The blue light from the laptop screen was the only illumination in the cramped studio apartment. It was 2:00 AM, and the silence was heavy, broken only by the rhythmic hum of the mini-fridge and the frantic scratching of a ballpoint pen against a moleskine notebook.
Joe slammed the laptop shut. The room plunged into darkness. His heart hammered against his ribs, a frantic drum solo in the silence.
He paused the video. The image froze on a woman’s face. Even through the heavy compression, through the jagged lines of the 240p rendering, her eyes pierced through. She was looking directly at the camera.
