“We can tell her that you want to leave the hospital incognito,” I said. “There’s probably press out there by now, and you’d turn a lot more heads in a Gucci suit and heels.”
Sky’s face brightened. “That’s a genius idea.”
I smiled. “I have them sometimes.”
Sky asked if I could pour her some more water. I did. She took a few sips, her shoulders relaxing. “Okay,” she said. “What do you want to know?”
I gave her a look. “I think that’s pretty obvious.”
“What do I remember about getting shot?”
“Bingo.”
“I already went over this with the police,” she said.
“I know,” I said. “Tell me, though. As a friend—a friend who is not law enforcement, and who just asked Bill and Lydia to leave the room so you can speak freely.”
She nodded. “I understand,” she said. “I just…I need to think.”
“There’s no hurry,” I said. “Try and remember everything you can. Don’t stop yourself from saying anything.”
She took a deep breath. “Okay,” she said. “Do I start with when I got shot?”
“Maybe start with when you told the Welches’ butler that you were going to be late for lunch.”
She blinked a few times. “Oh, right,” she said. “I almost forgot about that.”
“Tell me what was going on.”
She stared up at the ceiling for a long while. Then, finally, she began to speak. “So everybody had left for the office Christmas party. I’d planned on going, too—just to put in an appearance before heading over to Bill and Lydia’s. But I’d…I’d gotten a phone call.”
“From who?” I asked.
“A reporter,” she said. “She wanted to ask me about the death of that lab tech.”
“Trevor Weiss.”
“Yeah,” she said quietly. “Trevor.”
“I didn’t realize the press knew about that so soon.”
“Yeah, I was surprised, too,” she said. “I’d only heard about it myself last night. The police asked me about him.”
“Yes. Me too.”
“Anyway, I told Balthazar it was just office business because I didn’t want to upset the Welches. You know?”
I nodded.
“So I talked to the reporter for a little while, and by the time I was done, I knew I wasn’t going to be able to drop by the party,” she said. “I started turning off lights and shutting down my computer. Getting ready to leave for the Welches’.”
“So the lights in your office were off, like you told the police.”
“Yes. They were…” She took another swallow of her water. “I…I heard the door to my office open wider, and I turned around and he was standing in the doorway…this person. He was wearing a hoodie, I think.”
“You couldn’t see his face?”
“No,” she said quietly. “I couldn’t. It was dark. The hood was basically covering his face…It was scary.”
