Page 105 of Stay Awake
There’s a box of old staplers on the floor next to me. I pick one up and throw it as hard as I can across the room. It bounces off a wall with a thump and he goes after the noise to look for me. I push a swivel chair in his direction. Its wheels clatter as it rolls toward him. I use the noise as cover to hide behind a row of metal filing cabinets.
“Stop playing games, Liv. This place is dangerous,” he says. When I don’t respond, he adds: “We’re running late. Amy will be annoyed.”
“Amy’s dead,” I call out, unsure why he feels the need to keep up the pretense.
Through a narrow gap between the filing cabinets, I watch his custom-made shoes as he paces around looking for me. His shoes have a dotted fleur-de-lis design identical to the one in the drawing that Ted texted me along with a message suggesting it was a key clue to the identity of Amy and Marco’s killer.
“I know that you killed Amy and Marco,” I blurt out. My voice echoes around the room.
He pauses midstep and then freezes, like a cobra waiting to strike. When he realizes that I’m not saying anything else, he knocks over a stack of chairs as he intensifies his search for my hiding place.
“I always knew your memory would come back. That’s why I had to kill your ex last night and frame you as the killer. I figured when you were found with his body, they’d pin Amy and Marco’s murders on you, too. It would get me off the hook for good. It was sloppy of me to turn my back and let you disappear with the knife, but it ends here and now,” he says. “You’ll never get out of here.”
He pauses to listen for a response so he can figure out where I’m hiding. I cover my mouth to stifle the sound of my breathing.
“I told you I was bringing you to Amy. And I am. Just not in the way that you thought.” He laughs. “If you come to me now, I’ll make sure it doesn’t hurt. Just the way it didn’t hurt your ex last night. An injection of pentazocine in his hairline with a fine needle. He fell onto the bed and was sleeping like a baby when he died.
“Make it easy on yourself, Liv. It’s only a matter of time until I find you.”
Chapter
Sixty-One
Twenty-Four Hours Earlier
It’s the ceiling fan that wakes me, brushing my skin with a steady stream of cool air as it rattles above my head. I open my eyes and stare into a bluish haze that slowly morphs into someone else’s bedroom.
The fan spins so fast I worry it might topple. The mattress is too firm. The satin sheets too slippery. The humming I heard in my sleep gets louder and more ominous until it crackles like a live electrical wire. The noise is coming from inside my head. It’s my own private warning system and it’s telling me that I’m in trouble. Big trouble.
I lie very still, my eyes shuttered by my lashes as I glance around the blue-gray bedroom trying to figure out where I am and how I got here. There’s a bottle of white wine next to the bed. That surprises me. I don’t like white wine and rarely drink it. On the carpet is a trail of women’s clothes that I presume are mine. Just as I’m trying to figure out what’s going on, the bedroom door is pushed open and someone comes into the room. His shadow reflects on the wall. It gets bigger as he gets closer until I recognize him.
“Brett?” I mutter, as if talking in my sleep.
“For fuck’s sake, go to sleep,” he says. “You’re supposed to be sedated.”
The cruelness of his tone terrifies me almost as much as his words. Sedated? I think to myself. Why would I be sedated? And then I know through the most primal core of my being that he intends to hurt me. My survival instincts kick in. I feign sleep so well that I’m almost dozing off as he squats down to check on me, touching me with a rubber-gloved hand.
He must be satisfied because he steps away and soon, I hear him humming in the kitchen as he opens a cabinet and takes something out. I turn my head to the side and gasp as I come face-to-face with a tawny-haired man sleeping next to me.
I pretend to sleep when Brett returns, letting out steady rhythmic breaths, all the while listening to the rustle of fabric as he strips clothes off the man next to me and drops them on the floor.
There’s a squelching noise. The mattress shifts. I don’t know what’s going on until Brett puts the cold handle of a knife in my hand. It’s wet and sticky. I smell blood. He arranges the sheets over both of us, practically tucking us in before disappearing into the bathroom.
Pipes groan and water splashes loudly. He’s washing up. When I turn my head, I know instantly that the man next to me is dead.
Quickly, I get out of bed and pull on jeans and the woman’s top lying on the carpet. I don’t bother zipping up the jeans as I slide my feet into ankle boots, keeping one eye on the strip of light under the bathroom door to make sure he isn’t coming out. The smell of bleach wafts into the bedroom through the crack under the bathroom door.
The knife has fallen off the bed onto a T-shirt lying on the floor. I grab the T-shirt, wrapping the knife in it, and head into the living area. With my free hand, I quietly unbolt the front door.
Hanging from a hook near the front door is a women’s buttonless cardigan. I throw it over my arm as I creep out of the apartment and close the door softly behind me. A reflective light on the floor guidesme to the stairwell in the dark. I take the stairs down to the basement, where I push open a door and find myself in an alley. I put on the cardigan and slide the T-shirt–wrapped knife into a pocket to save as evidence as I walk toward a liquor store on the corner. I’m so terrified and confused that all I can think about is warning Amy before he gets to her.
I wave down a taxi and give him the address of our apartment in Brooklyn. I stare out of the cab window as halos blink around streetlights like they’re sharing a secret. Lulled by the hum of the radio, I feel my eyes get heavy, and I drift off.
Chapter
Sixty-Two
Wednesday 11:24P.M.
