“I take it you know about Marcus and the extra fifteen K?” Eddie asked.
I didn’t know how he knew about that either but I was crying so hard, I didn’t have the voice to ask so I nodded my head.
He said something in Spanish and his other arm wrapped around me, but he kept his hand in my hair, my head held to his chest.
When I got myself somewhat together, I said, “My life sucks.”
His arm around me tightened.
“I have to agree with that, Chiquita,” he murmured.
“I… I… don’t think I can fix this, Eddie,” I stammered against his chest, admitting out loud what I’d been thinking for days, burrowing closer and wrapping my arms around him. “I keep trying to think of a way out, but I can’t.”
“Let me handle it,” Eddie said.
My head came back and I looked up at him.
“How’re you gonna do that?”
Then I looked around me and realized he hadn’t answered my previous question so I pul ed back a bit and Eddie’s hand fel from my hair to wrap around my back.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
“I was lookin’ for Ray.”
Not good.
“Why?” I asked.
“A variety of reasons,” he answered.
Now Eddie was being vague.
“Those would be?”
He lifted his hand and placed it on my cheek, his thumb wiping my tears away. Then he ran his knuckles down my other cheek on the same errand. He watched his hand work and then his eyes came to mine.
“There’s this girl, see, I wanna get to know her, not to mention do other things with her. Until this mess is sorted out, gettin’ what I want is more of a chal enge than I normal y like. So, I’m gonna sort it out.”
I felt a thril race through my bel y.
“But, don’t you have a job?”
“They let me go my own way.”
The Denver Police Department didn’t let Eddie go his own way. Indy told me that Eddie just went his own way and then put up with the consequences.
“Let me do this for you, Chiquita.” His voice was soft.
“It’s a family problem, I can’t ask you…” I stopped as it hit me, “What’s Lee doing here?”
We both looked over Eddie’s shoulder. Lee and Indy were two houses down on the other side of Bear and Lavonne’s, both with hands on their h*ps and it didn’t look like a loving conversation.
Eddie looked back at me.
“Lee’s workin’ a connected job for some clients. I pul ed him in the Ray search.”
My eyes bugged out. “I can’t afford Lee!”