Escaping Reality

and
    even that is weird. It really is past due I find answers. My steps quicken and
    it hits me that there is a positive note to today. I don’t have that “being
    followed” sensation. Answers, however do not seem to be in my immediate
    future. When I arrive at the Evernight office location, I find a sign that says
    “out to lunch.” I glance at the time on my phone. How has it gotten to be
    3:00? And how is 3:00 lunchtime?
    I dial Meg again and leave a message and exchange another text with
    Liam before I decide I’m heading to the library. In the time I worked at the
    Central Branch in New York, I’d never used its resources beyond looking
    through some books. I’d been paranoid about bringing attention to myself.
    But then I took the job at the museum. I think I’m an extremist. I sure have
    been with my willingness to let Liam in my life and no one else.
    I start walking toward a library I spotted a few blocks away when
    Meg calls back. “Sorry I missed you. Luke being out of town is killing me. I
    have to keep running out to deal with tenants.”
    I prepare to turn around and go back to Evernight. “Are you heading
    back to the office?”
    “I have another customer to deal with. You want to do happy hour?
    There’s a restaurant/bar joint called Earl’s right around the corner from
    your apartment. One of our customers took me there once. Looks like a
    great happy-hour spot.”
    I’ll do whatever I have to in order to find the answers I need. “I’ll find
    it. What time?”
    “5:30?”
    “I’ll see you then.”
    We end the call and I continue on to the library, still remarkably
    without the sensation of being followed. I’m not sure if that means I’m
    without prying eyes or if I’m calmer now, and not conjuring demons where
    they might not be. Am I calmer now?
    Once I’m at the library, I sit down at a long wooden table and
    consider where to dig into research, and as always when I’m thinking about
    the past, my mind radiates toward the tattoo on my handler’s wrist. If I find
    a link to him, I find a link to whatever, or whomever, I’m running from. I
    consider what I’ve already considered in the past. I’ve always been certain
    the triangle shape relates to the pyramids, since my father had done much
    of his work in Egypt, but I have nothing that makes the exact image of the
    tattoo connect to anything that confirms this.
    I shut my eyes and picture Liam’s tattoo. The numbers beneath it
    form a triangle. I don’t like where my mind is going, and I pull my computer
    out of the small leather briefcase Liam bought me while shopping, and
    Google the “pi” sign. Nowhere is there a similar image with numbers
    forming an inverted triangle. And the symbol on my handler’s arm was a
    triangle with words inside, words that I’d thought to be another language,
    but had since decided was some sort of coded message. It isn’t like Liam’s
    tattoo at all. Not even close. My stomach knots. Except for the triangle. I
    draw in a heavy breath. Liam’s interest in pyramids is a coincidence that’s
    hard to ignore. But lots of people are intrigued by pyramids, I remind
    myself he’s an architect, looking for an answer as to how they were
    created. Perhaps solving the mystery is a personal challenge.
    It’s a logical interest, especially for someone who mastered his craft
    at such a young age.
    I key “mathematical symbols” into my search bar and scan image
    after image in search of the symbol I’m looking for. I find triangles but
    nothing that is a real match. Same story I always end up with. Finally, I force
    myself to stop putting off what I really came here for. Today I will do what I
    haven’t had the courage to do ever. I walk to one of the tables with
    archived material and search for old newspaper clippings of the night my
    life changed forever. Or I try. There is not one single reference to a fire in
    my hometown the year or month when it occurred. Nothing. That is
    just…odd.
    Back at the table, I Google my father and start listing every name
    ever associated with him I can find. I’m surprised at how few links I find on
    him, considering he was responsible for carving out more than a few pieces
    of history. My heart squeezes when I think of being with him when one of
    his great discoveries had been made. I shove aside the bittersweet memory
    and refocus on research. What would make someone want to kill him, and
    everyone he loved? What would make them hunt me