Page 35 of Stay Awake
The spotlight turns off and the room is cast into pitch darkness again. My heart beats rapidly, mimicking the terror of the woman in the video. I’m filled with a desperate urge to get out of here. Just as I’m about to turn and run, a light appears in a far corner of the room. Someone is sitting on a stool, backlit. I see only their silhouette.
“We’re honored to have you here today, Liv. You can play with thedisplay in any way you like,” says the disembodied voice of a man who I assume is the famous Q.
“What about the signs saying not to touch the display?” I ask.
“It’s like life.” He shrugs. “Some people obey the rules. Others break them. We all have free will. You could have broken the glass box and freed the woman. That would have been a reasonable choice. Or you could have left her there, as you did. Another reasonable choice.”
“Does she want to be free?”
“You’re asking the wrong question. You should ask whether you wanted to free her. Whether you felt constrained by the rules, or whether ignoring her plight was your natural inclination. Did you want to break the glass box?”
“Yes.”
“So why didn’t you?”
“Because the sign said not to touch the display.”
“I see.” Silence follows. “There are no right or wrong answers. You can do whatever you like. To her. To me. To yourself,” he says.
“What I’d like to do is interview you,” I say, trying to get in control of the conversation.
“Why?”
“To get a broader understanding of your work.”
“My work speaks for itself.”
The spotlight returns. “Leave your business card in the locker where you stored your belongings,” Q instructs. “I’ll contact you.”
The spotlight guides me back to the locker room. I leave my business card in the locker as instructed before I collect my things and rush out of the building. The turquoise door slams shut behind me with an iron clang that echoes long after it’s closed.
I lean against an alley wall near a Dumpster, taking a series of deep breaths to calm myself and stop my legs from trembling. It feels as if this exhibition was designed for the sole purpose of terrifying me.
Chapter
Twenty-Two
Wednesday 1:43P.M.
Detective Jack Lavelle was dubious about eating a vegetarian burger until he saw Darcy Halliday unwrap hers and take a bite.
“I’ll have the same but with extra hot sauce,” he told the waitress. “And hold the tomatoes.”
“You won’t regret it,” Halliday said in between bites. She wiped a trickle of sauce dripping down her chin with a napkin and scooped up a handful of sweet potato fries.
Halliday had asked Lavelle to stop at the hole-in-the-wall vegan eatery on the way to the precinct so they could grab lunch. She hadn’t eaten anything since the previous night, other than a couple of crackers from a box she kept in her desk drawer. There hadn’t been time for breakfast in the crucial first hours of the homicide investigation.
“Not bad, right?” Halliday said, after he’d taken the first mouthful. His expression answered her question more succinctly than words.
They ate quickly, talking shop in between mouthfuls of food.
One of the most pressing issues was getting hold of the owner of the apartment. Lavelle was tracking the progress of his flight acrossthe Pacific Ocean and would call him as soon as the plane landed in Hong Kong.
In Lavelle’s car was an envelope with over a dozen evidence bags, each containing a USB drive with video footage from the security cameras of stores and apartment buildings. The police officers canvassing on their behalf were still in the process of collecting more footage. Lavelle expected there would be thousands of hours to go through by the time they were done.
After viewing the footage and following up on any information so far collected by the patrol cops canvassing the area, they’d go back to the crime scene in the late afternoon to question residents who’d been at work when they’d knocked on their doors in the morning. The night doorman would be on duty by then as well. They had plenty of questions for him, considering that the murder had taken place under his watch.
At a temporary lull in the conversation, Lavelle asked, “What made you want to work homicide?”
