Opening
The investigation sharpens as a BOLO targets Liv Reese, the victim is unmasked as her ex, and a diagnosis gives Liv’s nightmare a name. Flashbacks crack open the past, hinting that the real danger begins two years earlier—and that Liv’s fractured memory hides a deeper crime.
What Happens
Chapter 36: Cutting Through Red Tape
Detective Darcy Halliday and Detective Jack Lavelle clash over tactics. With the credit card company stonewalling them without a warrant, Lavelle orders a citywide BOLO for Liv. Halliday objects: Liv’s severe memory impairment makes her vulnerable, and broadcasting her face could push her into hiding—or into danger—if her attacker still hunts her. Lavelle snaps that it isn’t a request, and Halliday dictates the alert, explicitly noting Liv’s condition.
Afterward, Lavelle softens, blaming red tape and arguing the BOLO protects Liv by getting her into custody before someone else finds her. Halliday worries the alert turns Liv into a presumed killer. Stalled without a victim ID, Lavelle “calls in the big guns”—a friend in the FBI’s financial crimes unit. Within minutes, they get a name: Edward “Ted” Cole, 39, a British executive at Cultura magazine, in the U.S. for five months.
Cole’s registered address sits blocks from the murder scene. The detectives suspect he rented the second apartment for an affair with Liv, and they head to his building.
Chapter 37: A Voice from the Past
Across town, Liv stumbles away from the basement apartment, pulse hammering. The messages on her hands—especially DON’T TALK TO THE COPS EVER!!—terrify her. Without a phone or wallet, she slips into an electronics store and uses a display laptop to search the news. She finds a report of an unidentified man, a photo of “WAKE UP!” written in blood across a window, and a grainy image of a long-haired woman entering an elevator with the victim. She recognizes herself.
Shoved out by a salesman, she spots a newspaper—and freezes. The date is two years ahead. Headlines describe a world she doesn’t recognize. The shock aligns with the doctor’s appointment card she found; though she’s hours late, she heads there for answers. At a payphone she tries Marco Reggio—no answer. She tries Amy Decker—disconnected. Desperate, she calls Amy’s mother, Margaret, who answers coldly, then unleashes fury: “You have some nerve.” The call ends with a slam, leaving Liv gutted and more alone than ever.
Chapter 38: The Fiancée
Halliday and Lavelle arrive at the apartment of Ted Cole. His fiancée, Elisabeth, opens the door. Halliday gently explains they believe Ted is the homicide victim. Elisabeth denies it—he was with her last night—until she sees a crime scene photo and collapses in tears.
After composing herself, Elisabeth clarifies: Ted rented the nearby apartment to help his ex, Liv, not for an affair. Two weeks earlier, at their London engagement party, Liv crashed in bare feet, disheveled, insisting she didn’t recognize Ted. Elisabeth admits she spitefully sent Liv the invitation to force closure. Liv had been calling Ted constantly from London, then abruptly stopped five weeks ago—a date Halliday notes matches Liv’s first recorded blackout. Ted felt responsible and found a specialist to treat her memory loss. The night he died, he took a secretive call and accidentally left behind a paper scrap: a hand-drawn lily and a phone number.
The detectives take the sketch and Ted’s personal items for DNA. En route to the lab, confirmation comes in: the victim is Ted Cole, and the wine at the scene is laced with sedatives. The 90th Precinct calls with Liv’s old case files; Halliday and Lavelle head over, noting that the new victim is Liv’s ex-boyfriend.
Chapter 39: Two Years Earlier
Two years before, Liv and Amy lounge on their rooftop. Liv feels watched and rattles off recent creeps, including a Snapchat message about the color of her dress. Amy rolls her eyes—paranoia. She admits she’s about to dump her wealthy boyfriend, Brett Graham. Liv confesses trouble with Marco; Amy calls him an “asshole,” saying Liv picks bad men because of her childhood.
When Liv returns to retrieve a hat, she overhears Amy on the phone: “You have to tell her.” Amy hangs up the instant she sees Liv. Back inside, an artist calling himself “Q” phones. Liv recently toured his disturbing exhibition, “Mirror four,” featuring a woman bound to a chair. Q scolds Liv for being a passive bystander who did nothing, sermonizing about free will and consequences. Liv goes cold when she thinks she hears her own block’s street sounds through his line. Minutes later, Marco cancels their plans with a curt text. Amy’s judgment of him starts to feel right.
Chapter 40: The Diagnosis
At the neurologist’s office, Dr. Brenner agrees to see Liv even though she’s hours late. Ashamed, she lies about why “Ted” isn’t with her. Brenner runs tests. She nails short-term recall—“red flower, blue car, tennis ball”—and her MRI shows no organic damage.
Then Brenner levels with her: she’s experiencing a repetitive dissociative fugue. Every time she sleeps, her brain fails to consolidate recent memories; she resets to an earlier point in her life. Her instinctive insomnia—caffeine, pills—is a survival strategy to avoid losing herself. The cause is psychological, triggered by extreme trauma. He refers her to a psychiatrist, Dr. Rosen. The word trauma breaks her. In reception, the secretary tries to reach Ted, Liv’s listed emergency contact. Curious and fearful, Liv asks to see the information—and recognizes Ted’s address.
Character Development
Liv gains a framework for her terror: a diagnosis that explains her resets yet deepens the dread of sleep. The detectives close the gap between Liv and the victim, while the flashback and the phone call with Margaret hint that her real enemy may be history itself.
- Liv Reese: Moves from confusion to hard truth—her memory resets with sleep. The flashback shows her anxious but functional, already under pressure from a stalker and fraught relationships.
- Detective Darcy Halliday: Compassionate and methodical. Opposes the BOLO to protect Liv, pushes for careful procedure, and hears connections others miss.
- Detective Jack Lavelle: Results-driven and impatient with bureaucracy. Uses off-book channels to ID the victim, insisting the BOLO is protective, not punitive.
- Ted Cole: Revealed posthumously as loyal and guilt-stricken. Rents an apartment to shelter Liv, seeks medical help for her, and keeps secrets that may have gotten him killed.
- Amy Decker: Complex and possibly compromised. Protective on the surface; the overheard “You have to tell her” and Margaret’s venom suggest a buried rift tied to Liv’s trauma.
Themes & Symbols
The novel’s core tension—who we are without our memories—tightens. In Memory and Identity, Liv’s diagnosis reframes every frantic choice as a fight to stitch continuity from notes on skin and scraps of routine. Sleep becomes the thief; waking becomes an investigation of her own life.
The Past's Influence on the Present drives both plots. Ted’s murder spirals out of old loyalties; the detectives must resurrect a two-year-old case to solve today’s crime. In Trust and Betrayal, Elisabeth’s spiteful invitation, Marco’s neglect, and Amy’s secrecy fracture bonds that should protect Liv. Vulnerability and Manipulation plays out in Q’s “Mirror four” ethics trap and in the directives scrawled on Liv’s hands, as unseen forces script her choices.
Symbols:
- The hand notes: improvised lifeline and cage, preserving continuity while controlling behavior.
- “WAKE UP!” in blood: a command and accusation, equating knowledge with survival.
- The lily sketch: a breadcrumb toward Ted’s secret world—and the person on the other end of that number.
- Sedated wine: hospitality turned weapon, intimacy laced with control.
Key Quotes
“It wasn’t a request.”
Lavelle’s line crystallizes the power imbalance between urgency and caution. It frames the BOLO as a moral gamble—efficiency versus the safety of a vulnerable suspect.
DON’T TALK TO THE COPS EVER!!
The message on Liv’s hands weaponizes her amnesia. It functions as both warning and manipulation, raising the question of who writes her rules—and why they fear the truth.
“WAKE UP!”
Scrawled in blood on the window, the phrase doubles as a taunt and a theme statement. Waking is not just literal; it’s the demand to face buried trauma and piece together identity.
“You have some nerve.”
Margaret’s venom signals a rupture deeper than a falling-out. The Decker family’s fury suggests complicity, guilt, or a secret that could anchor Liv’s trauma.
“Repetitive dissociative fugue.”
Dr. Brenner’s diagnosis gives the plot a precise engine. The term validates Liv’s experience while cementing her as an unreliable narrator, forcing readers to sift reality from the gaps sleep creates.
Why This Matters and Section Significance
These chapters fuse the personal and procedural. The victim is Ted Cole, tying Liv to the murder not as a femme fatale but as someone he’s actively trying to save. The BOLO escalates the hunt even as Halliday tries to shield a cognitively impaired witness from harm.
Liv’s diagnosis transforms the mystery: every lapse now carries stakes—sleep threatens her identity. The flashback and Margaret’s hostility widen the lens to a central question the police haven’t yet asked: what happened two years ago to Amy and Liv? Solving Ted’s murder depends on exhuming that original trauma, and the breadcrumb trail—lily sketch, sedatives, secret calls—points back to the past that refuses to stay buried.