Flesh and Blood by Tobin Elliott

Author:Tobin Elliott [Behse, Meghan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Nine To Bark Creative Services

Chapter Eighteen

Dan and Talia were seated toward the back of the coffee shop, Talia with her back to the wall for good sightlines throughout the store.

Both had massive mugs of coffee in front of them. Talia was rapidly consuming a comically large apple fritter. As she chewed, she looked around. The shop had a tropical beach motif going on, with a painted mural of a palm-treed beach facing a blue-green ocean.

She narrowed her eyes, swallowed, and said, “I don’t get it.”

“What’s that?”

“Why the beach scene?” She indicated the mural.

“Because of the name of the place,” Dan said.

“Brew By You?”

“It’s a pun,” he said. “The coffee shop near you, so…um…brew…by you…coffee near you.”

“Still doesn’t explain that,” she said, pointing to the mural.

“It’s a pun on the song?”

She stared at him, chewing.

“‘Blue Bayou’?” he said. “Roy Orbison?”

“Who?”

“Oh, please. Okay, um…Linda Ronstadt?”

“Never heard of her.”

“You don’t listen to music?”

“No,” she said. Taking another bite, she tapped her forehead with a sugary finger and said, muffled, “Got enough noise going on in here.”

Jesus, kid, Dan thought. What have you been through?

She shoved the last of the pastry in her mouth, chewed, and swallowed. “Anyways,” she said, and Dan tried to hide the wince, “we didn’t come here to talk about beaches and Roys and Lindas.”

Dan smiled, took a sip. Still too hot. “You’re right.” He set the mug down. “Can I start?”

Talia motioned for him to continue.

“I’m gonna tell you something that’s gonna sound like a serious load of fuckery,” he said, “but just hear me out, okay?”

“Fuckery’s kind of my thing, Dan.” True enough.

Dan gave her a high-level overview of the calls. When they came, and more importantly, who they came from.

“Your daughter?”

“Yeah.”

“You sure about that?”

“She passed both sniff tests,” he said. “Well, mostly.” He explained about the nicknames, and Monica’s middle names.

“Danielle?” she said, her brows furrowing.

“Yeah, not sure where that came from.”

“Obviously from your name.”

“Yeah. No. I know that,” he said. “But why my name? Why not tack Lila’s in there, or something?”

“Not sure,” Talia said. Dan tried to read her expression, but couldn’t. For someone so young, she had an uncommonly good poker face.

“Oh, and with that last call?” He stopped, dug into his pocket, pulled out a small wad of tissue, and unwrapped it. He set the object down on the table between them.

Talia’s eyes widened. Dan actually watched her eyes dilate. Her mouth fell open, just a fraction, but enough to blow by the poker face filters. She reached out a hand to pick it up, stopped inches short.

“It’s okay,” Dan said. “Pick it up if you want.”

Still her hand hesitated, then she slowly withdrew it. Her eyes, however, never left its gleaming surface. “Where,” she said, and the reverence in her voice caught him off guard, “did you get this?”

“The last call? The one with the names and dates? After it finished, the phone spit this out.”

“When you say, ‘spit this out’…”

“I mean the base of my phone on the front counter stretched out like it was

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