Chapter 28

Eats was located on Ponce De Leon, in Midtown. It was one of Eddie’s favorite haunts, for three reasons: the food was good, the décor was Spartan, and best of all, it was inexpensive. They specialized in jerk chicken and pasta dishes, an odd combo, but for less than ten bucks you could leave with a full belly and have leftovers for the next day.

Seating was a battered collection of wooden benches arranged on a faded concrete floor. Ductwork was visible above. Random scribblings covered the walls. It was like eating in a college dorm.

The lunchtime crowd was mostly locals—twenty and thirtysomethings living alternative lifestyles, Emory students, artistic types, and police officers. The noise level was high, the frenzied kitchen staff barking to one another, customers chatting to each other and shouting on cell phones.

At the front counter, Joshua and Eddie both ordered the jerk chicken, black beans, rice, and a chunk of cornbread. A cashier with numerous facial piercings shoved the hot food to them on plastic trays. They carried their meals to a bench in a quieter corner of the dining room, near a window that overlooked a side street.

Eddie rolled up his sleeves. “Now this is what I’m talking about. Good eating, dawg, and on a shoestring. You can’t beat that with a stick.”

Joshua had brought his satchel inside. Pushing away his plate, he opened the bag, removed the laptop, and placed it on the table.

“I want you to crack Rachel’s log-on password so I can have access to this computer.”

Eddie dropped his knife and fork. “What?”

Joshua realized that he hadn’t told Eddie what was going on. Eddie had no idea that Rachel had left. Joshua was in such a rush to get answers that he hadn’t thought to give Eddie any background on the situation.

“I’m sorry, I got ahead of myself,” Joshua said. “You know how I said Rachel’s been acting weird lately?”

“Yeah, you said that yesterday. What’s new?”

“She’s gone.”

“What?” This time, Eddie was so loud that a few of their fellow diners turned and looked.

Lowering his voice, Joshua summarized what had happened, in a clipped, factual manner. He didn’t dwell on his emotional responses to the situation. Doing so would have strapped him back on a roller-coaster ride of heartache, and he didn’t want to go there again.

He also omitted mention of Rachel’s pregnancy. Honoring his promise to Rachel, for all the good it would do him.

Eddie was shaking his head. “Damn, that’s . . . unbelievable. I never saw this coming. I’m so sorry, man. That’s just really fucked up.”

“Yeah, it is.” Joshua nodded tightly.

There was a long, awkward pause. Joshua ended it by tapping the laptop with his finger.

“Like I was saying, Eddie, I need your help. She’s in trouble, and I want to find out what’s going on. I think there might be some answers on her hard drive somewhere.”

Eddie’s gaze zeroed in on the computer. Already, Joshua could sense the pistons firing in his friend’s techno-geek brain.

“You’re stuck at the log-on screen, you said?” Eddie asked.

“Yeah. I’ve tried a whole bunch of passwords, and none of them work. You think you can crack it?”

“Should be doable.” Eddie picked up his jerk chicken thigh and tore into it, but his attention remained riveted on the laptop, as if he’d already begun devising a strategy to hack into the system. He swallowed. “Any idea what you’re looking for?”

“I don’t know, really. I want to skim through her files and her emails, see if anything gives me a lead.”

“If she was covering her tracks, she might have deleted everything, dawg.”

“I know. But it’s all I have to go on at this point. Oh, and this, too.” He took Rachel’s cell phone out of his satchel. “She’s got a password on the cell, too.”

“Damn, Rachel believed in keeping private things private, looks like. I can crack the celly too, no problemo.”

“How long do you think it’ll take you?”

“A few hours.” Eddie glanced at his Blackberry, checking the time. “I’ve got a couple appointments, but I’ll postpone them for this. You’re my boy. This is priority number one.”

“I appreciate it, man.”

Eddie licked his fingers. “Hey, you gonna eat your chicken?”

“You can have it. I don’t have an appetite.”

Eddie speared Joshua’s chicken with a fork and dropped it onto his own plate. “What’re you gonna do while I’m working on this stuff?”

“Hang out at home, maybe. Go through her file cabinet. I looked in there yesterday and didn’t find anything, but . . .” He shrugged. “My state of mind was pretty messed up at the time.” Still is, he thought.

“Talk to her girls. That’s what I’d do next.”

“Rachel doesn’t have any close girlfriends. There’re the women she works with at the salon, but she keeps people out of her private life. I used to think it was weird that she never really had any girlfriends she’d hang with. Maybe it was by design.”

“Even so, it’s worth a shot,” Eddie said. “Chances are she told something to at least one of those sistas. How about the woman who co-owns the salon?”

“Tanisha? I could try her.”

“Women love to gab, you know that,” Eddie said. He was quickly working his way through the food; he’d already devoured most of his own chicken, rice, beans, and cornbread, and started on the chicken he’d taken from Joshua. He poked Joshua’s plate with his fork. “You want any of this, dawg?”

“It’s all yours.”

Eddie dragged the plate in front of him. Joshua wondered where Eddie put all of the food. The guy had a bottomless pit for a stomach, never gained an ounce.

The people sitting around them also were enjoying their meals. Joshua was the only one not engaged in the act of eating. The realization made him feel strangely abandoned, though he was surrounded by other people.

Why did you do this to me, Rachel?Why did you leave me alone to deal with this crap? What did I do to deserve this?

After he and Eddie parted ways outside the restaurant, Joshua walked to his Expedition, which he’d parked around the corner on a residential street. A silver Acura sedan sped past on Ponce De Leon. He almost lost his balance in his attempt to twist around and see the driver.

It was a blonde-haired white woman. Not Rachel.

He had to pull himself together. If the mere sight of a car similar to Rachel’s tilted his world upside-down, he was going to lose his mind long before all of this was over.

Seated in the Explorer, he called the salon on his Blackberry. Tanisha answered.

“You’ve got good timing,” she said. “I was about to call you. Rachel wants me to give you something.”

“You talked to her? When?”

“She called me about fifteen minutes ago. I don’t understand what’s going on, honey, but you need to come to the salon. When can you get here?”