Connecting (Lily Dale #3)(43)

“Are you sure?” Jacy asks.

“He doesn’t look familiar. Did he go to school at Geneseo or something?”

“I’m not sure,” Calla admits, accepting the frame and tucking it back into her purse. “I don’t know much about him.”

“How come you’re looking for him here?”

“Good question,” she mutters, mostly to herself, then adds politely, “Thanks anyway.”

“No problem.”

“We might as well get going,” Calla tells Jacy.

“You don’t want to go around and ask the customers?”

“Why bother? I think if Darrin lives around here, we would have found someone who recognizes him by now. We’ve asked, like, a hundred people.”

“At least. Okay. You’re right. We can go. But first, let’s order something.” He gestures at the beverage menu written in colored chalk on a blackboard behind the counter, and she notices that the ghostly Hells Angel has disappeared.

“Oh, that’s okay,” Calla says, “I’m not—”

“Listen, Walt gave me ten bucks and told me to take you out for hot chocolate after the dance.”

“That’s really sweet.”

“So . . . two hot chocolates?” asks the woman behind the counter, and they both nod. “Whipped cream, too?”

“Why not? Want a brownie or something, too?” Jacy asks Calla, and she’s catapulted back in time to Florida and a rainy night and the scent of freshly baked brownies in the air.

Was it really only about nine months ago? How can that be?

The memory seems to belong to somebody else’s life story, not hers. Not the person she is now, anyway.

But it did happen—to the person she used to be, living the life that was pulled out from under her without warning.

Kevin was home from Cornell that night, on winter break. She baked for him, and they snuggled on the couch, watching a silly eighties movie and eating molten brownies straight from the oven.

I really miss Kevin, she realizes with a pang. A lot. Even now.

Well, of course. He was her first love.

But maybe he isn’t her last, as she concluded when he dumped her and it felt like her life was over.

She looks at Jacy, wondering if the two of them might ever become as close as she and Kevin were.

It’s hard to imagine . . . but not impossible. If she’s learned anything these last few tumultuous months, it’s that nothing’s impossible.

“Sure, I’ll have a brownie,” she tells Jacy, trying to sound casual, toying with the emerald bracelet, which Mom gave her last spring to help ease the pain of Kevin’s dumping her.

Jacy orders two brownies, then catches her watching him and smiles a little. “What?”

“Nothing . . . just, thanks for doing this with me.”

He grabs her hand below the bracelet and gives it a squeeze. “Don’t be disappointed. Okay?”

Caught off guard by the pleasure of his fingers clasping hers, it takes Calla a moment to figure out what he’s talking about.

Darrin Yates.

Hello? That’s why you’re here, remember?

She sighs. “I just really thought we were going to find him—or at least, find out something about him.”

Behind the counter, Rose Tattoo squirts a generous dollop of whipped cream on the hot chocolates, then covers them with domed plastic lids.

“It doesn’t mean we won’t find him,” Jacy points out. “Just not here, and not tonight.”

“What do we do next, though? Drive around the country aimlessly looking for neon purple houses?”

“Neon purple houses?” Rose Tattoo slides the cups across the counter to them. “Now that, I can help you with.”

“What do you mean?” Calla asks.

“There’s only one neon purple house here in town, and I happen to live on the same street.”

Jacy and Calla exchange a glance.

“Maybe it’s Darrin’s house,” he says.

“Nope.” Rose Tattoo shakes her head. “I know the people who live there, and it’s not the guy you showed me in that picture. It’s a mother and daughter.”

“Maybe he lived there before they did,” Calla suggests, trying not to get too excited, though it seems like they finally have a lead.

“Nope,” Rose Tattoo says again. “Sharon Logan’s owned the house for twenty, maybe almost thirty years now. I remember when she moved in—her kid was just a baby. She’s all grown up now, in her twenties, and I think she must’ve moved out because I haven’t seen her lately.”

“So, there’s not a man living there now?”

“No men. Never. It’s not like that. The Logans keep to themselves.”

Okay . . . but Calla refuses to give up on the lead. Maybe there’s some connection to Darrin Yates. How many neon purple houses can there be in the world? And this one is right here in Geneseo.

“It’s worth a look,” Jacy agrees, and asks Rose Tattoo to write the directions on a napkin.

“I wouldn’t go ringing their doorbell at night,” she advises as she hands it over. “Mrs. Logan isn’t the friendliest neighbor on my block, if you know what I mean.”

Undeterred, Calla and Jacy thank her for her help.