Elaine Orr - Jolie Gentil 07 - Vague Images by Elaine Orr Read Free Book Online Page B

biggest concern now.
    Scoobie took my crutches as I sat on the couch and propped my foot on a pillow . Thomas Edward – Lucas! – pulled over a chair from my dinette set and sat in it, leaving the rocker for Scoobie.
    “I’m looking for Hannah . Only she’s Kim now. I like calling her Hannah, but I shouldn’t. I’m Lucas Householder, by the way.”
    Scoobie nodded and sat . “You don’t know where she is?”
    Lucas recounted what he had told me, and I studied Scoobie’s face as Lucas spoke. Scoobie is doing okay now, but he had years of depression and sometimes still struggles with what he calls his demons . I know I’m not responsible for his mood or feelings, but I do worry about him. I couldn’t help but wonder if Lucas’ secretive presence and a perhaps futile search for Hannah, no Kim, would be hard on Scoobie.
    Lucas was so intent on his story that he leaned forward in his chair and occasionally gestured to emphasize a point . As he began to talk about arriving in Ocean Alley two days ago, Scoobie and I glanced at each other and then back at Lucas.
    Lucas finished and his expression was expectant, as if Scoobie or I should say we’d seen Kim at Mr. Markle’s store.
    “Where have you been sleeping?” I asked.
    Scoobie gave me a look that conveyed, “Do NOT let him stay here.”
    “It’s still warm, at least during the day. You know that park I was sitting in when I saw, um, saw the deer run in front of you?”
    I knew that park better than I would like to. It’s not even two acres, surrounded by light woods . A main road in and out of town goes past it. It’s not too far outside of Ocean Alley proper, and there was a murder there a couple of years ago.
    “Sure,” I said, and Scoobie nodded.
    “I have a back pack, not a big one, and a dark blanket. I leave my pack there during the day.”
    “Leaves will be gone soon,” Scoobie said . “Listen, Lucas, last I knew there weren’t showers hanging from the trees out there. You want a chance to get cleaned up?”
    “Boy do I . I stuck my head in the sink at a gas station, but it’s not the same.”
    I sat, thinking, while Scoobie showed him where towels were and said T…Lucas could borrow a shirt and unmentionables . I can interpret Scoobie’s expressions pretty well, and right now he was being very guarded. He’s usually the first to help someone down on their luck, as Aunt Madge would say. Why wouldn’t Scoobie want Lucas to stay with us?
    Scoobie came back to sit near me . “Jolie. Did you read the paper today?”  He took it off the end table next to the couch and tossed it to me.
    “Yes . What do you…?”
    “Look on page three at the very end of the follow-up article on that woman’s murder.”  He leaned back in the rocker and looked at me intently as I read.
    “Okay,” I murmured. “They’re looking at all the security tapes, no real suspects…”
    “Keep reading,” he said.
    “Oh.”  I had come to the end where it reiterated there were no suspects, but the police would like to talk to anyone who had been in the hospital just before and after the murder. They would especially like to talk to “a white man in his late teens or early twenties, about six feet tall, who was wearing a dark-color hoodie.”
    “It’s probably him,” Scoobie said.
    “I can’t imagine he would have killed that woman.”
    Scoobie looked at me with a skeptical expression . “Doesn’t seem likely, but we don’t know him. At the very least he needs to talk to Morehouse or someone.”
    The shower went off and I leaned all the way back on a bedroom pillow that I had plopped on the couch . “That might not be…good for him.”
    “I care about whether he can find his sister, but if he stays here when we know the police are looking for him you could get in a lot of trouble.”
    I registered that he said you instead of we . Scoobie moved into my spare bedroom after the fire at his rooming house. Most of the building could be occupied after a