Eddie vocalized it.
“Go home, Malia.”
“Well, Eddie Chavez,” Toni drawled.“Look at you.You grewup good.”
His black eyes shifted to her, he murmured, “Toni,” then helooked at me, “This is no place for you.Either of you.”
“Tell him I want to speak to him,” I ordered.
Eddie said nothing.
“Tell him, Eddie,” I demanded.
“Go home, Malia,” he repeated, the window went up, and herolled through the parking lot.
But I noted, when he turned around, he sat idling, hislights still on, waiting for us to load up and head out.
Yeesh.
Those boys.
Always having each other’s backs.
I thought it was cool back in the day.
It was annoying as all get out now.
“I don’t think Darius is gonna show,” Captain Toni of theObvious pointed out.
I huffed out a breath and got in the car.Toni got in besideme.
Eddie followed us out of the parking lot.
“You know, he’s a cop now,” Toni remarked.
“What?Who?”
“Eddie Chavez.”
I couldn’t help it.I was frustrated and ticked, but thatmade me laugh out loud.
“No, seriously, he is,” Toni said through my laughter.
“The only reason Eddie Chavez wasn’t abonafidejuvenile delinquent was because…”
I didn’t finish.
It was because Darius tempered that trio.
Lee Nightingale and Eddie Chavez were two young men whoweren’t challenged enough by school or sports, so they sought out otherchallenges, and when you were a teenaged boy, those challenges often werenefarious.
Darius had been their moral compass.
I would have thought…
“Do you know what Lee Nightingale is doing?”I asked Toni.
“He’s in the Army.I think he’s stationed in North Carolinaor somewhere.”
