“Thank you,” I said—the idea I had, the suspicion, solidifying in my mind.Of course he did. Of course he just kept repeating himself.I thought about Lydia, all her hopes hinging on the concept that, no matter what he’d done, her son was close by and that we had proof he was alive. I didn’t want to have to tell her what I’d been thinking—not until I was absolutely sure.
“Sunny?”
“Yeah?”
“Why are you asking me this?”
“Just a theory I’m working on,” I said quickly. “I’ll tell you about it later.”
I hung up before Elspeth could say anything more.
There was a sweet little park outside this hulking new building, with a wrought-iron fence and a few benches, planted with delicate pink cyclamen and waxy bromeliads. The park may have been new, or, like so many things in this world, it could have been there all along and I’d just never noticed it.
I sat down on one of the benches and took deep breaths and tried my best to collect my thoughts.Don’t jump to conclusions,I told myself.Keep asking questions. The truth will work itself out like a splinter.
All the while, though, I kept thinking about Sky, of her dual major in biotechnology and data sciences—and of her shocking ability to re-create voices.
Thirty-Seven
Since Sky had told me I didn’t have to rush to bring her the clothes, I figured I’d do what I’d planned to when I first took the case: talk to Dylan Welch’s girlfriend-turned-stalking-victim, Teresa Leone. Only now that my focus had shifted to Sky, I had an entirely different set of questions.
I knew where Teresa worked—a PR firm near Copley Square called Nichols and Associates. It was walking distance from Sky’s apartment building, and when I called her direct line and asked if I could come by, Teresa said, “Sure,” adding, “Is this about you-know-who?”
“Partly,” I said.
“Well, now I’m intrigued.”
“I am, too.” Though there was probably a better word for what I was feeling.
“There’s a Starbucks in my lobby, with places to sit,” she said. “If you get there before me, grab us a table. I’ll buy us a couple of lattes.”
“Decaf for me. And you don’t have to buy.”
“I insist,” she said. “It’s the least I can do.”
With my purse over one shoulder and Sky’s duffel bag over the other, I reached the building within ten minutes. It was a mirrored high-rise that managed to dwarf the Public Library without being obtrusive—a building designed to reflect the beauty of its neighbors. There were many architectural juxtapositions like this in Boston—the new and historic coexisting harmoniously. It wasn’t like that down the Shore, where the historic district was its own separate entity. Yet one more thing to get used to, I supposed, if I decided to relocate.If.
After I found the Starbucks, I started to phone Teresa to tell her I’d arrived, but she was already sitting at a table, our two lattes in front of her, waving at me as though we were old friends. I was a little confused by all this enthusiasm, as I’d been by her insistence on buying.
I’d spoken to her only once—and it wasn’t as though our conversation had been particularly enjoyable, centered, as it was, around Dylan.
Yet when I sat down, the first thing she said to me was, “I’ve been meaning to send you flowers or something.”
She slid the decaf to me. I took a sip. “Why?”
“You scared Dylan Welch away.”
“Idid?”
“One chat with you, he’s never spied on me, texted me,called me, or purposefully run into me again. I’m free. I can go out with my new boyfriend without worrying about him showing up wasted and threatening to cut him.” Teresa smiled. “I don’t have to wear disguises anymore.”
I’d thought she looked different. The last time I saw her, Teresa had on a face full of makeup, a lacquered updo, and heels—aging herself by at least a decade—all so she wouldn’t be recognized by Dylan. Today she was wearing a pink T-shirt, a charcoal blazer, jeans, and boots, her hair loose. Minimal makeup. Younger, more comfortable, and, I imagined, more like herself.
“I wouldn’t quite call it a chat,” I said. “How did you find out about that, though?”
“Lydia called me,” she said. “She said he was in rehab, he wouldn’t be bothering me anymore, and that you had taught him a lesson. She apologized for him.” Teresa grinned. “I don’t know how you did it, but thank you.”
“Well, my dog helped.”
