Luke shrugged. He wanted to believe he could play this cool from start to finish, but knew himself better than that. “I guess I didn’t come all this way for an address.”

“That’s what I thought.”

“So then it’ll depend on his reaction. Will he recognize me? Probably, and if he had something to do with Lisa’s disappearance, I’ll know the moment I look into his eyes.” Even thinking about it caused Luke’s throat to tighten. “That’s why I want to take him by surprise—get an honest reaction.”

Kitty nodded and sipped her root beer. The ice cubes rattled, moving closer to the bottom of the glass. Neither of them spoke for several moments. Elvis sang, filling the small space at the back of the restaurant with a lamenting, ghostly falsetto—a little too apropos, in Luke’s opinion. He rotated the wheel on top of the mini-jukebox, looking for something more upbeat.

“And what if we don’t find him?” Kitty asked. “Or if we do, but you don’t get the answers you’re looking for?”

“Then I’m no worse off,” Luke said. “At the very least, I can get some closure on this guy. He’s been haunting me for too long.”

“Let’s hope for more than that.” Kitty held up her hands, fingers crossed, then found a smile that was both melancholic and comforting. “You must miss her.”

“Some days I can’t think of anything else,” Luke said, running his gaze over the song cards on the juke, but not really reading them. “It feels like all of me, even though our relationship . . . well, it wasn’t all kisses and candy. We had our moments.”

“Yeah.” Kitty nodded. “I read about that. The press made it look like you were always at each other’s throats.”

“They weren’t wrong. Our mistake was that we let the false stuff—the alcohol, the drugs, the fame—get bigger than who we were together. Does that make any sense?”

“I guess.”

“So yeah, I miss Lisa, but I don’t miss the falseness of what we became.” Luke slouched, one elbow on the counter, his hand propping up his jaw. “We were in love, though. No doubt about that. And that’s the part I try to remember.”