I glared at him. “I’m friends with Lee Farrell, you know.”
“Well, maybe ask him, then.”
I was this close to taking his coffee back.
“Thanks for your help.” I said it to Right Boy alone. “Have a nice day.”
—
I kept thinking about Sky as I walked back to the waiting room. Between Maurice’s hopeful account and that chaotic scene in the ICU, I didn’t know what to believe about her prognosis. At this point, I was leaning towardnot good. It made me sad—especially for Lydia.
It also made me think about the shooter.He shot me,Sky had allegedly said in her delirium. So it was a man, who had gotten past lobby security and into Gonzo’s locked-up offices with apparent ease. Could Dylan Welch have shot his best friend for knowing too much? Was he capable of something that craven?
When I returned to the waiting room, the Welches were still standing where I’d left them. “Long bathroom trip,” Bill said curtly. Apparently, he’d missed me.
“Bill,” Lydia said.
“Actually, I stopped by the ICU,” I said. “I tried to get an update from the cops.”
“And?” Lydia said.
I considered telling her what I’d seen, and what I’d been thinking. But not for long. “They know nothing,” I said. “At least, that’s what one of them told me.”
I looked around the waiting room. There were three other visitors standing awkwardly in the corner: a woman and two men, all of them in their late twenties or early thirties, all fashionably but unimaginatively dressed, all gawking at us, asthough we were the season finale of their favorite reality show. I wondered when they’d shown up, or if they’d been there the entire time and I just hadn’t noticed them. When the trio saw me looking at them, they offered shy waves to Bill and Lydia.
Lydia waved back.
“Who are they?” I asked quietly.
“I have no idea,” Bill said.
“That’s Kaitlyn, Timothy, and Henry,” Lydia whispered.
“Who?” Bill said.
Lydia let out an exasperated sigh. “Kaitlyn is head of Marketing. Timothy and Henry do focus groups and brainstorming and whatnot,” she said.
The three of them walked up to us in a triangular formation, with Kaitlyn in front. She gave Lydia a quick, tight hug. “You remember Bill, of course,” Lydia said.
“Of course,” Kaitlyn said.
Bill nodded at the three of them.
Lydia introduced them to me. I shook their hands. “Sunny Randall is a private investigator,” Lydia said. “I’ve hired her to find Dylan.”
“He’s missing?” Timothy asked. Lydia responded with a death glare. I could tell that he wished he could suck the words back into his mouth.
“Yes,” Lydia said. “He is.”
“I’m sorry,” Timothy said. “I didn’t mean any disrespect. I just…I assumed he was on vacation.”
“Dylan goes on vacation a lot,” Henry said helpfully.
“No offense taken,” Bill said.
It was a lie. Plenty of offense had been taken, if only on Lydia’s part.
Lydia put her back to the two young men and spoke directly to Kaitlyn. “Who on earth could have done something like this?” she asked. “A shooting in the Winthrop Center in broad daylight?”
