The only contact information Sky had for Rhonda Lewis was her lawyer’s phone number. She called him. Surprising no one, he wasn’t willing to offer up his client to aid in our search for the missing CEO of the company she was suing for the second time. “I’m not sure why I even tried that,” Sky said after ending the call.
“You want to find your friend,” I said. “You’re willing to try anything.”
Sky nodded. She shut her eyes for a moment, too choked up to speak. Could Dylan be that awful if he inspired such heartfelt emotion from an obviously intelligent woman? Well…yes, he could. It happened all the time, and with men even worse than him.
“I believe Rhonda sent Dylan those texts,” Sky said. “I think they probably scared him. But I know that she didn’t have anything to do with his going missing.”
“What makes you so sure?”
“This is going to sound weird.”
“Try me.”
“During litigation, I saw Rhonda in a resting state,” Sky said. “She wasn’t raging. She wasn’t screaming, so I was able to really see her. I was able to look into her eyes. I can read people, Sunny. And after being that close to her, I know that Rhonda Lewis isn’t capable of that type of violence.”
“You’re right,” I said. “That did sound weird.”
“Okay, fine. But from a practical standpoint, she’s suing us. Again. Why would she want to jeopardize that by…by doing something to Dylan?”
“That actually makes some sense.”
“I just want to find my friend,” she said. “And I don’t want to waste time by focusing on the wrong person.”
“How about this?” I said. “I’m going to consider Rhonda Lewis—meaning I am going to pursue the idea that she might possibly know where Dylan is and what happened to him. But I will continue to follow any leads I come across. And I will keep you and Lydia informed of everything.”
Sky sighed. “Fair enough.”
“Good.”
The one thing that Rhonda’s lawyer did mention during the call was that she was on leave from her job. And when I asked Sky where Rhonda had worked, she told me she’d been a nurse practitioner at an urgent care in Watertown. I looked up the address on my phone. It was just five minutes away from my shrink’s office in Cambridge.
“I still think you’re wasting your time,” Sky told me as we said goodbye. “She’s a nurse, Sunny. A nurse.” Sky Farley, who had clearly never watched a true crime documentary in her life.
I stopped by security again on my way out and asked Maurice if there was anything else he wanted to tell me, now that the COO wasn’t around. “Anything at all,” I said, “that might help my investigation.”
He told me the same thing that Elspeth had. “Sky likes everybody.”
“Meaning…”
“Meaning, she sees the best in people all the fuckin’ time, and while it’s admirable, it’s also annoying as shit,” he said. “Oops. Pardon my French.”
I had to laugh at that.
He grinned. “Yeah, Phil could cuss a blue streak, too, under the right circumstances.”
“And I’m a chip off the old block.”
“I can see that.”
“So you’re telling me that I shouldn’t take Sky’s opinion of people as the objective truth.”
“That’s right,” he said. “Sky’s been known to give employees second, third, and fourth chances when she shouldn’t have even given them one. The head of Quality Management went to federal prison for insider trading last year. She wants to hire him right back as soon as he’s served his term.”
“She also thinks there’s no way that Rhonda could have hurt Dylan,” I said.
“And I couldn’t disagree with her more on that.”
“Really?”
“I don’t mean any offense against Rhonda Lewis, and I feel awful for what she’s been through and I’m sure she’s a good person,” he said. “But tragedies like hers do things to your soul. They make you capable of rage and violence you never thought possible. It’s like my youngest says: ‘Hurt people hurt people.’ ”
I gave him a look. “I hope she doesn’t say it often.”
“She’s only eighteen,” he said. “She’ll grow out of it.”
I smiled. He smiled back.
“So I’m going to try and find Rhonda and talk to her,” I said. “But let’s say she doesn’t pan out. Is there anybody else you might know of who could make Dylan disappear, or make him want to?”
He rolled his eyes. “You ever meet Dylan Welch?”
“Yes.”
“So you probably could imagine him making an enemy or two. Or ten.”
“Hell, for a hot minute there, I was one of them.”
“I’m not at all surprised,” he said.
“Nobody specific, though? Nobody he spoke to security about around the time he went missing?”
Maurice shook his head. “Only Rhonda.”
“What did he say?”
“After that one incident—the one you saw on video—he wanted my team and me to help him scare her away.”
“He actually used those words? He said he wanted you guys to ‘scare her’?”
“No. What he said was he wanted us to track her down so he could send her a message. He never came out and said it, but I think he wanted her roughed up.”
“Jesus,” I said. “She’s a grieving mother.”
“And he’s Dylan Welch.”
“Good point.”
Maurice crossed his hands over his chest. “For Sky’s sake, I hope he’s okay and that you’re able to find him,” he said. “But I can’t say I’ve missed him all that much.”