The Disappearance of Stephanie Mailer: A gripping new thriller with a killer twist Joël Dicker (booksvooks TXT) 📖

the sign put up. We were sure of the name and we told ourselves that, this way, people in the neighborhood would already be talking about it.”

“Isn’t it bad luck to reveal a restaurant’s sign before it opens?” I said.

Natasha laughed. “Don’t talk bullshit, Derek.”

She took a bottle of vodka and four small glasses from a bag, handed them around, and filled them to the brim. Darla grabbed a small rope tied to the sheet covering the sign and, after agreeing on a signal, they both yanked on it. The sheet floated to the ground like a parachute, and the name of the restaurant glowed in the dark:

LITTLE RUSSIA

We raised our glasses to Little Russia. We drank a few more vodkas, then took a tour of the premises. Darla and Natasha showed us the plan so that we could imagine the place as it would be. There was a cramped little mezzanine, where they planned to set up an office. A ladder gave access to the roof, and it was there that we spent most of that burning hot summer night, drinking vodka and dining by candlelight from a picnic hamper the girls had prepared, gazing at the Manhattan skyline in the distance.

I looked at Jesse and Natasha embracing. They were so beautiful together, they looked so happy. They were the kind of couple who made you believe that nothing would ever separate them. It was when I saw them as they were then that I knew I needed something very similar in my life. Darla was beside me. I looked into her eyes. She moved her hand forward to lightly touch mine. And I kissed her.

The following day, we were back in business, on a stakeout outside Café Athena. We were heavily hungover.

“So,” Jesse said, “did you sleep over at Darla’s?”

My only response was to smile. He burst out laughing. But we weren’t in a laughing mood. We had to start our investigation all over again.

We were certain that it was Tennenbaum’s van that Lena Bellamy had seen out on the street just before the murders. The Café Athenalogo was a unique creation, which Tennenbaum had put on the rear window of his vehicle to advertise his restaurant. But it was Mrs Bellamy’s word against his. We needed more.

We were going round in circles. At the town hall, we were told that Mayor Gordon had been furious about the fire in Tennenbaum’s building and was convinced that Tennenbaum had started the fire himself. So did the Orphea police. But there was nothing to prove it. Tennenbaum clearly had a gift for covering his tracks. Our only hope was to refute his alibi by proving that he had left the Grand Theater at a particular time on the evening of the murders. His shift had lasted from 5.00 to 11.00. He would have needed only twenty minutes to drive to the mayor’s house and back. Twenty short minutes. We questioned all the volunteers who had been in the backstage area on opening night. They all stated that they had seen Tennenbaum several times that evening. But had he been there between 5.40 and 6.00? And, of course, nobody could confirm that. He had been seen near the dressing rooms, in the workshop, even in the bar, grabbing a sandwich. He had been seen everywhere and nowhere.

We were bogged down, almost losing hope, when one morning we received a call from a woman working at a bank in Hicksville that would change the course of the investigation.

JESSE ROSENBERG

Friday, July 4 and Saturday, July 5, 2014

Twenty-two days to opening night

Every year, Derek and Darla had a big barbecue in their garden to celebrate the Fourth of July. This year they invited Betsy and me. I declined the invitation, saying I’d been invited somewhere else. In fact, I spent the day alone, shut up in my kitchen, trying desperately to reproduce a hamburger sauce that had been a secret of Natasha’s in the old days. But none of my many attempts succeeded. I didn’t have all the ingredients, and I had no way of distinguishing which ones were missing. Natasha had created the sauce for roast beef sandwiches. I had suggested using it on hamburgers, too, which had proved to be a great idea. But none of the dozens of versions I put together that day were anything like the one that Natasha made.

As for Betsy, she went to her parents’ house in Worcester, a comfortable suburb located not far from New York City, for a traditional family celebration. She was almost there when she received a panicky call from her sister.

“Betsy, where are you?”

“Almost there. What’s going on?”

“The barbecue’s been organized by Mommy and Daddy’s new neighbor.”

“So the house next door was finally sold?”

“Yes, Betsy. And you’ll never guess who bought it. Mark. Mark, your ex-husband.”

Aghast, Betsy stepped hard on the brake. She could hear her sister over the phone: “Betsy? Are you there?” As luck would have it, she had stopped just outside the house in question. She had always thought it was quite pretty, but now it struck her as horribly flashy. She looked at the ridiculous Fourth of July decorations hanging from the windows. Anyone would have thought it was the White House. Mark was over-doing it, as usual. Not sure anymore if she would stay or simply drive away, Betsy decided to lock herself in her car. On a neighboring lawn, she saw children playing, happy parents. Of all her ambitions, her most cherished was to start a family. She envied her happy friends who were in couples. She envied her friends who were contented mothers.

A knocking on her car window made her jump. It was her mother.

“Betsy, I beg you, don’t embarrass me, please come out. Everyone knows you’re here.”

“Why didn’t you warn me?” Betsy said. “I wouldn’t have come all this way.”

“That’s why I didn’t tell you.”

“Have you both gone crazy? You’re celebrating the Fourth of July in my ex-husband’s house?”

“We’re celebrating the Fourth