Lustig gets up from the chair and slides it neatly in at the table.
“Oh, I’ll be sure to do that,” he says. “But if you think you’re going to get a last good-time jolly watching it with me right now, dream on. You get used to being alone in a locked room for a while. Call it a preview of the rest of your life.”
He’s in the monitoring room in another minute, nods to us, and goes straight to the tech. “Raj? You got me a seat?”
“You can watch in the back; I’m queuing it up now,” the tech says. He looks up and past us and gives Lustig a concerned look. “You sure you want to see it?”
“Wouldn’t be doing my due diligence if I didn’t. Have you seen the whole thing?”
The tech looks away. “I haven’t finished yet.”
“Tough work, I know,” Lustig says, almost gently. “I’ll finish it up. I’ll log the time codes as I go.”
Raj looks unspeakably relieved—this, I realize, must be part of his job. Watching horror after horror reduced to pixels, to light and shadow and sound. “I’ll queue it up to where I stopped logging. Headphones are next to the monitor, sir. Thanks.”
Sam catches Lustig’s arm as he passes. “Hey. Are you seriously going to play his game—”
“I have to,” Lustig says. “Believe me, I wish to hell I didn’t. Wait here.”
We wait. I glance over at Lustig every once in a while. It takes a long time, and there’s no movement in the room except for the creak of our chairs and the sound of Lustig’s pen scratching on paper, and after nearly half an hour, the sudden, sharp sound of Lustig’s chair rolling back from the small, gray desk. I look up. So does Sam. Lustig’s gotten to his feet, headphones still on. His face is, for just that moment, completely overcome with surprise. He’d have steeled himself against the horror, the anguish, the brutality, so what surprised him enough to bring him right to his feet?
Lustig hits a key on the computer, rips off the headphones, and charges over. To me. He takes my arm and tows me back, fingers digging in painfully, and when I try to resist, I get dragged. All my instincts put me on alert, and I have to fight the urge to hit him hard, fast, and with brutal force. I don’t let people handle me like this.
But this is an FBI agent, and I know resisting will only make it worse.
“Hey!” Sam shouts, but Lustig ignores him. Sam follows as I’m pulled toward the computer. “Mike, what the hell are you doing? You—”
His voice fades as we both see what’s on the screen.
A hot, needle-pricking sensation of unreality washes through me. I feel dizzy again, and I’m suddenly glad for Lustig’s hard grip holding me in place, because on the screen, frozen in time, is the bleeding, screaming victim. In front of her, Melvin reaches for an evil-looking knife.
Someone is handing the blade to him.
That someone is me. I can see my profile. I’m standing just in front of the camera, next to a wall full of knives and hammers. Melvin’s tools.
And I’m smiling.
“I’d arrest you right fucking now,” Lustig tells me, “except that I don’t have jurisdiction, and Kansas already acquitted your sorry ass. Now you sit down and tell me everything you know about Melvin Royal. Right now.”
I’m numb. I’m just . . . empty. I sit down, still staring at the screen. At my face—Gina Royal’s face. It hurts to talk, but I force the words out anyway. “It’s a fake,” I tell him. “I wasn’t there. I was never there. Absalom faked—”
“Shut up with that bullshit,” Lustig says, then rolls my chair around so he’s leaning his weight on the arms, shoving his face close to mine. “You were there. All this, this victim act? I’ve had my doubts all along, and believe me, I’m very done being played. You tell me what you know!”
“That’s not me!” I scream it in his face, out of sheer panic and desperation—it’s a raw, rough, broken sound, and it hurts. God, it hurts. “I don’t know! I am not part of this!”
He shoves my chair, and it rolls back and smashes against the wall with such force I’m almost pitched out of it. I get up, ready to fight, but Lustig doesn’t come closer. He stares, and then he turns and walks away. Raj is turned toward us, mouth half-open in astonishment.
Sam hasn’t moved toward me, either. He looks calm and blank, right up until he picks up the monitor and throws it against the wall. It smashes into sparks and broken plastic, and Raj lets out a yell of protest, coming up out of his chair.
“Sam!” I cry that out, and wish I hadn’t, because the look he gives me flays me to the spine. It destroys me. I wonder if he’s about to finish the job that Suffolk started.
Lustig pauses at the office door to say to Raj, “You don’t let her leave this room until I come back. Understand?” He charges through. Raj nods and gets himself together. He blocks the way out.
I feel trapped. Hunted. My throat is on fire, and when I swallow, I taste blood.
Sam heads for the door, too. I want to call after him, but I’m afraid to do it now. Raj is in his path, until Sam says, in a voice that I don’t even recognize, “He said she had to stay. I don’t.”
Raj reluctantly edges out of the way, and then Sam is gone. I’m alone with the tech agent and the smashed monitor. The room smells like ozone. Raj won’t look at me. I can see he’s nervous; his throat is working, and he’s tracking me out of the corner of his eye in case I make a move. But I don’t. I just stand there, numbly. I don’t know what else I can do.
Mike Lustig opens the door. He looks grim and furious, and Raj gratefully sinks back into his tech chair. “You can go, Gina,” he says. He bites the words off in chunks. I’m no longer Gwen Proctor to him. “But don’t you get comfortable. You won’t be out walking free for long. Now get the fuck out of my building before I do something I’m going to regret.”
There’s another agent standing next to him, stone-faced, and I can tell that he’s my escort out of the building. Everything feels unreal now. I wonder what they’ll do if I just lose control and start screaming. Probably drag me out anyway. I don’t make a conscious decision to leave; I just do it. I’m suddenly out of the darkness of the monitoring room, and into a hallway. The agent has a grip on my arm—firm, not abusive.
He escorts me out, unclips my badge, and walks me to the lobby, where the FBI receptionist takes the identification from him. Both of them look at me expectantly.
I don’t know where I’m supposed to go now. What I’m supposed to do.
I finally realize that I’m expected to leave, so I walk out the front doors, which automatically lock behind me. It’s dark, the sun long down, and the wind’s cold. I stand there in bewilderment, thinking I’ve fallen out of time. Out of space. This is Wichita. I’ve driven these streets. Walked in that shopping center visible in the distance. Gotten gas at the station on the corner.