Page 107 of Stay Awake
Instead of responding, I crawl to a new hiding place, crouching under the legs of another stack of chairs. A filing cabinet hits the concrete floor with a loud crash. He pushes down another cabinet and kicks over a pile of boxes as he searches for me.
“Maybe I should leave you here and let you fall asleep,” he calls out. “You’d wake up without knowing why you were here in the first place. That’s if the rats don’t gnaw you to death first.”
I cover my mouth with my palm so he won’t hear my shallow breathing as he stops talking and listens for a hint of where I’m hiding. He kicks a box like it’s a hockey puck. It slides across the floor, hitting a brick wall. Rats squeal as they scatter. I grit my teeth as one of them runs over my leg.
“Liv, you have ten seconds to come out or I’m going to shoot,” he calls out. “Ten, nine, eight…”
When he reaches the number four, he gives up counting and fires a gunshot into the wall. Another shot ricochets off a metal desk. I bite my lip to stop myself from screaming. I’m certain he fired the shot to elicit a scream so he’ll know where I’m hiding.
He moves to the other side of the room, dragging desks out of the way. A shadow jumps into the basement through the window. It’s so fast and so quiet that I decide that I imagined it.
He topples over a stack of chairs, slowly working his way across the basement toward me. I’m about to slide under a metal desk to hide somewhere else when a firm hand slaps over my mouth. I scream. No sound comes out. The hand presses against my mouth like a suction cup.
“I’m Detective Halliday,” a voice whispers in my ear. “Liv, I need you to lie flat on the floor. Whatever happens, do not get up. Do not even move. No matter how scary it gets. Do you understand?”
I nod.
Chapter
Sixty-Four
Wednesday 11:47P.M.
Halliday left Liv lying flat on the ground as she crouched low and crept on her toes in the darkness. Any noise she made was drowned out by filing cabinets and piles of boxes hitting the floor as he tore up the place in his desperate search.
Halliday used the darkness and the noise to her advantage. She stayed down as she navigated around the overturned office furniture, sticking to the darkest edges of the room so he wouldn’t notice any movement. She needed the advantage of surprise. When he turned his back to topple over another set of chairs, she rose and pointed her gun at his torso in a two-handed grip.
“Police. Drop your weapon.”
He whirled around to face her, his gun hanging by his side.
“Drop your weapon. Or I will shoot,” she repeated.
He held the gun by his thigh, making no attempt to drop it. Halliday sensed from his body language that he’d decided to go for broke.
As he lifted up his hand to fire at her, she fired two shots in quick succession. The first hit his hand gripping the gun. The force of thebullet flung the weapon out of his grasp onto the floor. The second shot hit him in the right shoulder, causing him to cry out in agony.
He’d collapsed onto the floor when Halliday reached him. She pushed him onto his stomach and cuffed his good hand to the leg of a desk. His other hand was bleeding profusely, but she was not going to leave him unrestrained while his gun was still lying around somewhere.
Halliday gave him first aid as she radioed for ambulances and additional police support. The beam of her flashlight found his weapon lying under a chair. She left it there. There would be an investigation into her use of live fire. It was better if his gun was found by someone else.
Liv was still huddled under the desk when Halliday found her. “Are you okay?” she asked, reaching out her hand to pull Liv from her hiding place. “It’s all over.”
“He was going to kill me,” said Liv. Her face was pale, and she trembled violently. Halliday could see that she was in shock.
“It’s over, Liv,” said Halliday, putting her arm around her. “You’re safe now.”
The whine of sirens cut through the sudden silence that had descended on the basement storeroom once the echo of gunshots had faded.
“That must be the ambulances. The paramedics will take care of you.”
“And then what?” Liv asked. “Are you going to arrest me for murder?”
Police lights lit up the darkness outside. A convoy of cop cars and two ambulances pulled to a stop outside the warehouse. Doors opened and slammed shut, followed by the thump of footsteps as police and medics ran toward them in the dark.
“You’ll go to the hospital to make sure you’re okay. While you’re there, we’ll look at the evidence with a new set of eyes. Remember, I was in here with you. I heard him talking to you before I came throughthe window. I heard him confess. All of that helps us build a case against him. Either way, he kidnapped and almost killed you. He’s going to go away for a very long time.”
Halliday helped Liv climb out of the basement window where a police officer waited with a thermal blanket. He threw it over her shivering body as he took her to the front ambulance, its whirring siren lights painting the warehouse crimson.
