Page 103 of Stay Awake
After I’ve turned off the tap, I realize I’ve washed off writing on my palm. All that’s left are remnants of a phone number and a faded word that says “Ted.” There’s still writing on the back of my hands. Weird messages that say things likeSTAY AWAKEandDON’T TRUST ANYONE, as well as the address of this bar.
The restroom door opens, letting in a blast of loud music as several women trail inside and begin to fix their makeup in the mirrors. I leave abruptly. As I come out, I’m enveloped in a warm embrace.
“Liv. Thank God I found you.”
Chapter
Fifty-Nine
Wednesday 10:40P.M.
A waitress clears away my empty bowl. The Korean restaurant is emptying out. The police cars parked outside Nocturnal have disappeared. I have to assume the cops left when they didn’t find me. It’s time that I left, too.
Even though Detective Halliday pretended to empathize with me earlier on the phone, I don’t trust cops. Now that I know they suspect me of murder, I trust them even less. I’m afraid they’ll frame me for a crime I didn’t commit. I have no way to prove my innocence. I know that I blacked out for an unknown period of time until the moment I woke on the train platform holding a ticket to Miami. I also know from the messages from Ted that I forget things every time I wake up.
Once I’ve paid my bill, I head into the street, uncertain where to go. A couple of cops stand near the entrance of Nocturnal. Thankfully, neither of them see me. I glance back over my shoulder for a split second and collide into someone with such force that the wind is knocked out of me.
“Oh, my gosh, Liv. Are you okay?”
The bright glare of a streetlight burns my eyes as I look up at the first familiar face I’ve seen since I woke on the Amtrak platform earlier tonight without any memory of how I got there. “Brett, what are you doing here?”
“I had dinner with some colleagues at a place down the street. Are you sure you’re okay, Liv?” he asks. “You’re shivering.”
“It’s freezing tonight.” I rub my arms.
“My car is down the street. I’ll give you a ride,” he offers.
“I don’t want to take you out of your way.” I hesitate.
“It’s my pleasure. You’ll freeze to death if you stay out here. Look at you, your teeth are chattering,” he says. “Come on. Let’s get you out of here.”
I lower my gaze to the ground and watch our feet step in unison as we walk toward his car. My short black boots and his custom-made gray shoes move in an identical rhythm. A police car slowly approaches, its rotating siren lights reflecting on our faces.
Something niggles at me as we walk. Something important. It must be my nerves rattled by the police car cruising past.
“Almost there,” Brett reassures me.
His car beeps twice as he unlocks it. I get into the front passenger seat and clip in the seat belt. Halos hover around the streetlights as we drive to the end of the street and make a right turn.
“You look tired, Liv.” He glances at me with concern.
“I’m exhausted. It feels as if I haven’t slept for days.”
I’m so drained that I lean my head against the window and close my eyes, trying to figure out what was nagging at me before. An image pops into my head of the unusual sketch Ted had texted me. It was a dotted fleur-de-lis pattern, a symbol of the French monarchy.
Ted said I drew the sketch one night, insisting it was connected to Amy and Marco’s murder. I realize that I saw that dotted pattern again just now as we walked to the car. His expensive leather shoes had the same unique fleur-de-lis dotted medallion pattern by the toes.
I glance at Brett uncertainly as he steers the car through nighttime traffic. Someone calls his phone. He lets it go to voicemail, telling me ruefully that it’s the hospital calling him by mistake. Irritation inflects his voice as he tells me they’ve yet again forgotten that he’s not on call tonight.
I stare out the window, looking into the dark as I visualize that dotted lily pattern again. This time an image comes into my head like a flashback. I’m looking down at a dotted pattern on the toes of expensive oxblood-colored shoes a moment before a man standing behind me plunges a knife into me. I fall to my knees and collapse on the carpet watching those oxblood shoes walk away from me, out of Amy’s bedroom. Her pink kimono on the hook of the bedroom door sways as the front door slams shut.
Fear surges through me as realization dawns. I’m too scared to move, too scared even to breathe as I register just how perilous my situation is. I’m in a car with Amy and Marco’s killer.
Perhaps sensing that something is wrong, he turns his head to look at me as he drives. “Are you okay, Liv? You look very pale.”
“Yeah. Just tired.” It takes every ounce of self-control for me to pretend that I still don’t know what’s going on.
“Why don’t you close your eyes and go to sleep. I’ll wake you when we get there,” he suggests, his voice tinged with concern. He presses his foot on the gas as we accelerate through an intersection.
