Page 19 of Stay Awake
“It’s certainly possible. It explains why she drugged him. So he wouldn’t put up a fight.”
While they waited at a traffic light, Lavelle called the security company responsible for the CCTV cameras in the apartment building to find out when copies of the footage would be ready for collection. The supervisor said it might take a few more hours.
“I have a bad feeling about this,” murmured Lavelle, hanging up before stepping on the gas when the light turned green.
“We really need that footage,” said Halliday. “The CCTV video must have visuals of the killer.”
“I agree. Unless, of course, the killer had wings and flew out of the sixth-floor window, in which case we really are screwed,” remarked Lavelle.
“What did the doorman tell you when you spoke with him?” Halliday asked.
“He didn’t see anyone or anything suspicious. Having said that, he only started his shift at sixA.M.,an hour before the cleaner found the body. He said we should talk to the overnight doorman. I called a couple of times, but his phone is off. I’m guessing he’s asleep.”
Lavelle glanced at Halliday as he pulled the car into the parking lot next to the precinct. She was relatively young for a detective. He figured her for late twenties. He hadn’t had any personal dealings with her since she’d moved to the unit on a temporary transfer. He’d heard she’d received the highest marks in the detective’s exam in seven years and that she’d done a standout job at Major Case. He happened to have seen her at the firing range the previous week and had been impressed at how she handled a weapon. She was an incredible shot. He’d heard she’d been a sharpshooter in the military. He also knew she was very fit because he often saw her running to work.
“You’re a serious runner,” he said.
“I run for fun, mostly. Although right now I am in training for an ultramarathon next spring in Arizona.”
“What distance?”
“Fifty miles. Through the desert. We run at night.”
“With the coyotes and the rattlesnakes?”
“Something like that,” she laughed.
“Why would you put yourself through that hell?”
“For the challenge. And to raise money.”
“Any particular cause?” he asked.
“An old friend from the military, Lieutenant Antonio Lopez. Lost a leg in a roadside blast near Mosul. It was on Tony’s bucket list to run this ultramarathon. I’m doing it on his behalf. The money I raise will go to his baby daughter and to help other wounded veterans adjust to civilian life.”
“That’s very generous of him, and you. But he’s also a wounded veteran. He doesn’t need the help?” Lavelle asked.
“Well, that’s a sad story,” Halliday said, not saying anything for a long moment as she looked out the car window, blinking furiously. “It just so happens,” she said finally, a crack in her voice, “that Tony took his own life earlier this year.”
Chapter
Twelve
Wednesday 10:35A.M.
Now that I know it’s two years in the future, I quickly scroll news headlines on my loaner laptop, looking for something to jog my memory. A headline from this morning catches my attention.
“Killer Wrote Message with Victim’s Blood on Bedroom Window.”
When I click on the headline, an article opens up.
“Police believe a murderer wrote the message—WAKE UP!—on the window of an apartment after killing an unknown man,” the article says. “The body of the man was found in bed this morning in a mid-town apartment. NYPD detectives are investigating.”
Below the article is a photo of police wearing navy CSI jackets going up the stairs into the lobby of an apartment building. The article provides no information about the dead man. No name. No details of his identity.
There’s a suggestion the man might have been killed during a robbery. The article quotes a resident of the apartment building where the man was murdered as saying there had been several incidents of petty theft and a home burglary in the complex in the past month alone.
Near the bottom of the article is the building’s location. I give up on reading the news and open my personal email account in the hope that my emails will lift the fog that’s surrounded me since I woke on the park bench.
