Page 89 of Jack
He pulled out, gave a small chuckle, and it stirred something inside her. So maybe he’d survive this.
“You have insurance?”
“Of a sort.”
“What does that even mean?”
“It means that book royalties are still good.” He pulled into the Echoes parking lot, and Conrad pulled in beside them.
“They’re like a couple bulldogs.”
“They’re your brothers. You might consider that when a guy’s home blows up, people get worried.”
“Fine.” He got out, and she followed him inside the store. Same vinyl smell along with coffee, but a different woman stood at the counter. She wore her hair in long black braids, pulled back, a purple shirt with the Echoes logo on the front, an orange apron. Her nametag identified her as the missing Tallulah.
Jack introduced himself and Harper and mentioned they’d been in on Wednesday.
“Yeah, Quinn told me,” Tallulah said. “You were looking for someone.”
“My friend Penelope.” Harper had pulled up her picture from the podcast site and now showed Tallulah.
“Who’s asking?”
“I’m her roommate, and she’s gone missing.”
“Sure, she was here. Sat at that table in the corner.” She pointed to a booth. “With a guy. Good looking. They talked for about an hour, I guess.”
“A guy,” Jack said. “Can you describe him?”
“I don’t know. Brown hair?”
“How about this?” Harper opened up a picture of Holden Walsh.
Tallulah frowned. “No.”
“How about this one?” Kyle Brunley.
“Yeah, that looks like him.”
Jack frowned. “Who is that?”
“Kyle Brunley. The man behind the voice.”
His smile came slow but sweet and poured through her. “Good work there, Watson.”
Watson?
He pulled out his phone and flashed the picture of the graffitied sedan to Tallulah. “When we were here, we saw this car outside Echoes. It’s pretty distinctive. Any idea who it belongs to?”
“Why?”
“We love the paint job,” Harper said.
“They did it themselves,” Tallulah said. “That would be my cousin Elton and his buddy Job.”
“We’d love to talk to them,” Jack said, tagging onto Harper’s vibe. “See if they might do some work for us.”
“They’re in most mornings. Hanging out with Dylan and Van Morrison.” She pointed to a corner of the shop, a vinyl getaway, with a couple plush bouclésofas and big, bulky headphones.