Page 45 of Is Anyone Listening?
"Do you still talk to the investigator you sent down here?"
"Sometimes. That wasn't him. That was…a family thing."
Maybe his brother, I thought.
"I've been thinking," he continued. "About the woman who left yesterday—Anna. Maybe we need to find out more about her. She's a fresh lead, a new angle."
"I thought about that, too, but I don't even know her last name."
"It would probably be on the computer at the inn."
I saw the look in his eyes. "Seriously? You think Ellen is going to let me on her computer?"
"It's not always attended, is it?"
"There are times when no one is at the desk, but Ellen is never far away. It would be risky."
"You're right. I'm going to meet Becca shortly. Maybe she can get me information on Anna."
"If you ask Becca about Anna after talking to her about Jessica, won't she start to think you're not just a nosy architect?"
"She already knows that Jessica was a…friend. She promised she wouldn't say anything. And I'll say my interest in Anna's quick departure is connected to Jessica."
I found it a little odd the way Tyler stumbled over the word friend, as if it wasn't the complete truth. But why would he be looking for Jessica if she wasn't a friend? Why would he care?
"I should get going," he continued, checking his watch. "Let's touch base later, compare notes."
"Okay." As I left the house, I couldn't help thinking that maybe one of the people I should be investigating further was him.
Chapter Twelve
After leaving Tyler, I picked up my car at the inn and drove into town, arriving at Kelly's Pub around one. When Finn saw me, he said he wanted to talk to me, but he needed a few minutes to finish up the lunch rush. Seeing him moving rapidly between the bar and the kitchen, I grabbed a small table for two by the window and ordered clam chowder in a bread bowl from another server.
The soup came fairly quickly, and while I was eating, I watched everyone and everything going on around me. There was a mix of tourists and locals in the pub. Cole and his uncle, Jeff Holloway, came in and settled in at the bar to order lunch. There was no sign of Sophie, but she was probably still working at the inn.
Cole and Jeff seemed to get along well enough. I couldn't see any tension between them, lots of what looked like joking and laughter as they ate lunch. But their easy mood disappeared when the sheriff entered the pub.
He didn't say anything particularly dramatic that I could tell, but just his arrival changed the mood between the other two men. In fact, Cole got up and left, muttering something about meeting Sophie, despite the fact that there was a half-finished sandwich still on his plate.
Tom Holloway slid into Cole's empty chair. "What are you two doing here? I thought you had an all-day charter."
Jeff shrugged and said, "It got shortened. What do you want from me? I gave your kid a job. Sometimes, charters fall through. You need to loosen up, Tom, or you're going to lose Cole."
"What are you talking about?"
I couldn't help but eavesdrop as their voices rose high enough for me to hear them.
"Cole wants to leave with Sophie," Jeff replied. "He wants to go to New York."
"That's ridiculous. What's he going to do there?"
"I assume he'll figure it out."
"No, he won't. You need to talk him out of it."
"If you don't want him to go, you talk to him."
"He doesn't listen to me."
