Page 40 of If You're Reading This

CHAPTER

EIGHTEEN

I adjustedthe temperature control again, checking the digital readout.

Sixty-eight degrees exactly. It was the perfect environment for both my subject and the photographic chemicals.

I tugged on my mask and hat—I wasn’t ready for her to know my true identity. Then I started down the stairs to the basement.

To Morgan.

I’d been at work earlier. If only I could stay here all day. But alas, I could not. I had to keep my schedule. Otherwise, people might become concerned—or even worse, get nosy.

I couldn’t let that happen.

At least during my first break I’d had the chance to watch the video of Logan discovering the photo I left on his SUV. Then during lunch, I’d crept into the woods. It had been risky, but I couldn’t help myself. I wanted to see the moment they discovered my masterpiece.

It had been worth it.

It was all good. I hadn’t slept in days, but I didn’t need to. My body and mind were different, and I could go weeks without getting any rest.

It allowed me to get done what I needed to get done. It was a blessing really.

Renovating the basement had cost me dearly, but proper conditions were essential for my work.

For my art.

For my new dark room.

Morgan had been difficult again this morning. She’d lashed out at me, telling me I’d never get away with this. Then she’d fought against her restraints.

I’d had no choice but to hold her down and give her more sedatives. I’d watched as her muscles relaxed and her eyes closed. Then she looked like an angel again in her dazed state.

I glanced at her on the bed where I’d left her restrained. She was now awake but docile. The calculated mix of sedatives kept her coherent enough to function but not enough to resist.

Finding the right balance had taken careful research and several failed attempts. But I’d persisted, learning the perfect combination in preparation for Morgan.

Morgan was special. Morgan deserved my best work.

“The light will be right in about twenty minutes.” I checked my watch as I walked across the room, flipping on the regular lights. The black light disappeared. “That gives me just enough time to prepare.”

Morgan’s eyes tracked my movement across the room, her pupils dilated from the drugs but still alert. Still seeing.

That was crucial. She needed to witness the process, to understand what we were creating together.

Yes, together. Even if she didn’t realize it.

The realization would come. I just needed to be patient.

“You remember this one, don’t you?” I held up the photograph—one of her early landscapes showing the fractured ice of a frozen lake beneath Denali’s shadow. “‘Perception inRuin,’ you called it. The piece that first made me understand you.”

I had all her exhibitions memorized chronologically and had visited each gallery multiple times. I’d watched her from a careful distance as she explained her vision to oblivious patrons who could never truly comprehend what she showed them.

Not like me.

I understood the messages hidden in her work—the deliberate focus on finding beauty within destruction. The way she captured light spilling through broken things.

It wasn’t coincidence.