Chapter Thirteen

CLYDE AND I did as Bear suggested and left soon after he did, locking the front door behind us. Bear had parked the Charger almost a full block down the street, in front of a dumpy house with several other vehicles pulled up on the grass. College kids. I couldn’t help but feel like someone, a cop or a reporter, was going to jump out at us at any moment, but very few people were on the street, and those who were didn’t give us a second glance.

Finn wouldn’t get to see his dad, after all. I felt bad about that, and told him as much as we slid into the Charger, the luxury of Bear’s car feeling almost exotic after days spent in the rumbling old Blazer.

“I’ll ask him to get the Blazer when this is all cleared up. Then he can drive to Vegas and spend a few days with me there. I think he’d be willing. He’s been trying to get me to come to St. Louis since I was released, hoping that I would go to school.” Finn shrugged and let his father’s suggestion hang in the air.

“Why don’t you? Go to school, I mean. You’re so smart. Then you could do math all day long, right?”

“Nobody wants to sit and do math problems all day, Bonnie. It isn’t like that. I love numbers and patterns, and I see them everywhere, but I don’t need to sit in school to do that. Plus, I don’t want my father to have to explain me to his colleagues. People in his circles don’t have kids who spent their college years in jail.”

“I’m guessing people in his circles don’t have kids who can multiply large numbers in their heads, and who can remember every card that’s been played in a poker game either.”

Finn grunted, like he didn’t have an answer for that and started Bear’s car.

I reached over and turned it back off. He looked at me in surprise, and I took a deep breath.

“I’ll do whatever you want to do.”

Finn raised his eyebrows, waiting for me to explain myself.

“I’ve been selfish. I can make this go away. We’ll just go to the police. I’ll make a statement. Then we’ll get the Blazer. And it’ll all be over.”

“I just told Bear I would get you to Los Angeles,” Finn said, his face blank.

“I can get myself to Los Angeles.”

“With what? You don’t have any money.”

“I have cards.”

“I’m guessing every last one of those cards has been suspended. Your gran strikes me as the thorough type.”

“So take me to a bank. I have my ID now, I have my account numbers. I’ll get what I need.”

“I’ll take you to a bank.”

I nodded, a lump rising in my throat. “Okay.”

“But we’ll do what we planned. We’ll call the shots. We go to LA—you let the world see that Bonnie Rae Shelby is just fine—and then you decide what comes next. Not your gran. Not me. You.”

I nodded again, the lump now lodged behind my eyes, making them water. I blinked hard and pulled my sunglasses out of my purse.

“Why?” I whispered, as I pushed them up my nose. “Why are you doing this for me?”

“I don’t know.” Finn answered. And I could see from his frank expression that he didn’t. He was telling me the truth. “I don’t know. I don’t want any part of this circus. I don’t want cameras in my face. I don’t want people talking about me. I don’t want to see my face on a magazine. I don’t want any of it.”

“So . . . why?” The tears leaked out from under my glasses.

“I don’t want any of that . . . but I do want you.”

When a man says something like that to a woman, he’s supposed to lean forward and kiss her. Hard. Then he’s supposed to make love to her. Harder.

But Finn didn’t. Of course not. He looked like he wanted to take the words back as soon as he’d said them, and he scrubbed his hands over his face, Finn-style, letting me know he was agitated and extremely uncomfortable. He reached over and yanked my glasses off my nose. I guess he needed to see what I was thinking. He swallowed when he saw my tears, his Adams apple working in his strong throat, and then he looked away from me, tossing my glasses on the dashboard, like he was tossing away his good sense.

“You drive me crazy! You irritate the hell out of me. You make me want to pull my hair out, and every damn thing has gone wrong since the moment we met.”

I nodded, agreeing with him, and dug for something to wipe my nose. I found a napkin in Bear’s middle console and mopped at my face. I thought Finn was done, that he’d said what he was going to say, but then he spoke again.

“But I still want you.” Finn sounded stunned by the admission, and emphasized the word want like he couldn’t believe it himself.

“You want to have sex with me?” I squeaked, wanting that too, but hoping there was more.

“Yes!” Finn didn’t sound especially happy about it. “Yes! But if that were all, I wouldn’t feel like this. I wouldn’t be doing this. But I want you.” This time he emphasized the word you, and I felt myself relax a little, and I smiled through the tears that hadn’t stopped falling through his tirade.

“Good.” I laughed. “I want you too. So we’re even. Infinity plus one does equal two, see? Me and you.”

His hand shot out and wrapped around my neck, pulling me to him, taking my mouth with equal parts impatience and reluctance, like he could no longer help himself, but was trying to talk himself out of it right up until his lips touched mine. My hands curled in the front of his T-shirt as his tongue curled in my mouth. And we didn’t come up for air for a very long time, oblivious of anything beyond the black windows of the tricked-out ride, completely unaware of the two television vans that had pulled up in front of Jason Clyde’s home at the end of the cul-de-sac.