Chapter Twenty-Six

Twenty-Six

"Sunny. You're right on time!" Lydia said. Bill just sat there scowling at me. I greeted both of them with a smile. Lydia directed me to the place setting facing the window, and I sat down. We all drank our iced tea.

"Sky said she'd be a bit late," Lydia said. "Something at work that she had to take care of. She said to go ahead and start without her."

"You know, I'm happy about that," I said, "because there's something I wanted to discuss with the two of you, alone."

"Sky can hear anything you have to tell us," Lydia said. "She's like a second child to us."

"All the same," I said.

"A second child who isn't ruining our lives like the first child does continuously," Bill said.

"Bill," Lydia said.

I drank my iced tea. Balthazar pushed a cart into the room. He placed bowls of consommé in front of us and set a basket of bread on the table. We all picked up our spoons. I took a sip of my consommé and waited for the butler to leave. Once he did, I launched into the speech I'd been dreading. "Okay, so…the good news is, your son is definitely alive."

"That's splendid. Splendid," Lydia said.

"Where the hell is he, and why is he hiding?" Bill asked.

"I'm not sure where he is. But he's got a lot of reasons to be hiding."

"You can say that again," Bill said. "I already know of one."

"Bill," Lydia said. "Let Sunny speak."

I then launched into the bad news, which started with the fact that Dylan had basically admitted to killing Trevor Weiss in an audio message to Elspeth.

"Good God, why?" Lydia said.

I then moved on, flashback-style, to the first time he contacted Elspeth after his disappearance, how he'd threatened to ruin and/or end her life if she didn't fetch him his gun. I told them about the stalking, the photo taken through Elspeth's bathroom window, the many times he'd called and texted her—right up through last night.

As I spoke, Bill's face got redder and redder, while the color drained from Lydia's, her cheeks sinking in, as if she were slowly deflating. I felt awful for her. I really did. As a woman, I couldn't imagine what it would be like to have a son like that. "It's not your fault," I told her.

Bill spoke through his teeth. "What exactly were the files he asked the receptionist to delete?" he said.

"Elspeth didn't know," I said. "She was frightened. She said she just wanted to get out of there as soon as possible and so she deleted them without opening them."

"I know what files they were," Bill said.

Lydia gave him a withering look, then turned to me. "Any other news about Dylan, Sunny?" she said. "Or is that all?"

"Is that all?" Bill said. "Did you honestly just ask that when this woman has just told us that our son is both a psychopath and a murderer?"

"He is alive," I said. "So…there's also that."

"Oh, yes, we're well aware of that ," Bill said.

I cleared my throat. "To answer your question," I said to Lydia. "There's only one more thing."

"Yes?"

"Well…He apparently owes a good deal of money."

"To whom?" Lydia said.

"A man by the name of Moon Monaghan," I said. "He's thought to be within the Burke crime syndicate."

Bill was close to purple now. "What does he owe the money for?"

I stared down at my consommé. Balthazar returned with his cart. I was grateful for the interruption, as it was an excuse to stay silent, even for a few minutes. Balthazar removed our bowls and placed dishes in front of us. Salad Nicoise with seared rare tuna and the welcome addition of fresh crab. The hard-boiled eggs were perfectly done. It all looked incredible. But sadly, at this point, I'd completely lost my appetite.

Once Balthazar left, I turned to Bill. "As I understand," I said quietly, "it's for some designer drugs that he purchased."

Bill slammed his hand on the table. His salad shivered from the impact. "I told you, Lydia," he said. "I told you."

"You do not know it was him," Lydia said.

"Of course it was him," Bill said. "Who else could it possibly be?"

"Mistake," Lydia said. "Clerical error. Why must you always assume the worst of Dylan?"

"Excuse me?" he said. "Did you happen to hear what this woman has just told us?"

It was the second time over the course of five minutes that he'd referred to me as "this woman," as though I was some stranger on an elevator. It annoyed me. But I wasn't about to say anything about it.

"I heard what she told us, Bill," Lydia said. "But have you not heard of the phrase innocent until proven guilty ? What if Dylan has been kidnapped and he's being forced to make these audio recordings and send them to this young girl? What if it was one of his kidnappers who killed the chemist—perhaps just to make our son look bad? To prove correct all the awful things you've always believed about him?"

"You're delusional, Lydia," Bill said.

"I am not," Lydia said. "Sunny. Isn't what I said possible?"

"Yes," I said. "It's possible." I turned my attention to my salad. I took a small forkful of the crab and put it in my mouth. I chewed and swallowed. It was heavenly. I topped it off with a swallow of iced tea. "Mr. Welch," I said. "You mentioned a reason you knew of, as to why Dylan might go into hiding."

"He doesn't know of anything," Lydia said.

I kept looking at Bill.

"I don't know if you passed him on your way in, but Gonzo's chief financial officer was just here," Bill said. "His name is Martin Jennings."

"Yes, I saw him."

"Martin is a good man, but he's been known to jump to conclusions," Lydia said.

"No, he hasn't been known to do anything of the sort," Bill said.

"Why did he come to your home?" I said.

"Apparently," Bill said, "someone has been siphoning money from the company's payroll fund for the past several weeks. Our son and Martin are the only ones able to access that money. At first, it was done in small increments and went unnoticed, but lately the sums removed have been much larger. And now that you tell us that Dylan is definitely alive and owes money—"

"He could have been pressured to do it," Lydia said. "I'm telling you, Bill. He could have been forced—"

"To steal money from his employees? To finance his drug habit? And…And pay off the Mafia?"

His face was changing color again.

"Look, Mr. and Mrs. Welch—"

"Lydia."

"Mr. Welch and Lydia," I said. "You guys hired me to find your son."

" She hired you," Bill said.

"I was hired to find your son. And that's what I'm going to try my best to do. When I bring him back, you'll have the answers to all your questions. But until then—and I'm saying this for your own good as well as mine—it's best not to speculate."

They both stared down at their plates. Lydia took a bite of her salad. Bill drank his iced tea. I ate some of the tuna. It was very good. I wished I was hungrier.

"A few times, at our house in Nantucket, I took Dylan and his cousins fishing," Bill said quietly.

"That was sweet of you, Bill," Lydia said. "I know Dylan so loved the attention."

"I enjoyed those times, too," Bill said. "Until I found out that Dylan was stealing his cousins' fish, claiming he was the one who had caught them."

Lydia pushed her food around on her plate, then set her fork down. She lifted her napkin and dabbed at her cheek so subtly, it took me a while to realize she was crying.

"He has always been an embarrassment," Bill said.

"Because you never approved of him," Lydia said.

"He never gave me any reason to approve of him."

"You're his father ," Lydia said. "That should be a good enough reason !"

I cleared my throat loudly.

The two of them went silent, as though they just remembered I was still there.

"Maybe he was just trying to impress you, Mr. Welch," I said.

"Excuse me?"

"I was just thinking," I said. "Maybe Dylan knew that he wasn't a fisherman. But he also knew you liked fishing. And he wanted to make you think that he was good at something that you liked. He wanted that bad enough to…uh…steal his cousins' fish on a family vacation."

No one said anything for several seconds, my own words hanging in the air. Why had I just said all of that? Maybe I'd been in analysis for too long.

Bill turned to me, a pained look on his face, as though he'd just been punched in the stomach but was trying to be strong about it. "Who knows why Dylan does anything?" He said it very quietly.

"It was just a thought," I said. "And anyway, it's none of my business."

Lydia dabbed at her eyes and folded up her napkin. There were still mascara smears on her face, but she was no longer crying. And when she spoke, her tone was calm and measured. "The police haven't called us, you know," she told me. "You said they'd call and they haven't yet, and so I just assumed they'd found another suspect."

"I'm sorry," I said.

"Why?" she said. "It isn't your fault."

I heard hard-soled shoes clacking down the hallway. We all turned toward the sound.

"What now?" Bill said.

"I don't want to know," Lydia whispered.

Balthazar stood in the doorway. He was holding up a phone. "I hate to interrupt, but you have a call, Mrs. Welch. They said it was very important."

Lydia nodded. She took the phone and said "yes" several times. Then she ended the call and closed her eyes and brought her hands to her face. Her hands were trembling. Her body began to heave.

"What is it, Liddie?" Bill said quietly. He rose from his seat and went over to put his arms around his wife. He pulled Lydia to him. She leaned in to his shoulder. "What happened? It's okay. I'm here. You can tell me."

Lydia looked up at Bill, her eyes big and helpless, her face shining from fresh tears. "That was Maurice Dupree," she said. "Sky has been shot."