“Not a great place to work if you’re prone to seizures,” I said to her.
She was dressed in all white with silver jewelry, presumably to match the furniture. It made me worried about her dry-cleaning bills. She looked up, confusion all over her face.
“The sign,” I said, pointing to it.
She winced. “Oh. Yes.”
I noticed a few glass shards on the floor. “Did it just break?”
The receptionist blinked at me. She was young and birdlike and looked very nervous. I decided she wasn’t one for small talk.
“I’d like to speak with Sky Farley, please,” I said.
“Do you have an appointment?”
“Not really.”
One of her eyelids started to twitch.
I felt like she was on the verge of calling security, so I spoke quickly. “I’m working for Lydia Welch.”
She let out a long sigh. Her shoulders relaxed. “Dylan’s mom.”
“Yes,” I said. I opened my purse and took out my PI license. She glanced at it.
“You’re the private investigator,” she said. “Mrs. Welch called and said you might be coming by.”
“Oh, good. I hate having to explain things.”
She stole another look at my license. “I hope everything works out, Ms. Randall,” she said. “My name is Elspeth, by the way.”
She stuck out a delicate hand. I shook it gently. “I’ll do my best to find him, Elspeth,” I said.
“Find who?”
“Um…Dylan?”
“Of course.” Elspeth visibly cringed. “Sorry. Crazy day. I’ll see if Sky is available.” She slipped a Bluetooth into her ear and angled herself away from me, speaking in a tone so low I could barely hear her.
Then she turned around and stood up. “She’ll speak to you,” she said.
“Wait,” I said. “Sky Farley is a she?” I was genuinely shocked—not because I was sexist, of course. It was because I couldn’t imagine Dylan Welch successfully working with a woman in any type of capacity—let alone viewing her as a “longtime chum.”
I nearly explained that to Elspeth, but as it turned out, I didn’t have to. “Sky likes everybody,” she said.
She stood up and led me to a long hallway. We walked until we reached a metal detector. It was manned by a hulking security guard who asked me to empty the contents of my purseand place them in a plastic tray. I was surprised by the whole setup, but I did as I was told. When I got around to removing my .38, the guard’s eyebrows lifted.
“She’s a private investigator,” Elspeth told him. “Mrs. Welch hired her to find Dylan.”
“Oh.” If this guy had any opinion of me or of Lydia or Dylan Welch, it didn’t show on his face.
Once we’d made it through the gauntlet and I was zipping up my purse, I turned to Elspeth. “I’m all for office safety,” I said. “But if you don’t mind my saying, this seems like alot.”
“I know,” she said. “It’s new. We’re all getting used to it.”
Six
Sky Farley’s office was everything you’d expect from a corner office on the forty-ninth floor of a skyscraper. The view was arresting. So arresting that I barely noticed the cluster of suits standing at the center of the room, which broke up just as we arrived.
