His face brightened a little. “No, but I can. You want some?”
“I could use a cup.” I peered at him. “You probably could, too.”
He made for the breakroom. I made for my office, where Spike and Elspeth sat on my leather chairs, deep in conversation.
They didn’t look up until I closed the door behind me.
I stared at Elspeth—the purplish circles under her eyes, the smeared mascara. She looked exhausted, as though she hadn’t slept in weeks. She was still wearing my white suit, dried blood caked on the sleeves and smears of it across the lapels.Poor thing.That was all I could think.All she’s been through in these past few days…Elspeth was keyed up, her whole body tensed, that eyelid of hers twitching.
“Is Sky going to be okay?” she asked. She was gripping the arms of my chair so tightly, I was worried she might hurt herself.
“Yes,” I said. “I just saw her. She’s going to be fine.”
Elspeth deflated, some of the tension draining out of her. “Oh, thank God,” she said. “Thank God.”
Spike looked at her, then at me. “Did she say who shot her?”
I nodded. “Dylan Welch.”
“I don’t get it,” Elspeth said. “Sky was so nice to him. She was his friend.”
I shook my head. “She knew about some bad stuff he was doing—financial stuff,” I said. “But from what she told me, she’d been trying to protect him, so I don’t get it, either.”
Elspeth tensed up again. “What’s wrong with him?” she whispered.
“What isn’t?” Spike said.
I nodded. “Good point.” I thought about Sky again. “It took her a little while to remember who shot her,” I said. “She told Lee Farrell she didn’t know at first. I thought she might be covering for Dylan. But she seemed to have this breakthrough with me…”
“Trauma,” Spike said. “It can mess with your head.”
Which made me remember Sky’s interview again. That phantom reporter she’d spoken to just prior to it. “She lost some of her memories before the shooting, too,” I said, which made me think of something else. If she’d spoken to a reporter about Trevor this morning, the interview was almost assuredly online by now. It was time-sensitive information, after all—and very newsworthy, since Sky’s own shooting had taken place moments later.
I quickly excused myself, opened the door, and shouted out to Blake, “When you get a chance, can you google Sky Farley, Trevor Weiss, and shooting? See if anything was posted today that has quotes from Sky?”
He shouted back, “Can I finish making the coffee first?”
I told him there was no hurry, whenever. Then I shut the door and apologized to Elspeth and Spike. “I would have forgotten if I didn’t say it right then,” I said. “Too many things in my head at once.”
“Well, we’re about to squeeze something else in there,” Spike said.
“Oh, yeah?”
Spike leaned forward in his chair, his thick fingers lacedtogether. “Elspeth needs to tell you something,” he said. “But the thing is, you can’t tell the police. Not now, at least.”
“Why not?”
“You’ll put me in danger,” Elspeth said. “For real.”
“Who told you that?”
“Dylan,” she said.
I stared at her. “What’s happened now?”
“Okay.” She took a deep, trembling breath. “I don’t know if I can do this.”
“You can,” Spike said. “You just have to trust us. Your secret’s safe. Right, Sunny?”
