“I don’t know if you saw this, but there was a shooting today…”
“Oh my God. The female employee?”
I nodded slowly.
“That was Sky?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Oh, no…”
“She’s going to be okay.” I drank some of my latte. It was very hot. “They’re releasing her from the hospital in the morning.”
“Thank God. I saw that story on my newsfeed today. Terrifying. I can’t believe it washer.”
“I know,” I said. “It seemed touch and go for a little while there. She was very lucky.”
Teresa shook her head, both hands resting on the cardboard cup as though it were a crystal ball. “You’re looking for Dylan, though.”
“Yes,” I said.
“So…does that mean you think that Dylan’s disappearance and Sky’s shooting might be related?”
I almost started to explain the entire situation to her butstopped myself. People like Teresa—they had an ability to make you feel as though you knew them better than you did. Like you could trust them before that trust was earned. I’m sure it was helpful in PR. It certainly was in my line of work, and I was able to recognize this because I had a similar skill set. I made sure not to take the bait.
“I’m just looking into everything at this point,” I said.
She drank her latte. I drank mine.
“Why did you say ‘sound design’?” Teresa asked.
“Just…venturing a guess,” I said.
“And why were you asking about Sky’s hobbies? Do you think Sky’s hobbies had something to do with her shooting—or with Dylan’s disappearance?”
“Hey.” I said it as lightly as I could. “Who’s doing the investigating here—you or me?” I brought the cup to my lips and gulped down too much latte. My throat burned.
She put her cup down and laughed a little. “Sorry,” she said. “I mean…I’m obviously jumping to conclusions. But I was wondering if maybe she might have pranked the wrong person.”
My back stiffened. “What do you mean, ‘pranked’?”
Teresa shifted in her chair. She ran her hands through her shiny hair, pulling it back into a ponytail and letting it go. “Okay, so when we were in college,” she said, “Sky used to record people and play with their voices. I think it all started for a class project, but then it just became something she liked doing. Deep-fake audio and video. You know what that is?”
I coughed. “Yes,” I said. “I know what it is.”
“A lot of people don’t, even now. And Sky was doing it seven years ago. Just for fun.”
“Was she good?” I asked.
Teresa snorted, which I took for a yes. “The one time I can ever remember her getting into trouble at school was when she created this video of one of our professors—a jerk of a guy named Dr. Stiffly.”
“That was his real name?”
She nodded. “And God help you if you ever cracked a smile over it,” she said.
I shook my head. “I’d have changed it if I were him.”
“Same,” she said. “Anyway, Sky made a video of Dr. Stiffly singing ‘I’m a Little Teapot,’ with all the gestures and everything. She posted it on Instagram, and the Dean was furious. Sky wound up in front of a faculty tribunal. Nearly got kicked out of school. It was so funny, though. We all thought it was worth it.”
