from her own Uptown address...but so very far from her safe world. When Tre finished his account, he hung his head. “I never should have gone with Grady. Don’t change nothin’, but I wouldn’t be here. I wouldn’t have seen my friend bleedin’ in the street.”
Detective Clancy’s eyes were flat. “True, but your quick response with the passenger in the backseat may have saved his life.”
Tre looked up. “Yeah, but what kind of life is that?”
Dez cleared his throat. “You think there’s no value in saving that dude? No value in you? Me?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You implied it. Some of us are born in the streets, but that doesn’t define us, Tre. We have choices. Your friends had choices. That life’s sometimes hard is no reason to think it’s not worth doing.”
The detective clicked off the recorder. “Tre, I know tonight was hard on you. I’ve been out in the world long enough to understand some guys feel like the police don’t care about what happens in the streets, but you’re wrong. Every person matters. Your friend Grady might have made some mistakes, but he mattered. We’ll do our best to find who did this. That’s our job. Your job is to take the gifts you’ve been given and use them. I’ll do my job. You do yours.”
The other detective signaled Clancy and jerked his head toward the door.
“If you folks will excuse me.” He picked up the recorder, closed the folder and followed the larger detective out of the room, the door snicking shut behind them.
“Sorry,” Tre said, spreading his hands, catching sight of the blood on his sleeves and frowning. “I messed up tonight.”
“Yes,” Eleanor said, folding her hands and studying a ragged nail that needed filing. Funny how the most mundane of things struck a person in odd moments, like sitting in a police interrogation room. “But you also did a lot of things that were smart. Like leaving when you could. Going back when you were needed. We all make mistakes. It’s how we handle living with the repercussions that’s the measure of our character.”
Tre studied her. “That sounds like something on a poster at school.”
“Maybe that’s where I got it.”
Dez sank into the chair the detective vacated moments before. “You’re not in trouble.”
“I was an accessory or something. I was in the car. They pin that shit on people.”
The door opened. “Mr. Jackson?”
“Yeah?”
“I need to get some contact information since you are a material witness and then you’ll be free to go. Please write down your address, your place of employment and your home and cell phone numbers. Can you do that?” He passed a legal pad to Eleanor along with a pen.
She handed it to Tre with a smile. “See?”
Relief washed over Tre’s young face as he took the pad and pen. “Sure.”
The door closed again as Tre scratched the needed info on the pad. After he clicked the pen closed, he looked up. “Thank you for coming down here. Not many people would do that.”
“You have a poor opinion of people, don’t you?” Dez said.
Tre shrugged but said nothing.
“I get it,” Dez said, studying the boy who was more man than boy. But at that moment, all Eleanor could see was a child, a frightened child who’d seen too much of the underside of life. “You haven’t had much reason to expect people to care about you, but if you’d stop squeezing yourself into what you think you should be, you might find you can be more than expected. You might find happiness. You might find a family.”
As Dez’s words fell on Tre, they also fell on her. Was he killing two birds with one stone? Had he meant those words as much for her as he had meant them for Tre?
Tre stood. “When life shits on you, it’s hard not to want an umbrella.”
Dez nodded. “That’s a good analogy, but if you’re always carrying an open umbrella, you’ll never feel the sun on your shoulders. I don’t know about you, but I like the way the sun feels on my face. It’s okay to put down the damn umbrella.”
“I did. I called y’all, didn’t I?”
Eleanor pulled Tre into a quick, hard hug. She released him and stepped back. “I’m glad you did.”
For once, Tre didn’t look pained. “I am, too,” he said.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
SEVERAL DAYS AFTER she and Dez had picked Tre up from the police station, three men were arrested in the triple homicide. The man Tre had called Hoops was still