In a perfect world—or even just a normal one—Avery would have relished the opportunity to sleep late while lying in bed with a man she found fiercely attractive and more than a little endearing. Walt had shared with her a part of his own past that was riddled with betrayal and secrets. Their histories were so very similar that it would have been a perfect opportunity to share her own scars. If Avery’s life bore any semblance of normal, she would have sunk her head deeper into the crook of Walt’s shoulder earlier this morning and draped her arm over his chest. Instead, she tiptoed out of his hotel room, and cringed in the hallway when the latch clicked loudly as she tried to silently close the door.

In the end, she stopped the self-analysis and chalked it up to Avery being Avery. This was her life and she was stuck with it. Besides, whether she was up for the whole morning-after routine or not was immaterial. This particular morning she had no time. While Walt lay in a postcoital coma the previous night, Avery’s mind had drifted back to Victoria Ford. Even during the review of the Cameron Young file and the potential flaws she found, Avery had been unable to stop thinking about Victoria Ford’s manuscripts and their connection to Natalie Ratcliff.

She grabbed her phone just after midnight and, on a whim, sent out a text while Walt softly snored next to her. She hadn’t expected a reply so late on a Saturday night—especially on a holiday weekend. But it had taken only a few seconds for Livia Cutty, New York’s chief medical examiner and the doctor Avery had met with when she first arrived in New York, to text back. Avery had questions about some of the forensics noted in the Cameron Young case and needed to pick Livia’s brain about them. She had other questions, too, about things completely unrelated to the case file she and Walt had paged through, but the forensics would be a good place to start.

She put in three miles, just enough to get a good sweat and burn her lungs, and used the walk back to the Lowell as a cool down. Showered and dressed, Avery grabbed two coffees from Starbucks and hailed a cab for Kips Bay. She saw Livia standing in front of the entrance to the medical examiner’s office when the cab pulled to the curb. Avery paid the fare with cash, climbed out of the cab, and handed Livia a coffee.

“Black, two sugars.”

“Thanks,” Livia said in a questioning tone. “How did you know how I like my coffee?”

“Last time we were together, when you were out in LA, we grabbed coffee with Mack Carter.”

“That was two years ago.”

“I know. I have a weird thing with coffee.”

“Impressive. Thank you.”