Page 100 of Stay Awake
“I need to think.”
I’m about to hang up when she calls out urgently. “Liv, take down my personal phone number. Call me directly.”
She dictates a cell phone number. I write it on the top of a take-out menu and stuff it in my jeans pocket.
“Liv, are you still there?”
I can tell that she’s trying to keep me on the phone. Through the gaps in the bamboo partition, I see cops jogging along the street, looking for me. I hang up without saying anything.
A waitress comes out of the swinging doors of the kitchen to the front counter where I’m standing.
“Are you here to collect a take-out order?” she asks.
“No, I’m here to eat in.”
The waitress escorts me to a row of empty tables. I opt for a table behind a rowdy party of twelve celebrating a birthday. I sit there, hunched over a bowl of beef short rib soup, as I go through more messages on my phone.
I pay special attention to a voicemail and a text message that Ted sent me along with an attached photo of a sketch of a lily drawn out of tiny dots. In an accompanying message, Ted explains it’s a fleur-de-lis, a symbol of French royalty, and a favorite of designers.
Ted says I drew the dotted picture after waking up one night when we were still together in London. I’d believed it was a flashback from the murder, although I had no idea what it meant. Ted says he made his own inquiries over the past few days to help me figure it out.
“The friend I contacted about the sketch just called me back,” Ted says. “He’s asked around and he has information on the design. I’m coming back now so we can discuss it. I think I know who killed Amy and Marco. It’s time to involve the police.”
Chapter
Fifty-Seven
Wednesday 10:35P.M.
The night manager was deep-frying a fresh batch of jelly donuts for the late-night crowd when Halliday and Lavelle entered the bodega.
“Gimme a minute,” he called out over the high-pitched spit of sizzling oil.
Halliday moved to the corner of the store to take a call coming through. She hoped it would be Liv Reese calling her back. It wasn’t. It was her old army buddy Owen Jeffries.
“Darcy,” said Jeffries. “I have the results of the writing analysis.”
“What did you find?”
“It doesn’t match any writing in our database at Langley.”
Halliday deflated. It was another dead end.
“All that means,” he added, “is that it wasn’t written by a known terrorist, a convicted criminal, or anyone on our watch list. Our algorithm did provide some interesting insights, though.”
“Like what?”
“The Post-it notes were not written by the person who wrote themessage on the window. The Post-it notes were written by a left-hander. The words on the crime scene window were written by a right-hander.”
“Liv Reese is left-handed,” Halliday pointed out.
“Are you sure she’s left-handed?”
“The forensics report in the Decker-Reggio murder files said the stab wounds were inflicted by a right-hander. It states categorically that Liv Reese was left-handed. Apparently, that discrepancy was a key reason why the prosecutors decided not to charge her, even though the investigating detective, a guy called Krause, was hell-bent on locking her up.”
“Well, that is interesting.” Jeffries was silent for a moment. “How tall is she?”
“About five six.”
