“Just as long as we don’t encourage anyone to test that theory out,” Sky said. “It would be worse than the cinnamon challenge. Remember that?”
Kaitlyn and the pantsuits all laughed in unison.
I looked at Lydia. She was alone now, still sitting in that chair, staring at her shoes. “Where’s Bill?” I asked her.
“He had to get back to work,” she said softly. “He asked if I needed him to stay, but I told him I don’t mind. The truth is, at this point, I prefer being alone.”
Kaitlyn was saying something to Sky about a photo shoot forBostonmagazine. “I’m thinking you in some skimpy, sexy Versace number, showing off your bullet wound.”
“I don’t know, Kaitlyn,” Sky said. “Versace? Really?”
Lydia stood up. “I need a breath of fresh air,” she said.
Sky was suggesting Balenciaga instead, “or some other brand that’s not associated with a shooting death,” when I decided I needed fresh air, too.
I started to follow Lydia, but then Sky asked me if it would be too much trouble to put her duffel in the small standing closet against the wall, and then Blue Pantsuit recognized me from theGlobearticle and asked, “What’s it like to be a PI?”
“Every day it’s different,” I answered. “Sometimes it’s boringas hell; other times, it’s chaotic.” The others joined in: “What’s the most dangerous case you’ve ever taken?” “Do you carry a gun?” “Have you ever met Spenser?” Blah, blah, blah.
I tried to answer them as succinctly as I could without being rude or calling attention to my newfound distrust of Sky. By the time I finally managed to pull myself out of the room and into the hallway, Lydia was slumped against the wall in her Hermès suit, her knees against her chest, her arms clasped around them, and her head bowed. I couldn’t imagine seeing Lydia Welch in this position, ever. And yet here she was, curled into a ball on a hospital floor.
“Lydia?” I said. “Are you all right?”
She looked up at me. Her face was red, her eyes bloodshot. “What’s wrong?” I asked.
“My son,” she said quietly. “My son is what’s wrong.”
I just looked at her.
“He murdered a young man. He tried to kill his best friend,” she said. “I knew he’d done some bad things in the past, but nothing like this. And I can’t help but think…if Bill and I had seen the warning signs. If we’d forced him to get real help instead of these ridiculous rehab stays…”
I moved closer to her. “You don’t necessarily know that he shot either of them.”
“Sunny, his Rolex was found in the factory, not far from where that poor young scientist was killed.”
“It was?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Last night.”
“Who told you?”
“Detective Farrell.”
Apparently, Lee kept information from me, too…
“He questioned Bill and me after Sky,” Lydia was saying. “He brought the watch in an evidence bag and asked if it looked familiar. Of course it did. We gave it to him. It was Dylan’s high school graduation present. It’s a very rare pearlescent gold, and it’s engraved.We’re so proud! Love, Mommy and Dad,it says.”
I thought of Sky. I was now 95 percent sure that she’d been the source of the audio messages and phone calls that had been sent to Elspeth—the only “proof” that Dylan had committed either shooting, other than Sky’s masterly acted eyewitness account. So now there was also the Rolex. Conveniently placed near the dead body of the man who knew of a highly addictive substance that I now believed Sky had sneaked into Gonzo’s new formula.
I heard myself say, “Doesn’t the Rolex seem a little obvious to you?”
Lydia blinked at me. “What do you mean?”
“Why would Dylan leave the watch behind, on a night when he was clearly so careful about everything else? Why is he leaving no fingerprints or footprints or shell casings or DNA—only to conveniently lose a big, clunky, unusual-looking timepiece, with an engraving that makes it extremely identifiable?”
