Chapter Thirty-Six

Thirty-Six

I moved quickly to Sky's dresser to gather her things, placing them in the duffel bag she said I'd find on her closet shelf. From a shoe rack in the same roomy and well-organized closet, I took the pair of Chucks she requested—the red ones she'd been wearing yesterday, when we met. Next, I grabbed her toiletry bag out of the primary bathroom.

As I was about to leave the bedroom, my phone dinged. It was a text from Lee.

Thanks for talking to Sky. We have her on tape now, identifying Welch as the shooter.

No problem , I responded. You hear back from the lab about that baggie Trevor Weiss was carrying?

His text arrived quickly, crossing paths with mine: Lab thinks the substance in the bag is a designer drug that contains a very powerful distilled alkaloid.

I replied: Like cocaine?

More like a much stronger nicotine , he wrote. Not much of a high. Whole point is that it's highly addictive.

I typed: Why would Dylan want that?

Lee responded: Your guess is as good as mine.

I stared at my phone, thinking about, of all things, what Lydia had told me the other evening. When I was talking to her over my Bluetooth, just before I got into that high-speed chase with Moon's baseball cap?wearing flunky, she told me about Dylan's phone conversation with the "research scientist," how skeptical she'd been about it—and how she'd overheard Dylan saying, What's the point if there's no buzz?

I had a thought. It was a compelling one that had come to me quickly, Lydia's voice in my mind and that staff picture right in front of me, those raised cans of a then-harmless new product. Things were adding up a little too quickly.

Thx , I texted Lee.

I put down the duffel bag and moved over to Sky's computer. I turned it on, thinking of Blake, his sudden love for Gonzo, how strange he'd been acting over the past few days, and of the awful crash once I forced him to quit cold turkey. Blake—who normally thought of sugary soda as poison—had downed an entire case…

The whole point is that it's highly addictive.

I started to scan the desktop. I felt bad for doing this. Sky had been through so much already. Yet Rand Carlson, that fetus-faced lab supervisor, had said it himself: Mr. Welch isn't the kind of person who likes seeing how the sausage gets made.

Sky was, though. Sky—the ultimate pleaser, who lived and breathed Gonzo to the point of turning her living room into an eyesore, just to match the cans—was more than willing to make the sausage herself. After seeing the company take a hit following the death of Rhonda's daughter, Sky, Carlson told me, had asked for his "best and brightest" to come up with a new formula. Which brought us straight to the doomed Trevor Weiss, the baggie of this "highly addictive" substance sewn into his jacket.

According to Rand Carlson, Trevor Weiss had worked closely with Sky and other corporate people on that formula, this tiny brain trust, devoted to the same project for weeks, if not months. Who wouldn't grow close in a situation like that? Yet one day after his tragic death, Sky—kind, empathetic Sky—had referred to Trevor as simply "that lab tech."

I remembered the text on Dylan's phone: WHERE R U? Somehow, on some device somewhere, the two of them had arranged a meeting. Maybe it wasn't because Trevor was trying to extort money from Dylan or sell him drugs. Maybe he was trying to alert him as to what his COO had done to the formula—without knowing Dylan was in on it. And maybe that's why Dylan had shot him, later bragging about it in that audio message to Elspeth.

Was Sky Dylan's accomplice—or was it the other way around? And if that was the case, why had he tried to kill her?

I scanned Sky's desktop. I wasn't sure what I was looking for—research papers on the addictive effects of certain alkaloids when mixed with carbonated water and caffeine, maybe. Or a nondisclosure agreement regarding all scientific work on Gonzo's new formula, made out to and signed by Trevor Weiss.

Of course, I had no such luck. There were no documents in sight. The screen was filled with audio and video files, which made sense, I supposed, for someone who had double-majored in data sciences.

I was probably barking up the wrong tree. All Lee had said was "highly addictive" substance, and here I was, turning Sky into the Griselda Blanco of energy drinks, with Dylan her disgruntled partner in crime.

I was about to shut the computer down when I noticed one video file. Sky had named it Gonzo Marilyn. I had no idea what that could possibly mean—and I was curious enough to want to sneak a look.

The video file was only one and a half minutes long. I tapped the Play button.

It was black-and-white footage of Marilyn Monroe in that famous glittering dress she wore to celebrate JFK's birthday. I would have thought for sure it was archival—save for the fact that Marilyn was holding a can of Gonzo. "Happy birthday, Mr. President," Marilyn crooned in her whispery voice, before toasting the camera with the anachronistic can and then kissing it, as though it were an Academy Award. "Have a Gonzo with me."

I actually gasped. It was the creepiest thing I'd ever seen: a perfect deep-fake video, in which Marilyn's every gesture looked real and natural, the lips synched expertly with the voice. And the voice…The voice was perfect.

My phone buzzed. I nearly jumped out of my skin. I pulled it out of my bag and looked at the screen. Sky's name was on it. My stomach tightened. I shut down the computer fast, as though she could see me through the screen—and for all I knew, she may have developed that technology, too. I took a deep breath, put on a smile, and answered, forcing myself to sound normal. "Hey, Sky."

"Hey, Sunny," she said. "I was just wondering if you were able to find everything okay."

"Yeah," I said. "I, uh, couldn't find the Chucks at first, but now I've got them, and I'm on my way back."

"It turns out the doctors and I were a little over-optimistic," she said. "They want to keep me overnight for observation, so no need to rush. But whenever you get a chance, I'd love to have my stuff anyway. I'm hoping they let me out first thing tomorrow."

"Sure," I said. "I'll be there before visiting hours are over."

"Thank you so much," she said. "The pain is really starting to set in, and the thought of my having to wear that Gucci suit…"

I forced a laugh. "Say no more."

I ended the call. Don't assume. I said it out loud. "Don't assume. You don't know anything yet. Stop creating narratives in your head until you have the facts to back them up."

Don't assume. Think. Doubt. Ask questions. Learn the truth.

I grabbed the duffel bag and left her apartment quickly. Once I was outside in the cold, late-afternoon air, I found Elspeth's number on my phone and called it.

"Oh, hi, Sunny," she said. "Spike just made me lobster mac and cheese and he's mixing me a margarita."

"Lucky you."

"Right?"

"I'll let you get back to it, but I wanted to ask you one question."

"Yeah?"

"That phone call you got from Dylan this morning, when he told you to go back to the office."

"Yeah?"

"You said you kept trying to ask him why he wanted you to do all these things, but he wouldn't tell you."

"That's right," she said. "It was scary. But also pretty annoying."

"I get that," I said. "Can you tell me, though, if he ever spoke to you directly during this conversation?"

"What do you mean?"

"Did he respond to or repeat anything you said? Did he answer any of your questions? It can be as minor as his saying ‘Yeah' or ‘No.' Or getting angry with you. Telling you to shut up."

"No, he didn't."

"Did he say anything to you at all that didn't sound like he was reading from a script?"

"No," she said. "I'm telling you. He just kept repeating the same things, over and over and over."

"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.