Sunshine couldn’t keep his big stupid shoes out of his big, stupid mouth.
“Jo? Is that short for Josephine or something?”
She raised one eyebrow. “It’s just Jo.”
I grinned. “Atta girl. Don’t give an inch. It’s a good name.”
“Nice name,” Lu said.
I groaned. When she was picking—antique hunting for the dealer who paid top dollar for her to find rare and usually magical items—she was all about chatting up a seller. But out among normal life and normal folk, my Lu didn’t like to rub more than two words together.
Picking kept money in the bank. It also gave us a chance to dig for artifacts and magical items that might bring us closer to solving our Unliving problem.
It was a thin hope, one that had gotten thinner over the years. But if there was a chance we might be able to change what happened to us, we weren’t going to give up on it.
Lu sure as hell wasn’t going to back down. And if we couldn’t fix the almost-dead of our existence, well, then between the two of us, we still had more than enough anger to hunt down the bastards who did this to us.
“Don’t get in the middle of this oil jockey’s business, Lu,” I went on. “Why are you trying to shine him up anyway? That apple ain’t worth Jo’s time.”
“My parents liked it,” Jo replied.
Lu nodded like that was plenty good enough reason. “They local?”
“Texas.”
“Nice out there,” Lu said.
“Can be.”
During all this, Sunshine stood there, silent, looking like he’d rather be anywhere else than in the middle of the small talk.
“You been to Texas?” Lu asked Calvin, reeling him on in.
“Here we go,” I muttered. “I am going to bet you—right here and right now—that you will regret playing Cupid. Again. It never works out, Lu.”
Sunshine let out a hard breath. “No. Never wanted too. Never got along much with those people.”
“Well, that’s real nice,” I said. “Disrespecting on a woman’s hometown.”
“And you’re still batting a thousand withthose people,” Jo said.
Lu raised her auburn eyebrows like she couldn’t believe Sunshine had let that fall outta his mouth.
Sunshine looked disappointed in himself too. He was back to that root vegetable color, his jaw locked. “Yeah. Yes. Sorry. So, um, let’s get you to the office. That is if you still want to take the job after I’ve been…well...” He rubbed his hand over the back of his neck again.
Quality looked like she wanted to say no, but she nodded. “That’s what I’m here for. Office this way?”
“Yes, here, let me.” Sunshine angled his body past the two women and made short work of crossing the little lobby and opening the office door.
The office was slightly larger than the lobby. Shelves stacked with papers and manuals lined the walls, a small red refrigerator sat in one corner. A desk with what I assumed was the wireless router and a computer that even I knew was out of style took up most the space.
Lu waited in the little lobby, but I knew she’d hear every word.
I followed Jo, who paused in the office doorway, then reached for her messenger bag strap, pulling it up and over her head.
“So the wireless just, uh…stopped working about two weeks back,” Sunshine said. “It would connect at first, but every time it did, the printer kicked in and started printing out garbage. Couldn’t get it to stop. And when I finally unplugged the internet box, it wouldn’t turn back on. Neither would the printer or the computer.”
“Where have you been doing your printing?” I wondered as Jo pulled back the rolling chair. It was old enough to have come original with the shop, but it was in good shape—no tears in the dark brown leather, no creaking in the wheels.
