I found myself thinking again about how complicated people were, how contradictory. Even the shallow ones. Even the ones I had long believed to be wholly disgusting.
“I really do hope he’s all right,” Rhonda said.
And for whatever reason, that made me remember Dylan’s phone, what I’d seen on it. “Can I ask you one more thing?”
“Sure.”
“If you don’t blame Dylan for Daisy’s death, and you never really did blame him,” I said, “why did you call him a murderer?”
Rhonda looked at me as if I’d just sprouted horns. “I never called him that.”
“I saw his phone,” I said. “There were five or six texts from you, calling him a murderer. They were sent right before he went missing.”
Her eyes grew even wider. “I’ve never texted him in my life,” she said. “Why would I even have his personal phone number?”
I stared back at her. “You’re right,” I said.
I knew she was being truthful. This was a woman who had defaced property in front of security cameras. She’d yelled at Sky and pounded on the walls until she was forcibly removed from Gonzo’s corporate offices. She clearly saw herself as someone with nothing to lose—and so she had no reason to lie about sending a few texts. Plus, her shock was the type that couldn’t be faked. “These text messages you saw,” she said. “They were from my phone number?”
“They were from an anonymous number,” I said. “I was told they were probably from you.”
Her shoulders relaxed. “Ah,” she said. “I get it.”
My cheeks flushed. “I’m sorry,” I said.
“It’s all right,” she said. “I’m just relieved my phone didn’t get hacked.”
I was angry with myself. Disappointed. It was always wrong to assume things. It ruined investigations. Got innocent people in trouble and set the guilty ones free.
Still, a lot of people in law enforcement and ex−law enforcement were prone to assumption—and Maurice, I realized, was one of them. I remembered the contempt in his eyes when he spoke about how Dylan wanted Rhonda “roughed up.”What he said was he wanted us to track her down so he couldsend her a message.He’d programmed his mind to believe the worst, when, in reality, Dylan had literally wanted tosend Rhonda a message—an apology email, in fact.
He went through whatever channels he had…
I sighed. “The problem is, I’m now stuck with even bigger questions.”
“Such as?”
“Somebody out there sent anonymous texts to Dylan Welch, calling him a murderer,” I said. “If it wasn’t you, then who sent them?”
“It wasn’t me,” she said. “I swear. I don’t think of him as a murderer.”
“I believe you,” I said. “Which leads me to my other big question: Whodoesthink of him as a murderer…and why?”
She broke off a piece of rye toast and put it in her mouth, chewing it slowly. When she was done she picked up her napkin and dabbed at her mouth and looked at me with those lost, sad, powder-blue eyes. “Maybe he’s done something really bad,” she said. “Something that has nothing to do with me.”
Thirty
Could Dylan Welch have murdered someone before he disappeared? Had Trevor Weiss found out about it, sent those anonymous texts, and threatened to tell more people—forcing Dylan to come out of hiding and kill Trevor, too? And if Dylan’s best friend, Sky, had somehow learned the truth…was he cold-blooded enough to make it a trifecta? I had answers to none of these questions, yet they wandered through my mind as I left the South Street Diner and headed toward my car.
It made me realize something important: I needed to tell the cops what I knew.
Several blocks away from the diner, I unlocked my car, got in, and headed back to my office. I’d been planning on calling Lee Farrell once I got there, but it was close to rush hour and the roads were already clogged, so, after about ten minutes,during which I’d moved maybe three inches, I told Siri to call him instead.
Lee answered quickly—and, if I was going to be honest, rudely.
“What is it now, Sunny?”
I gawked at my mounted phone as though it owed me an explanation. Lee had never snapped at me like that before. Either he was pulling my chain or something was going on with him. And Lee wasn’t much of a chain-puller.
