“I see.” Finn’s hand stroked up and down my back, soothing me. His fingers traced the line of my jaw and dipped into the whorl of my ear and down across my lips. I turned and pressed my lips into his neck in response and felt an easing in my chest and a corresponding tightening low in my belly.

“But you have a key, Finn, and I give you permission to come on in,” I said. “Even if it’s dark, and you don’t know what you’ll find, you come on in, okay?” I felt an ache in my throat that grew as I spoke. “I want you in here with me, even if it isn’t pretty, even if I don’t invite you.”

Finn’s arm tightened around me, and he nuzzled my cheek with his, pulling me so close I could barely breathe, and I pressed my face into him and closed my eyes, and willed him to join me there behind my lids. Within minutes he pulled off an exit that led to somewhere else, pulling into a gas station that had long since closed its doors. A sign that lied about snacks and cold beer hung loosely on a pole, see-sawing back and forth in the brisk February wind, the ancient advertising almost illegible, the sun having stolen its color, leaving it faded and on the brink of extinction. I wondered if the bright lights would eventually do the same to me.

With the heat billowing out around us and inside us, the lights of the dash our only stars, Finn let his hands slide over me, breathing life into me, letting his colors flow through me, his mouth call out to me. And I met him at the door.

Chapter Nineteen

MALCOLM “BEAR” JOHNSON, long time body guard to singer Bonnie Rae Shelby, was the apparent victim of a carjacking at a gas station between St. Louis, Missouri and Nashville, Tennessee some time yesterday. Sources tell us he was unconscious when paramedics and police arrived at the scene and his wallet and phone were taken, as well as his vehicle, making identification difficult, but police have confirmed that it was indeed Malcolm Johnson, that he was shot at close range, and that he is in critical condition at an area hospital. There is no word on whether there are any witnesses or possible leads to finding the perpetrators of this vicious attack, and the police are not commenting further at this time.

Bonnie Rae Shelby was believed to be in the company of ex-convict Infinity James Clyde in the St Louis area around the same time, leading to rampant speculation about a possible meeting between the star and her bodyguard, Bear Johnson, which may have turned violent. At this juncture, police still aren’t willing to say definitively whether Miss Shelby is being held against her will. But the similarities between the attack on Mr. Johnson and another crime committed by Infinity James Clyde are hard to ignore. Infinity Clyde served time for the 2006 armed robbery of a Boston convenience store. One person died and another was seriously wounded.

THE BLANKET BENEATH them was actually an unzipped sleeping bag, purchased earlier that morning. Another sat nearby, still tightly bound, waiting for use. It wasn’t cold, but the sun was setting, and it would be soon. Finn considered pulling it over Bonnie, where she lay nestled beside him, her head burrowed like she was hiding from something, the way she always slept, but he waited, not wanting to make them look like vagrants.

They were about sixty-five miles outside Albuquerque, New Mexico in a little town that claimed it was the nicest place on Earth, which didn’t say much for the planet.

They had found a city park and backed Bear’s car into a spot, the trunk hugging the curb, hiding the plates as best they could. Finn didn’t think they were being chased through the southwest, but in the same breath wouldn’t have been surprised if an entire brigade of Texas Rangers were bearing down on them. It had been that kind of journey. They spread a blanket in a far corner of the park beneath a few scrubby pine trees, far from the playground and the empty ball field and hungrily consumed a Walmart picnic.

Bonnie had curled up after their meal, sleepy and satisfied, and he’d stroked her hair, needing to touch her, even if it was only that, a hand in her hair. Her breathing had eventually slowed, until he realized she’d given in to the exhaustion that had pursued her since he he’d seen it flicker across her face a lifetime ago, when he’d found her braced on the metal railing of an enormous bridge. A lifetime ago. A week ago.

A father with two small children, a girl and a boy, had crossed the park a half an hour before, not too far from where they lay, and was now pushing his kids on the swings in the opposite corner of the park. He’d noticed them, no doubt about it, but he didn’t keep looking their way and seemed intent on his children.

Two boys—brothers, he would guess from the way they fought—were throwing a baseball to each other nearby. One boy, obviously the superior athlete, threw the ball up and tossed out suggestions with each pitch. The younger boy seemed distracted, and his attention kept wandering as if he found other things more fascinating.

“Catch it, Finn. Man! Pay attention.” Fish’s voice rang in his head, echoing the boys as they argued nearby.

“Watch out!” Fish hollered as Finn stared at the ball curving toward him, not lifting his mitt at all. At the last minute he raised his glove and the ball smacked his palm with a satisfying thwack, as if he’d been faking Fish out all along.

“Where are you?” Fish grumbled.

“I was thinking about parabolas,” Finn answered, his mind still pondering the curve the ball made, as Fish threw it high in the air, thinking about how it climbed slowly only to fall in ever increasing speed as it found its way back to Earth.

“Ah, man! You and Dad. It’s bad enough that he’s always thinking about that stuff. Why do you have to too?”