Page 30 of Lost Love on 6th Street

I bite my lower lip.

See, the thing is, I know more than I’ve been letting on to Eleanor. I’ve told her that the music of this city is my bread and butter. I know it like the back of my hand.

That doesn’t mean I don’t still have questions, though.

And seeing that name on this list. Knowing the face in the picture.

Each discovery only leads to more questions.

“Is that the end of the list?”

I lift my head, my mouth falling ajar. “Uh. No. Sorry.”

I finish listing out the names on the page until we finish May. I go through the rest of the ledger for posterity’s sake while Eleanor sorts through the pictures. She stacks them in three piles.

First, there’s the not applicable pile—pictures that have nothing to do with the task at hand. Then there’s the interesting pile—pictures that aren’t relevant, but Eleanor sees as potentially interesting to the museum. I’ve offered to ask Bobby if she can take them as a donation.

The final pile only exists in theory because no pictures are stacked there by the time she’s finished with the box. It’s the helpful and relevant pile.

Not a single photo. Not a single further clue.

“That’s it,” Eleanor says with a sigh.

“A bust, huh?” I ask from my place in my chair.

She shrugs and picks up the short stack of interesting. “Not totally.”

There’s frustration in her voice. I can hear it. Annoyance that the mystery has not been solved. Guilt builds in pit of my stomach. I’m helping, but not as much as I could.

If I helped as much as I could, we wouldn’t have gotten beyond that first conversation outside The Yellow Rose. Perhaps I’m tempting fate, though. Perhaps we were never meant to. If I had just been honest . . .

“How are the treasure hunters?” a woman’s voice flicks up through the hatch of the attic.

“Good, Mrs. Sutton,” I say.

The ladder rungs creak as she climbs up. I stand and go to the edge of the alcove, rising on my tiptoes to try and spot her.

“Oh, please, Luke, you know to call me Mandy.”

I can only spy the tight coils of hair at the top of her head.

“You’ve been up here a while in the heat. I’m sure you’re hungry. Dinner is ready when you two are.”

I glance back at Eleanor. She shrugs and then nods.

“Yeah, we’ve got what we needed Mandy. We’ll be down once we can find our way out of this mess.”

“Well, take your time. This double date isn’t going anywhere!”

I freeze before I can wriggle myself through the tunnel out of the alcove. I don’t dare look back at Eleanor for fear that she might have the same shocked look on her face as I do.

“Fried catfish, corn on the cob, red beans . . .” Bobby’s wife starts to rattle off as if she hasn’t just dropped an inconvenient bomb.

“Mandy, we’re not—”

Eleanor places a hand on my arm. Sparks shoot through me. “Don’t bother. It’s fine. One double date won’t kill us,” she says in a playful tone.

11

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