Page 66 of If You're Reading This

“Who else?” Her voice sounded hoarse.

“Just that Knox guy who was on your crew.” I showed her the image.

She pressed her eyes closed, a pained expression on her face. “Why him? He never sent me flowers or anything.”

“You don’t know?” I could hardly keep the laughter from my voice. “He was obsessed with you also, just in a different way. He talked about being reformed. About making amends. But it was what I did that truly transformed him.”

“You don’t have to do this . . .” she whispered, a pleading look in her gaze.

“Of course I do. Tomorrow, after we finish with Walsh, we’ll begin preparation for the rest of our compositions.” I adjusted the camera settings with practiced precision. “I think you’ll appreciate the concept. It brings together everything you’ve been trying to express in your work—beauty and grief, intimacy and isolation, the observer and the observed.”

She said nothing.

Creative fervor rushed through me like adrenaline. “I’ve titled it ‘If You’re Reading This.’ A reference to your journal, of course. The entries were quite illuminating.”

Morgan’s expression shifted, realization mingling with horror as she understood how thoroughly I had delved into her life, her thoughts, her private fears.

“You’ve been in my home.” She swallowed hard. “I wasn’t imagining things. How long have you been watching me?”

“Long enough to understand what your work has been trying to say all along. What we’re creating together is the truest expression of your artistic vision. The perfect synthesis of beauty and grief.”

“I capture moments,” she said. “I don’t create them.”

I pretended not to hear and prepared another syringe. I couldn’t risk her getting away tonight while I was gone. “Now, I must get going. I have a busy evening ahead. I need to meet Walsh so I can get him ready for tomorrow night’s exhibit.”

In the dim light of the basement, the images of Mercer and Kohler seemed to watch from the walls as I approached Morgan, my movements gentle but inexorable.

“Beauty is only more noticeable after loss. Wouldn’t you say?”

Morgan’s eyes met mine, and the look there pleased me immensely. It wasn’t just fear but recognition.

She was beginning to see the pattern. Beginning to understand her role in my masterpiece.

“You don’t have to do this.” Panic crept into her voice.

I smiled as I administered the sedative, watching her consciousness recede just enough to make her compliant while I was away.

“Don’t worry,” I murmured as her eyelids grew heavy. “Logan will understand everything in the end. He’ll understand that art demands sacrifice. Unfortunately for him, he’s the sacrifice.”

CHAPTER

THIRTY-FIVE

Still in Morgan’scabin with Duke and Andi, Logan continued to stare at the photograph of Borealis Lake, the aurora’s reflection fracturing along a single, perfect crack in the ice.

Morgan’s artistic vision had captured something elemental—beauty on the precipice of destruction. Now that same vision was being twisted into a murder map.

The cabin felt too small suddenly, the walls pressing in with the weight of what they’d discovered.

He rubbed his temples, exhaustion and fear creating a persistent throb behind his eyes.

Two nights without real sleep were catching up to him.

It had been six days since Morgan vanished. Two men were dead. Each murder had been meticulously staged to mirror her photographs.

“So you’re thinking this killer is imitating one photo from each one of her six most popular series,” Andi murmured. “Based on that, the next body should be found at Borealis Lake. Tomorrow.”

“Correct.”