Inflated Ego novel · Chapter 6 of 24

Chapter 6: Interrogation

The interview room at the precinct smelled like burnt coffee and wet wool.

They took my phone at the door and gave me a paper cup of water.

I sat there for two hours before the detective came in.

Joan VanBuskirk was in her forties, with grey in her hair and a blazer that had been slept in.

She put a thin folder on the table and sat down without a hello.

"Mr. Donovan. You are the model from the video."

"I was."

"Dale Schuler was a partner at the agency that fired you. You were found in his building at 3:05 in the morning, forty feet from his body."

"I didn't touch him."

"You touched his neck. It's on the camera in the atrium."

I closed my eyes.

"I checked for a pulse."

"And then you filmed the body."

"I panicked."

"People who panic run away, Mr. Donovan. You stayed and recorded."

I had no answer to that.

She opened the folder and slid a photograph across the table.

It was a black leather glove, in a clear evidence bag, lying on the rail of the second-floor walkway.

"Is this yours?"

I looked at it.

My throat closed.

"It looks like mine."

"It has your initials sewn in the cuff."

"I lost it at the showcase. Saturday night."

"You lost one glove. And it ended up on the rail above the dead man."

"Someone put it there."

"Who?"

"I don't know."

"Why were you in the building at 3 a.m.?"

I had rehearsed an answer in the cab.

It was thin, and I could hear how thin it was while I said it.

"I forgot my portfolio. My photos from eight years. I wanted them before someone threw them out."

"At three in the morning."

Keep reading free with an account. Start Inflated Ego from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.