The Detective and The Clockmaker – Chapter 12
The Trap is Set
Mara stood before the press conference microphones at 6:00 PM, seven hours before noon.
The room was packed. Reporters from every local station, plus a few national outlets who had caught wind of the “impossible murders.” Camera lights bleached the color from her face. She hadn’t slept. She hadn’t eaten. She had a single sheet of paper in her hand, and she intended to burn every bridge on it.
“Detective Vega,” the police commissioner had said an hour earlier, “if you go out there and say what you’re planning to say, you’ll be off the force by morning.”
“I know,” Mara had replied. “Will you be the one to fire me, or should I hand in my badge now?”
The commissioner had walked away.
Now, Mara leaned into the microphones.
“Two men are dead,” she began. “Arthur Pendel. Julian Croft. Both killed in locked rooms. Both with their own hands. Both under circumstances that defy conventional explanation.”
She paused. The room was silent.
“The public has been told these are isolated incidents. They are not. They are part of a pattern. A pattern I first encountered seven years ago, when Daniel Ashby died in a locked bathroom under identical conditions.”
Murmurs rippled through the crowd.
“The killer is not a person in the traditional sense. It is an idea. A mathematical proof called the Chronos Equation. And the man who has weaponized it—who has turned logic into a suicide machine—calls himself the Watchmaker.”
Mara looked directly into the main camera.
“I know you’re watching, Caspian. I know you’re planning your Great Liberation for tomorrow at noon. I know you think you’re freeing people from the illusion of free will. But you’re wrong. You’re a murderer. And I’m going to stop you.”
She held up her badge.
“As of this moment, I am no longer bound by department policy. I am acting as a private citizen. And I am asking every citizen of this city to do one thing: tomorrow at 11:45 AM, unplug your speakers. Turn off your radios. Disconnect your headphones. Do not listen to any broadcast until I give the all-clear.”
A reporter shouted, “What broadcast? What are you warning us about?”
Mara set down the paper. “The Watchmaker has planted devices throughout the city. At noon tomorrow, they will emit a frequency that induces self-harm. Hundreds of people could die. Possibly thousands.”
Chaos erupted. Voices overlapped. Cameras jostled.
Mara stepped back from the podium. Cole was waiting in the wings, his face ashen.
“You just caused a citywide panic,” he said.
“No,” Mara replied. “I just forced Caspian’s hand. He wanted his Liberation to be a surprise. Now everyone knows. He’ll have to move faster. Make mistakes. Show himself.”
Cole grabbed her arm. “Or he’ll kill you first.”
Mara pulled away. “That’s the idea. I’m the bait. Let’s hope he bites.”
She walked out of the press room, through the back hallway, and into the parking lot. Her car was waiting. So was a black sedan with tinted windows.
The window rolled down. Victor Lamont’s face appeared.
“Get in, Detective,” he said. “We need to talk. And I promise you—I’m not the enemy.”
Mara looked at the sedan. At her own car. At the sky, where the sun was setting earlier than it should.
She opened the black sedan’s door and got in.
“Start talking,” she said. “You have until we reach the clock tower.”
Lamont smiled grimly. “Then I’d better talk fast.”
The sedan pulled away, leaving the precinct behind, heading toward Cathedral Square—and whatever waited there.