Unseen (Will Trent / Atlanta Series)

scene. He’d loosened up on the drive. He talked a bit about Hilton Head, his boyhood summers spent sleeping on the beach and stealing wallets from stupid tourists who left their stuff out in the open while they swam in the ocean.
    As with the previous night when they’d driven to Lena’s house, Tony was fidgety—playing with the radio, tapping his fingers on the dashboard, keeping one hand barely on the wheel. His music selection was surprising. The Madonna CD in the player was from the eighties. He hit the replay button on “Like a Virgin.”
    “I saw her at the Atlanta Omni back in ’87.” Tony took a sipof beer. He’d already washed down a couple of pills from a Baggie in the glove compartment. “She’s a tiny little thing. Got them weird bras make her tits look like bullets.”
    Will stared out the window.
    “Sorry about before,” Tony said. “When I got mad about Florida.”
    Will shrugged.
    “I had some bad shit go down in Sarasota when I was sixteen.”
    Instead of asking for more, Will shrugged again. “No problem.”
    “Got arrested down there. Near ’bout got my ass throwed in jail.” He gave a wet-sounding belch. “Gave the cops my brother’s name. Half brother. He’s a stupid little shit. Got hisself thrown in for twenty years off a bank holdup.” Tony laughed. “Dumbass hit a bank. Can you believe that?”
    Will shook his head. As crimes go, robbing a bank offered the lowest payout with the highest risk. “Not too bright.”
    “You damn right. They tracked him straight back to his old lady’s door.” Tony finished the beer. He rolled down the window and threw out the can. “Don’t tell Cayla what I said about giving his name to the cops.”
    “She won’t hear it from me.”
    “Good deal.” He popped open another can of beer. “Cayla’s all hung up on us being related, but my daddy was with her mama less than two years. That ain’t nothin’. And even if it was, I don’t care.”
    Will held back a response.
    “I seen you lookin’ at her, Bud. I don’t mind that. I know she’s pretty. Lots of men like to look at her.” He pointed his finger Will’s way. “Just don’t touch her.”
    There was a threat in his voice, but Will was so far removed from being interested in Cayla Martin that he couldn’t take it seriously.
    “Her mama’s got four other kids. They put me in the basementwith the boys. She used to come down there when she was drunk and show me a good time.”
    Will’s shock must have been apparent.
    Tony snorted beer up his nose. He coughed it out of his mouth. “No, man, not the mama. I’m talking about Cayla. She’d come down them stairs wearing her panties and a tight shirt and pretty soon the sheet I’m under’s lookin’ like a pup tent.” He chuckled at the memory. “I can’t even tell you the shit we got up to down there. Liked to burn down the house.”
    Will fervently hoped he would not. “How long have you known her?”
    Tony didn’t have to think about it. “Been in love with her since we was fifteen.”
    “That’s a long time.”
    “Damn right it is.”
    Will looked out the window as Tony chugged his beer. There were three cans left in the six-pack. Will guessed from the shape and color of the pills in the Baggie that Tony had taken some Oxy.
    Will said, “Slow down.”
    Tony’s foot was already on the brake. He pressed the pedal, but the speed barely changed. “I know Cayla gives me shit sometimes, but I’m the one she always calls when she needs something.” He glanced at Will. “That’s when you know how a woman feels about you. The shit hits the fan, who does she call?”
    Will tried not to think about Sara.
    “You hear what I’m sayin’?”
    Will nodded.
    “I mean it, Bud. I love her. She’s the only damn reason I get up some mornings.” He wiped under his eyes with the back of his hand. “She’s all I got.”
    Will didn’t have many male friends, but he gathered sitting around talking about love while listening to Madonna was not high on the list of manly pursuits. “You’re gonna grow a vagina if you keep talking like that.”
    Tony barked a laugh. “Hell, Bud, that’s just what she does to me. Ain’t you never been in love?”
    Will was so in love that he couldn’t see straight.
    “What was it like at MacDill?”
    Will took his time answering—not because he had to recall the details, but because Bill Black wasn’t the type to volunteer information. “Why do you want to know?”
    “I dunno,