-Beginning of Act 2-

Years Ago

As far as Mr. Seguerra knew, he and his wife had not yet resolved their marital issues. So, it came as a bit of surprise that his wife decided she wanted to have a big celebration for her birthday. She would invite all her friends; she had encouraged him to do the same. He came up. She greeted him at the door with a hug and a kiss on the cheek. She was hosting a lot of people. No one he knew. Not many people wanted to talk to him. He poured himself a glass of whiskey in the kitchen and lingered there.

They were in separate worlds, it seemed. Seguerra, by himself in the kitchen alone. Her, alone in the crowd, until that crowd slowly dispersed as the evening went on. People said their goodbyes. Others lingered. In the end, they were alone. He stood there in the living room. She stood out on the balcony, watching the sky, a dark tapestry, sprawled over lazily in obstruction of the dimming sunrays, absorbing the painted gloss slowly dribbling off of the canvass.

At this point, her audience was a sparse crowd of one. Here, a Mr. Seguerra, stood a meager height as he looked upon her as an infant trying to learn the world. He spent those fleeting moments tugging every nerve in his brain to compel his body to breath; to stop; rethink things. As she turned to face him, her slender brown fingers clenched tightly to the straps of a children's backpack, which depicted some inane cartoon character on the front; quite a ridiculous contrast to her elegant white evening dress. With it in hand, this weapon she used to decimate all of his feeble reasons, she beckoned him towards her. The beaded sweat of his brow began to trickle as his esophagus felt as if it was imploding. Her steely focus gripped his heart and locked his tongue. With every step he inched closer, and with every step, the air thickened, the pressure intensified, as if these two entities had their own gravitational pull, until finally, he felt the cold steel of the balcony railing in his palms. He looked his wife in the eyes. She was above him, standing on the railing. She didn't speak, and yet, she compelled him to meet her stare. Together they stood on the railing. Her eyes were a shimmering maple, each like stones precisely cut painstakingly and laboriously by the millions of tiny lights refracting and reflecting from her tears. Her gentle whimpering faded to silence as she steadied her trembling lips into a delicate smile. In the next moment, she fell. In the next moment, he followed her.

"Are you listening to me, sir?"

Mr. Seguerra blinked twice.

Mr. Seguerra came to his senses, speeding away from his recurring nightmare almost as swiftly as it ended. The ballpoint pen he was using to jot notes had eluded his fingertips and hit the floor.

"I was. But just so I've got it: explain to me what happened when you got there."

"Do you have a wife? A child?"

"Yes."

"Do you love your wife?"

Seguerra didn't say anything.

"Things could be better," he said finally. "This marriage counseling?"

"Just asking."

"Right. So get to the part where you bring the concealed weapon to the office building, and then you didn't fire it."

"The sadness."

"You were sad, because your daughter died in the accident."

"I was sad because I looked in her eyes again." She was falling into a depression that had claimed her, transforming her entire personhood such that she saw a stranger in her own reflection. Falling, as it pulled her down, with collected resolve and a countenance of quiet surrender. He knew it because he felt the same pain, and that they were tangled together in the chains of a shared, crying heart; wanting to escape and break free the spirit from mortal shackles.

Something clipped at the detective's boorish armor, though he wouldn't let the suspect or his partner see it. His skin itched, and there was a sudden rush of cold breathing in his clothes. He continued to look on, listening to the man as he would anybody else. But his desolate voice echoed through his hollowed bones.

"I was sad because it didn't feel fair that it was such a sunny day, and nothing invalidates sorrow like a beautiful day. I felt that way right up until the point when it was time to decide to shoot him."

"Even if the man had nothing to do with the death of your daughter?"

"It's what you do when you love someone too much."

"How would your loved one feel if your actions put you in prison?"

"I wanted to push the man to the edge, so I could know the truth in his eyes." The tears in his eyes had broken through. "But in the end, I couldn't do it. I was a coward." He planted his forehead against his hand and scooped through his hair. He ignored the ashes as they spilled from his cigarette.

"I can't investigate something that simply doesn't exist, Mr. Kim. I can take you down the path that led me to believe that it was just an accident. Maybe that will provide some closure. We'll take a drive, and that's it. Then we'll do what we have to do. Get up."

Seguerra leaned back comfortably in the driver's side of his sedan while Mr. Kim sat by his side with his palms in his lap. They rode in silence down the main road. They reached the edge of town by the time the sky was blue. When the engine shut off, a quiet rumbling permeated the floor of the car; it disturbed Seguerra enough to provoke an agitated groan.

"Get out." He walked along the edge of the road where the car had spun out of control into the concrete partition. "See the skid marks along the road? Indicates some distracted driving. Her message logs agree. She was texting someone before she realized the brakes weren't working. She had yet to push hard enough to realize the failure. But once she was cut off, it was too late."

"If this was your daughter, what would you say, Detective?" he whimpered.

"I would say the same thing, Mr. Kim," Seguerra coldly replied. His black eyebrows were buried deep over his eyes. His lips were slightly poked. His entire countenance tinged with hurt and indecision, but also cold-blooded resolve and scientific curiosity. "My feelings for the victim don't change the truth."

Mr. Kim's eyes were glowing and wild, like a wounded animal ensnared in a trap and looking into the eyes of its captor. His breaths were short and chaotic. "Don't think I don't have my doubts about this," he solemnly admitted. He brandished a silver pistol, wiping the sweat from his round forehead with his sleeve before pointing it.

"Don't be stupid," groaned Seguerra.

"I need you to see my side of things. You said you had a daughter, right, Mr. Seguerra?"

"A daughter."

"What if you couldn't save her? Would you go back to the moment you lost her and want it back? Would you do everything you could do to know for sure?"

"But I'm doing exactly that," Mr. Seguerra shook his head as he lit another cigarette, taking a moment to breathe deep and exhale a cloud of smoke before he continued.

"Facing the truth. Go home to your wife, Mr. Kim. I'm sure she's worried sick about you."