I looked at the group as they passed: two men and a woman, all stony-faced and middle-aged and in various forms of tweed. They did not look at me. They left quickly, their eyes downcast, as though the gleaming blond-wood floor was something deeply fascinating.
“Thanks, Elspeth,” said the one remaining woman (girl?), who had to be Sky Farley. I knew from her bio that she was at least twenty-six, but she looked more like a teenager. And as opposed to everyone else I’d seen here, Sky was dressed down,in jeans, red Chucks, and a frayed cable-knit sweater. She wore glasses with thick black frames, her thick brown hair pulled into a messy bun, like some college freshman studying for finals. She made me feel overdressed and overly made up. And tall. Too tall. I towered over her in my two-inch Prada heels.
“Did you want anything?” she asked. “Coffee? Water? Gonzo?”
“No, thank you.”
Elspeth left. Sky led me to her enormous desk, which housed a sleek computer with a screen the size of a small billboard. “Have a seat,” she said.
I did. “Nice digs,” I said.
“Right?” Sky said. “Sometimes I have to pinch myself.” She seemed even younger and smaller behind the desk—like a kid exploring her mom’s office at Bring Your Daughter to Work Day. “I’m glad Mrs. Welch hired you, Ms. Randall,” she said.
“Sunny is fine.”
“Sunny.” She blushed. In that moment, she weirdly reminded me of Blake. “I’ve read all about you,” Sky said. “It seems like if anybody can find Dylan, you can.”
“I’ll do my best,” I said.
“So what can I tell you about him?”
“Well, first of all, is it unusual for him to just disappear like this?”
“Not really,” she said.
“I didn’t think so.”
“But the thing is, when he does disappear, I usually know where to find him.”
“Where’s that?”
“My place.”
I raised an eyebrow. I couldn’t help it.
She blushed again. “Not like that. Jeez.”
“Like what, then?”
Sky adjusted her glasses. “I’m his friend.”
I wanted to ask her why. I didn’t, of course. But she answered the question anyway.
“It’s been like that since college, really,” she said. “He’d party too hard or get in a fight with a girlfriend or do something idiotic—cheat on a test or whatever…He’d show up on my doorstep, then hide at my place until things blew over.”
“You never dated him? Not even briefly?”
“I cannot stress to you enough,” she said, “how incrediblynot my typeDylan is.”
She rolled her eyes. I laughed. This kid was smart. I liked her.
“It’s funny,” she said. “I was full scholarship at Harvard. My mom died when I was a kid. I grew up in foster homes. I had nothing. Dylan has always had everything. But we became friends mainly becauseIfelt sorry forhim.”
“Why?” I said. “How did you meet?”
“He paid me to write a paper for him,” she said. “Trust me, it wasn’t my finest hour.”
I thought of Lydia Welch, the sum she wrote down for me with her Montblanc pen. “You needed the money,” I said. “He was willing to pay a lot.”
