Lola giggled at his side, and the sound brought an instant smile to his lips.
Sarah Boyle eyed him skeptically.
Lola, not noticing her friend’s expression, added, “It was really bad. What happened? You’re usually so…carefree and relaxed.”
“I have no idea!” Sarah threw her hands in the air and started walking back through to the living room, her long skirt sashaying about her ankles as she left Jacob and Lola to follow. “I mean, I was genuinely attracted to him before that. Come on…any girl would be because…holy smokes! But after actually getting to know him…Ugh! He has the personality of a carrot. And you know that I hate carrots.”
The long, tiled hallway gave way to a huge, lofted lounge decorated in the classic French style. Jacob hadn’t noticed the last time he’d been in it, having had only eyes for Lola at the time. He took in the room, consciously kept his eyebrows from rising when he studied the herringbone, hardwood floor, the griffin-clawed furniture spread tastefully throughout, all seemingly composed around a gorgeous, crystal chandelier that dripped strands of sparkling stones. Even Jacob, who knew next to nothing about interior decorating or the cost, knew that he was standing in a very tasteful, very expensively decorated room.
“Hey, man.” Zac came towards him, holding a beer in his hand. The girls stopped chatting for a moment and Zac smiled at Lola. “Hey, Lol.”
“Hi, Zac,” she replied easily, surprising Jacob by the casual friendliness between them. They were obviously more acquainted with each other than he’d assumed.
“What do you have?” Jacob asked.
Zac indicated with his head to a large sofa in the far corner of the room before leading the way. Jacob was glad that the girls stayed put, laughing easily together as they recounted the date. The last thing that he wanted to do was worry Lola and he knew that if Zac had anything but good news, it would do just that.
He sat down next to his friend, noticed the worried look in his eyes but didn’t say anything, choosing instead to let Zac lead the conversation. “I finally tracked down the contact that I have in the anonymity group this morning and she said that Valkyrie hasn’t shown up to any of the meetings in two weeks.”
Jacob felt a swift kick of wariness settle in his chest. “You think that she’s dead?”
“I’m hoping no, but…I can’t be sure considering I don’t even know who she is.” Zac glanced towards the girls, who had sat down on the other side of the room, close enough that Jacob could hear that they were still talking about Matt. “Did you show Lola the picture?”
Jacob grunted and rubbed a hand through his hair. He had shown her the picture of the woman who called herself Valkyrie. “She didn’t recognize her. I’ve asked her a dozen questions, but all we know is that she loosely knew Selma Holt and that she ran into Selma and the other two girls at the diner.”
He thought of the woman in the picture, remembered her tiny frame standing next to Veronica Tally’s taller one. He remembered the haunted look on her face, made worse by expensively styled bangs that seemed to frame the fear in her eyes and the hand stretched out in front of her as if she had realized, too late, that a picture was being taken and that she wanted to stop the photographer.
“We need to figure out who HAK is,” Zac bit out, sitting back in the chair. “I’ve run through every fictional character that I know of, even spent hours on Google trying to piece it together.”
“What’s that?” Sarah asked, her green eyes frowning at them.
Jacob kept quiet because he wasn’t obligated to tell Sarah Boyle anything. Zac, on the other hand, was working for her. “The man that we’re looking for was called HAK by the girls in the anonymity group I told you about. They all used fictional names,—Raksha, Selina Kyle, Valkyrie—but we can’t figure out what HAK stands for.”
“Are you sure it’s an acronym?”
“Don’t be daft! What else would it be?” Zac scoffed, surprising Jake with his obvious comfort around Sarah Boyle. They seemed closer to siblings than friends, closer to squabbling than having a conversation.
“Hak?” Sarah suggested.
“Hak? Do you know any fictional characters called, ‘Hak’?”
Feeling that he needed to interrupt the group’s spiral, Jake interrupted with, “The girl that I interviewed—Veronica Tally’s best friend—said that Veronica called him H—A—K. She spelled it out, like an acronym.”
Sarah squinted, obviously thinking about the acronym. From the seat next to her, Lola flashed him a smile, sending his heart racing in his chest.
“Harvey Apollo Kent?”
“What?” Both Jacob and Zac said at once.
“Like Two-Face? First appearing in the Earth-Two Universe?” When the boys just stared at her, she looked at Lola, who just smiled and shook her head, then back at them. “What?”
“Two-Face is Harvey Dent,” Zac argued. “Isn’t he?” He eyed Sarah skeptically, clearly unsure as to whether or not he should be impressed or wary.
“His origin is as Harvey Apollo Kent. They only changed it to Harvey Dent later to avoid confusion with Superman…Clark Kent.”
“How do you know this?”
Sarah looked at Zac like he was quite stupid, her pale eyebrows raised condescendingly. “I grew up with three older brothers, who were all bigger and stronger than me.”
“What does that have to do with anything? I know your brothers.”
“So, they weren’t smarter,” Sarah smirked. “I annihilated them on comic book poker night.”
“Comic book poker night?” Jacob asked. That sounds awesome.
“Yeah. Like regular poker but with comic books instead of cash.” She shrugged and turned away from him, back to Lola.
Jacob looked at Zac for a full thirty seconds, before they both shot off the couch. “I have my phone,” Jake said, pulling it out of his pocket.
“Google it!”
“I am!” Jacob could feel his heart beating in his chest as he pulled up the DC Database Fandom and searched the site for Harvey Apollo Kent. He started reading aloud. “Originally one of the most dedicated and committed attorneys, Harvey ‘Apollo’ Kent was assigned to handle the murder case of mob boss ‘Boss’ Moroni….” Glancing up at Zac, he grinned. “We need to comb this. Veronica Tally was a comic book nerd. There had to be a reason that she labeled him HAK.”
“If it’s the right HAK,” Zac countered.
“Come on, Zac! Veronica went by Selina Kyle!’
“So?”
“Selina Kyle is in the Batman family! They’re two characters from the same comics.”
“Yeah, but Valkyrie is Marvel. And Raksha is from a kid’s cartoon.”
“And Catwoman came way after Harvey,” Sarah chimed in from the couch where she sat with Lola. Jacob noticed that both of them wore the same wide grins, but he didn’t mind them being smug. Sarah had just given them a lead.
“Sarah, what else do you know about Harvey Apollo Kent?” he asked, moving towards her.
“Ah…” She shook her head, her green eyes wide and bewildered as if she’d just realized the seriousness of the situation. “He worked as a lawyer, a DA. He had his face burned with sulphuric acid and became the villain Two-Face when his girlfriend ditched him. When put in a situation, he’d flip a coin to decide if he’d take the side of good or evil. He was a super complex character with a long story arc,” she said, her voice coming out rushed and breathy. “It would take me days to go through it all.”