“Where are you from, Everett?” I asked.
“You’re looking at it,” he said.
“This where you’ve always lived?” Bree asked in a kind tone.
“Does it matter how I got here?” he asked.
“Not really,” I said. “How long’ve you lived here?”
“I dunno, off and on. What do you want, I mean for real?”
I held out Ava’s blue sweater in the plastic evidence bag. Everett Prough blinked, looked at it for several seconds and then at me, feigning a lack of interest. “So?”
“I took it from your grocery cart the night before last, right after you hit me.”
“Yeah. That sounds right. Thief.”
“Where did you get it, Everett? This sweater.”
The homeless man squirmed as if something had crawled up his pant leg, said, “Don’t remember.”
“Sure you do,” Bree said. “Do you know who that sweater belongs to?”
Prough cringed, looked at the floor as if it contained secrets that only he could decipher, and then nodded. “I know her anywhere.”
I felt a terrible sensation suddenly in my gut, a hollow feeling like no other. What was this guy to Ava? What had he done to her?
“Who does the sweater belong to?” Bree pressed.
Prough squinted and set his jaw as if he were being forced to relive some best-forgotten horror.
“Belongs to the girl,” he said. “The girl who killed that other girl and lit her body on fire.”
Chapter
30
Two hours earlier, and pulsing again with the thrill of anticipation, Sunday sat in the van parked down the street from the service entrance of the Mandarin Oriental Hotel, drinking yet another can of Red Bull to stay fully awake. He’d been there ever since his escapade in Alexandria.
The writer figured to make his move around a quarter to five. To pass the time, he stuffed cotton into his cheeks, put in brown contact lenses, and pulled on a dark-brown pompadour wig and a pair of flesh-colored latex gloves. He used the gloves to smear self-tanning liquid all over his face and then wiped them dry with Kleenex.
Four forty-five went by, and nothing.
So did four fifty.
Sunday began to doubt his instincts, a rare event. But then he spotted a late-model Toyota sedan driving by the service entrance, passing his van, and parking down the street. A man climbed out wearing black slacks, black shoes, a white shirt, and a tie. He carried a white server’s jacket. The first breakfast waiter was arriving for work.
Without hesitation, Sunday got out of his van. He, too, wore black slacks and black shoes, a white shirt, and a tie.
Sunday crossed the street, angling at the waiter: late twenties, looking barely awake.
“’Scuse me, mate,” the writer called in a decent Australian accent. “First day on the job.”
“Follow me,” the waiter said dully as he passed.
“Right you are,” Sunday said, and hit the back of the waiter’s skull hard with a sap.
The waiter pitched forward, but the writer caught him by the back of his shirt before he could face-plant on the sidewalk. Dragging him behind one of the hotel’s Dumpsters, Sunday rifled through his pockets, found his hotel ID. He stuck it in his pocket