Page 48 of Stay Awake
Twenty-Eight
Wednesday 2:52P.M.
Detective Halliday immediately dialed Homeland Security after ending the call with the Scotland Yard detective.
“I need to know whether a woman by the name of Liv Reese entered the United States over the past month,” Halliday told the clerk.
She tapped her pen on her desk impatiently while the clerk performed a data search. Through the internal window of the captain’s office, she saw Jack Lavelle stand up. His meeting with the captain was wrapping up. She’d heard on the precinct rumor mill that they’d been partners for years, and that it was Jack whom everyone had expected to rise through the ranks.
“Are you there, Detective?”
“Yes.” Halliday shifted her attention back to the call.
“Liv Catherine Reese arrived at JFK on a flight from Paris.” The clerk gave the flight number and a date three weeks earlier. “According to our records, she arrived on a US passport. She holds joint US–British citizenship via her father. Do you need any other information?”
“What address did she write on her arrival card?” Halliday asked.
“It’s an address in Brooklyn.” The clerk hesitated. “Her handwriting is hard to read. I’ll email it to you.”
The scanned copy of the arrival card was already in Halliday’s inbox when she ended the call. She opened it up and magnified the image so she could decipher the cramped handwriting.
“Bingo,” she said under her breath.
The address Liv Reese had written in block letters on her airport immigration card was the same address as the one listed for her in the fingerprint database.
It proved that the Liv Reese who was the subject of an Interpol missing person search was the Liv Reese whose fingerprints were at the crime scene, and who in turn was the same woman whose prints were put into the system more than two years earlier when she was almost murdered. They were one and the same person.
“We have a Brooklyn address for the woman whose prints were found at the murder scene,” Halliday told Lavelle as he came out of the captain’s office.
“Let’s head over there. You drive.” Lavelle tossed her his car keys and Halliday snatched them in the air. “I’ll meet you out front in two minutes.”
Liv Reese’s address was on the second floor of an old brownstone in Brooklyn, which had been remodeled into a modern four-floor building with a rooftop.
Fall leaves in the gutter swirled from the wind on the narrow tree-lined street as Halliday and Lavelle walked to the apartment. They took the stairs in unison up to the top of the stoop.
Lavelle pressed the intercom buzzer. There was no answer. He did it again. This time they both heard an angry thud of footsteps rushing down the stairs. The door swung open only enough for them to glimpse a woman with dark blond hair, who looked nothing like the Interpol photo of Liv Reese.
“You need to leave or I’ll call the police,” said the woman through the gap.
“Wearethe police.” Halliday held up her detective’s badge. “My name is Detective Darcy Halliday. This is Detective Jack Lavelle. We’re looking for this woman. Have you seen her?” She pushed the Interpol photo of Liv Reese through the crack in the door.
“You’d better come in,” the woman said, opening the door. She introduced herself as Angela as she led them up the stairs.
“I don’t have much time to talk. I’m between Zoom meetings,” Angela said, swinging open her apartment door to let them in.
On the dinner table were a laptop and a pile of files. Hanging over a chair was a tailored jacket, which Angela obviously wore to look professional from the waist up for her Zoom meetings. Below the waist, she wore gray yoga pants and fluffy slippers.
“I have fifteen minutes until my next meeting. Let’s get straight to the point,” Angela said. “The woman in the photo you showed me downstairs rang our doorbell early this morning. She looked a bit different, but I’m certain it was the same person. I’m very good with faces.”
“Run us through what happened last night,” Halliday said.
“Our doorbell rings in the middle of the night. It rings and rings. Wakes us up. I had an early conference call with Shanghai. Let me tell you, I did not appreciate being woken at three in the morning.”
“I can imagine,” Halliday sympathized.
“I went downstairs to answer the door. Grant followed me. He knew I’d be furious. There’s a woman standing on the stoop. She acts as if she lives in our apartment. She actually asks us if we’re out-of-town guests staying the night! She seems to think her roommate invited us. Total nut job.”
“What’s her roommate’s name?” Halliday asked.
