“Photo text from Ralphie,” she murmured, hit her screen again then turned her phone to Daisy and me. It had a picture of black office furniture on it that looked like it was a photo of a photo on a computer screen.
“That’s it!” Daisy cried.
I studied the photo. It looked like most of the seventeen other choices Ralphie poo-pooed.
Daisy snapped at Sadie with her fingers. “Tell him to order a catalogue from wherever that is.”
“Daisy, you know they probably have all the photos on the website. We just need the web address and we won’t have to wait on a catalogue,” I told her.
“If we don’t have a catalogue, we can’t put these sticky-tabby things on them,” she told me, pointing a long lethal nail at the tagged catalogues.
“That’s very true,” I replied. “But if you like that, Ralphie likes it, it fits in the budget, you could also order it, say, today, and have the freaking furniture on its way so you’re closer to sitting your ass behind a desk, rather than waiting for catalogues you can put sticky-tabby things in and delay your ass being behind an actual desk.”
“Good point,” she mumbled and looked at Sadie, “Tell him to send the web address.”
Sadie bent to her phone.
The bell over the door rang.
I looked to it to see Eddie coming in. His eyes were aimed to the espresso counter, and I knew he saw Jet when I saw his dimpled smile.
Then his eyes came to me and his smile fled. He lifted his hand and crooked a finger at me before he turned it toward the bookshelves and pointed there.
There was a time when Eddie Chavez crooking his finger at me would make my happy place spasm. Alas, your brother’s best friend was off-limits. Not to mention he had a thing for Indy before he lost his heart to Jet. So I had no shot.
Now, him crooking his finger at me and ordering me to the shelves in nonverbal badass I found annoying.
Still, he was championing my cause with Lee and Hank so I figured the least I could do was haul my ass to the shelves.
“Be back,” I muttered to the girls and hauled my ass to the shelves.
I didn’t know how deep into the bookshelves we needed to be for whatever Eddie had to say so I hedged my bets and stopped at the vinyl in the middle.
It appeared this was satisfactory because Eddie did no more pointing nor did he give me a chin lift or head jerk.
He stopped close to me.
“Bomb guys and police are done goin’ through what’s left of your apartment. They’ve released what they could find of your belongings that survived the blast. Hank wasn’t around so they gave it to me. It’s not much, two boxes, but I’ll drop it by Zano’s place.”
We had to be in the shelves for this?
I didn’t ask that.
I said, “Thanks, Eddie.”
I then wondered what survived the blast, and hoped it was my Firefly series DVD.
“Heard you’re gettin’ up in Darius’s shit,” he stated, and I focused on him to see his eyes were intent.
I was wrong. This was why we were in the shelves.
“Yes, Eddie, I am. And don’t give me any lip about it, all right? You guys need to give each other macho badass space? Fine. But I’m not a macho badass. I’m a girlie badass. And I’m getting into his space.”
Eddie made no reply. He just held up his hand, two fingers extended, and between them was a small piece of folded paper.
I took it, unfolded it and saw an address written on it.
“Anyone asks, you didn’t get that from me,” Eddie said firmly.
I looked up at him. “What is it?”
“You go there, you’ll know,” he replied mysteriously.
“Eddie, just tell me what it is,” I demanded.
“Like I said, chica, you go there, you’ll know.”
“Why the mystery?” I asked.
“Because I worked my ass off for f**kin’ years to keep Darius in my life. He’s mi hermano. What we got, our history, he means a f**kuva lot to me. And if he knows I gave you that, he’s a memory to me. I give you more, honest to God, no tellin’ what he’d do. So you take that. You go there. You’ll know why I gave it to you.”
He leaned into me and his voice dropped low.
“But I’m trustin’ you, Ally. You go cautious with what you do with what you find out. You f**k this up, we got problems. Hear me?”
Holy crap!
What was at this address?
“You didn’t answer me,” Eddie prompted.
“Right, big badass cop, I’m standing right here so I heard you. And just to say, I’m tight with Darius too. We also have history. So you saying that shit to me means you don’t understand that what I’m trying to do is get him right. Not f**k him up further and definitely not drive him away.”
Eddie held my eyes then leaned back, lips twitching as he murmured, “Jeez, you’ve always had balls, Ally.”
“No, I don’t. I’m a girl. What I’ve always been is a Rock Chick,” I retorted.
“Whatever, same thing” he muttered. “We’re done. Gonna go see my wife.”
Then without a good-bye (or even a chin lift), he was gone.
I looked down at the slip of paper in my hand.
Then I rearranged my afternoon.
* * * * *
I sat in my car, eyes on the house at the address Eddie gave to me.
It was a new build in Stapleton. Not big. Not small. Well-kept, but then again, in this ‘hood, the HOA Nazis wouldn’t let it be anything else.
It was late afternoon and I’d sorted what I needed to sort for my night’s activities. I’d also called my ex-landlord and got voicemail, but asked for a return call. I also left a voicemail to Brody because I didn’t think it was fair to let him keep obsessing about the Rock Chick books when the mystery was solved.
I just didn’t know exactly what to say to him to get him to stop or if I was going to let that cat out of the bag. And if I did, how to do it at the same time managing damage control.
Coming to no conclusions about any of that, and since nothing was happening on my stakeout and I was curious (okay, worried), I called Ren.
He answered with, “Hey, baby.”
“Hey back at cha,” I replied. “How’s your day?”
“If that’s non-invasive Ally Speak for how did things go with Vito, it went shit.”
Oh man.
“What happened?” I asked.
“He said if I try to pull our assets from under him, it means war.”
Holy shit!