Kent moves like he's underwater, each step deliberate and measured. He kneels beside the chair, studying the positioning with professional attention. His hands—those remarkably clean hands—guide my father's arm to the exact angle he requires.
"Ninety degrees," he murmurs, more to himself than to her. "Head tilted fifteen degrees to the right. Legs straight, feet twelve inches apart."
"Why those specific measurements?" she asks, and there's genuine curiosity in her voice. Not horror at participating in the arrangement of a corpse, but scientific interest in the methodology.
Kent glances at her, something unreadable flickering in his dark eyes. "Order from chaos. Beauty from brutality. Every detail has to be perfect, or the message gets lost."
"What message?"
"That some people deserve to die." The words come out quietly, like a confession he's never spoken aloud. "That monsters who hide behind badges and authority and community respect—they don't get to keep hurting people just because the system protects them."
The girl nods, as if this makes perfect sense to her. Like justice delivered by the devil’s knife is the most natural thing in the world.
From my floating perspective, I watch her help position my father's right hand, adjusting the angle of his palm until it matches some internal template the man carries. She doesn't flinch from the blood. Doesn't hesitate to touch dead flesh if it means getting the details right.
"There," the Carver says finally, standing back to survey their work. "That's how it should look."
My father's body is arranged with the same careful attention someone might use to compose a photograph. Every angle deliberate, every detail meaningful. It's beautiful in a way that makes my stomach clench—not with revulsion, but with something approaching awe.
"The police will see this and know it was you," the girl observes. "The Carver. They'll add it to their files, try to build a profile, hunt you down."
"Yes."
"Good." The word comes out with quiet satisfaction. "Let them know that someone is watching. Someone who sees through their lies and their protection of monsters."
The Carver studies her face with uncomfortable intensity. "You're not what I expected."
"What did you expect? The waitress from earlier?" That was where I had seen him. He had come to me, first.
"Fear. Trauma. A victim who needed protecting." He pauses, choosing his words carefully. "Not someone who understands why this was necessary."
The girl—I—smile for the first time since entering the kitchen. It's not a happy expression. It's the cold satisfaction of someone who's finally seen justice served.
"I've been waiting my whole life for someone to kill him," she says simply. "He is a cop. It wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibility for him to get caught in the line of fire. I just never thought I'd get to watch."
The confession hangs between them, honest and terrible and completely true. Because from my floating perspective, I can see into the deepest corners of her mind—my mind—and I know she means every word.
She's not traumatized by witnessing her father's murder. She's grateful for it.
And that gratitude, that cold analytical appreciation for the Carver’s work, changes everything about what happens next.
The Carver reaches into his jacket and withdraws a small tape recorder, its digital display showing sixty-three minutes of recording time. "His confession," he explains, holding it out to her. "Everything he did to you, to your mother. All the corruption, all the violence. Everything."
She takes it with reverent care, like she's being handed a sacred text. "You made him tell the truth."
"Pain has a way of making lies impossible."
"Thank you." The words are soft, sincere. Not just for the confession, but for everything—the justice, the precision, the careful attention to making her father's death mean something beyond simple murder.
The Carver nods once, then moves toward his surgical kit, beginning to pack away the tools with the same methodical precision he used to arrange the body. Each instrument has its place, its purpose, its role in the ritual of justice.
"What happens now?" she asks. “Aren’t you meant to fillet him open and then drop the recording inside?”
"Is that what you want?" He looks like he doesn’t know what to do with himself.
"Do you give everyone an option?"
The question stops him mid-motion, surgical kit halfway to his jacket. For a long moment, he doesn't answer. Just stands there in my father's kitchen, surrounded by the smell of blood and disinfectant, weighing possibilities I can't see.
