Page 52 of Stay Awake
I’m stretched out on the sofa when I wake again. The apartment is cast in a twilight glow that suggests I’ve slept the day away. Keys rattle in the front door.
“Liv?”
I peek through my lashes. Amy looks down at me with concern.
“Is everything all right?”
“I was sleeping so deeply. Such strange dreams…” I mumble.
I gather enough strength to move into a sitting position on the sofa cushion. I cradle my throbbing head in my hands as I listen to Amy’s chatter.
“I don’t know who called me into work,” she says. “Not only did theynotneed me, they were actually overstaffed. Since I was already in the city, I went shopping. Like I need an excuse to buy more clothes I don’t need. Right!”
Amy puts her shopping bags on the floor next to the sofa and takes out an assortment of packages wrapped in reams of tissue paper. She tears open the paper and holds the various garments she bought against her slim figure while I gush approvingly.
The cobwebs of sleep disappear as I look away from Amy and her impromptu fashion show to the roses beautifully arranged in a glass vase on the coffee table.
“Thanks for putting the roses in water. I dozed off before I had a chance to do it.”
“Liv, I didn’t put the flowers in the vase,” Amy says. “I was in a rush to get to work. You arranged the flowers. Don’t you remember?”
Chapter
Thirty-One
Wednesday 3:29P.M.
Detective Jack Lavelle checked the list of flights arriving at Hong Kong International Airport while Halliday drove them to the liquor store to collect copies of the store’s CCTV footage.
The apartment owner’s flight was due to land at any moment. “If we can find out the victim’s identity then we can blow this case wide open by working backward,” Lavelle said, refreshing the arrivals screen on his phone for the dozenth time.
“What do you mean by ‘working backward’?” Halliday asked.
“We get an ID on the victim. After that, we figure out who his enemies were.”
“What if he didn’t have enemies?”
“Everyone has enemies. Ninety percent of homicides are about figuring out who the victim pissed off enough to kill.”
“What if the victim didn’t piss someone off at all? Maybe this murder had nothing to do with settling scores. What if the killer was trying to make a statement?”
“You’re saying this because of the writing on the bedroom window?”
“Yes,” said Halliday. “The murderer spent considerable time writing a message on the window with the victim’s blood. Think about what it took to write that sign. The killer would have gone backward and forward from the window to the body to get more blood. It was a statement. This murder wasn’t about the victim. It wasn’t about revenge, or acting out a fantasy. This murder was about getting attention.”
“Is it possible you’re overthinking it?”
“In what way?” Halliday asked.
Lavelle shrugged. “Most homicides I’ve dealt with over the past two decades had one thing in common.”
“Let me guess. Greed? Jealousy?”
“Not even close,” Lavelle said.
“Then what?”
“Getting even.”
