the photos, in the angle of the red string crossing faces.

He didn’t want to kill. Not yet. But he wanted to be ready.

He opened his notebook and drew a new clock.

4:44

No hands. Only notches. Only possibility.

-

Carrow sat alone.

The gear wall was complete. Knives clean. Message almost perfect.

Amelia was unconscious in the next room - sedated, pulse steady.

Her hour would come.

She would not die until she heard the tick.

Until she saw the blueprint she had helped ink in blood.

Then, and only then, would she be still.