“Your arm!” she said, and beamed.
“Oh yeah. My arm,” he replied. “We’ll see.”
They returned to the kitchen. Sybil pulled out Julian’s file.
“Okay, so we’re thinking like Julian. And one of them is the suspect?” Sybil asked. She liked this. She liked this very much. This was exactly how she envisioned it would be if she were a true crime podcast host or a producer onDateline.
“Maybe Levi dropped her a postcard when he left for someplace new. Or when he got someplace new, I guess,” Zeke said. He tore off a piece of tape and pressed the Las Vegas postcard on their evidence wall. Sybil didn’t mean to notice that his biceps rippled when he did, but she didn’t mean to not notice either.
“And maybe they had an agreement to check in only if something was wrong? Like a break-in-case-of-emergency number?” Sybil added.
“But you heard her call him on Thanksgiving.”
“Check the log on the flip phone,” Sybil said. “But I swear it was with her iPhone—I saw her using it that night at my dining table, which means that either she was really worried or really desperate.”
“Or getting sloppy,” Zeke said. He finished off his flute and poured another one, then topped off Sybil’s.
“The log,” she said. “And thank you.” She raised her glass and drank. Why not. It was New Year’s Eve, after all. And she was pleased, tickled, to see their evidence wall bloom into something like a real police case.
His thumb worked its way through the buttons, then stopped.
“Last call on this phone was in September.”
“So just before we all met,” Sybil said.
“But maybe before she got spooked by Julian?”
His eyes widened, and hers did the same.
“You think she ran because of Julian?” Sybil said. Her pulse was racing now; this felt likesomething, she didn’t know what though. But something.That’swhat she was missing from her life. Not surgery, not medical school. But a problem needing to be solved. Her phone buzzed. Eloise.Fuck.
A picture of her daughter holding up a glass of water.
Eloise:I’m behaving, see?
This wasn’t Sybil’s first rodeo, unfortunately.
Sybil:how do I know that isn’t vodka?
Three dots appeared, then disappeared.
Sybil grabbed her flute and finished it.
“I don’t know why she ran,” Zeke said, on his way to top her off again. “But maybe we piece together Levi’s route, his map, and find his final stop. What if wherever Levi is, that’s where we’ll find Betty?”
46
Night Eighteen
Zeke
Zeke convinced Sybilthat they needed to get out of the apartment. It was almost midnight! It was New Year’s Eve! Also, he was drunk, and he was pretty sure that she was halfway there, too, and if they sat next to each other at the breakfast nook, their thighs touching, their heads angled together as they organized the postcards and looked for a pattern to predict where Levi could be now, he wasn’t going to be able to stop himself from kissing her.
And kissing her was just so, so inappropriate right now. They were trying to track down their friend who was in serious trouble! Technically, ostensibly, they should also still be mourning their other friend who may have been in even deeper trouble. And here he was, trying not to stare at her pink lips, trying not to think about if he’d be able to taste the champagne on her tongue when he’d had just as much, more actually, champagne.
It was blisteringly cold outside. The kind of New York City night where your skin cried out when the wind kicked up. He was in a goose-down parka, but his elbow ached nonetheless,like he was now one of those people whose joints hurt when a storm blew in. His progress had been steady and not even all that slow, even though to him, it was a frustrating drip of molasses. He knew he could do better, be better, but that required sleep. But his trainer, after chastising him for taking Christmas off, was pleased; Timothy was pleased; the front office was pleased.
The Upper West Side was buzzing despite the windchill. They walked uptown, as if they were still headed to visit Betty at the diner. Sybil had called and called until she finally reached the owner a few days back, who said Betty simply didn’t show up one day, and when he tried to contact her, she had either blocked his number or she was ignoring him.
