“The road was so dimly lighted.

There were no highway signs to guide.

But they made up their minds,

If all roads were blind,

They wouldn’t give up 'til they died.”

In that moment, I understood with a clarity that was frightening, exactly what Bonnie Parker—outlaw, lover, girl on the run—had meant. There was a point, a place in time, where all roads but one are blind. And there is only one way you can go, one direction. For me, for Bonnie Rae Shelby, Finn Clyde was that road, and I wouldn’t give him up. Not ‘til I died.

Chapter Sixteen

OUR SOURCES ARE telling us that just this morning in St Louis, police recovered the orange, 1972, Blazer owned by Infinity James Clyde, as well as items that were reported stolen inside the vehicle, including a large amount of cash, several credit cards, and identification belonging to the manager of singing sensation Bonnie Rae Shelby, furthering suspicions that Miss Shelby was taken against her will.

Reports of a message written on the window of the vehicle, an address, led police to a residence near Washington University, but the residence was empty when police arrived. Apparently, the home is owned by Jason Clyde, father of Infinity Clyde, who police have since confirmed has been out of town and is not a person of interest.

Then, just hours ago, we started getting reports of Bonnie Rae Shelby attempting to withdraw a large sum of cash from a small local bank. Bank personnel said Miss Shelby seemed upset and frightened and ran from the bank when she was refused access, causing sources to speculate that she had been sent into the bank under duress, possibly to pay her own ransom. Police aren’t commenting on this latest development, and we don’t have all the details, nor can we completely confirm this report, but our sources say that Miss Shelby may now be under some suspicion as well, as some of her recent actions have invited legal scrutiny.

This story just keeps getting stranger by the minute . . .

YOU COULD DRIVE across America and not see much, I decided. The cars were all the same, one road looked like another, and most of the roads were tree-lined, making it impossible to see the land and space beyond. As we made our way farther west, the trees became sparser and the landscape opened up and flattened out, but so many highways bypassed the towns, the people, and the flavor of a place, that the only thing that really provided any color and texture was Finn himself. He had a game he played called finding primes. It wasn’t a game I could play with him. He replaced the letters on license plates with its alphabetical number, for instance, A was replaced with 1, Z with 26, and so on. A license plate that read KUY 456 would be 112125 456 or 112,125,456, and Finn would then proceed to tell me what the factors of the number were. He told me he won when he found a prime, a number that was only divisible by itself and one. He hadn’t found a prime yet.

Since I couldn’t participate, I would make up little ditties for the different states on the license plates. Clyde would be ripping out factors while I sang about Texas, Vermont, and North Dakota, tapping a rhythm on the dash board, wishing I had Finn’s guitar, and creating songs that distracted him from his never-ending supply of numbers.

I had a good song for West Virginia and had been searching for a license plate from that state all day long when I spotted one attached to a maroon van at the side of the road, obviously experiencing car trouble. A grey-haired man was gamely looking under the hood while a child stood near him, watching the cars pass them by.

“Bonnie. No.” Finn was shaking his head. I hadn’t even said anything, but he’d seen them too, and he spoke before I could. “We aren’t stopping. Not this time.”

“But Clyde . . . they need help. And they’re a long way from home, too! They’re from West Virginia, for heck sake.”

Finn passed them, and I felt a little sick, swooshing by, just like that. Swooshing by with every other car.

“Please, Finn? Can’t we just stop and make sure he’s got help coming?”

Finn just shook his head and sighed. But he signaled and slowed, pulling over to the side of the road. Then he reversed the Charger and backed up for about a hundred yards, eating up the space between us and the old, maroon van. The man turned toward us, pulling his head from beneath the hood. He was an older man, probably the child’s grandfather, and he looked relieved that someone had stopped. He reached for the child’s hand as Finn climbed out. Finn told me to stay put, it would only be a minute. But he should have known he was wasting his breath.

The smell of burnt rubber was heavy around the vehicle, and I immediately held my hand to my nose.

“Hey. You need to borrow a phone?” I noticed Finn didn’t offer a ride. But I kept quiet. I’d pushed my luck with Finn way beyond breaking.

“No. I’ve got one. My engine light isn’t on, but I’m getting that burnt rubber smell, have been for the last hour. I’ve only got about an hour to go, so not too much farther, but it’s got me nervous.”

“You noticed any oil leaks on your driveway?”

“This isn’t my vehicle. It’s my daughter’s. She and her husband are going through a divorce. She’s moving in with us. Long story.” He waved his words away, obviously not wanting to go into detail.

“Is it driving okay?”

“Yeah. Doesn’t seem to be overheating.”

“You’ve probably got a small oil leak. The motor oil might be leaking onto the exhaust and burning, giving you that smell. It could also be your catalytic converter overheating, but if that were the case, your engine light would be on. Did you check the oil?