“I guess that makes sense.” Bonnie was nodding. “Being out here, in the real world, living? It is pretty scary. It makes me wonder what I’m running away from.”
It was Finn’s turn to wait. He didn’t get the similarities between the two at all. Super stardom and prison? Um, no. But she’d used his words exactly.
“But then I think about going back. And I get so sick I just want to find a . . . a . . .”
“A bridge?” Finn finished for her.
“Yeah,” Bonnie whispered, and Finn felt apprehension quiver in his gut. He studiously ignored it and resumed his own story.
“I promised myself I would be different. I promised myself I would not go back. But I won’t lie and say there weren’t times it would have been easier. It’s been almost two years since I got out. I can’t find a full time job. I can’t really blame people. I was in prison for five years. Easier to hire the guy who doesn’t have prison tats and a rap sheet.
“I lived in the basement of the house I grew up in because my mom had rented out the upstairs. She remarried while I was in Norfolk and moved to a nice house in Chelsea with her new husband. She said I could come live with her, but it would have caused problems in the relationship, and I didn’t want that. Plus, living with my mom wasn’t my idea of independence. So, I’ve lived in the basement and used a hot plate and a mini fridge for the last two years, sleeping on a mattress in the corner, lucky to have my own bathroom, lucky not to pay rent.”
“Doesn’t sound so bad,” Bonnie said, and she sounded wistful. The wistful tone made him angry. She had no idea what she was talking about.
“You say that because you have money to burn and a life most people dream about. I have worked every odd job I could. My mom lined some things up for me. Painting, fixing this, fixing that. I’m not half bad at fixing things. It’s a whole lot easier to fix things than it is to fix myself. But it wasn’t working, Bonnie. So when Cavaro, a guy I met in prison, called me and told me he had something for me in Vegas, I decided it was better than what I had going. His brother owns several casinos. I don’t know if there are mob ties. He told me my job will be to watch the tables. To watch the dealers. Follow the numbers. Nothing illegal, nothing shady.” Finn stopped talking and shook his head. He didn’t really know if it would involve anything shady or not, if he were being honest.
“So the numbers are saving you again, huh?” Bonnie said softly, and he remembered his confessions of the morning before.
“Yeah. Sometimes I think numbers are all I’ve got . . . but they go on forever, so it could be worse.”
“They go on for Infinity.” Bonnie replied wryly, waggling her eyebrows.
“Yeah. Just for me.”
They let the conversation die, and Bonnie resumed her pensive position, feet on the dash, knees hugged into her chest, thoughts inward. So her sudden outburst as they pulled into Cincinnati caught him by surprise.
“I remember Cincinnati. I was here about a month ago. See? Up there! Time to change the billboard, folks.” Bonnie said in a sing-song voice.
Just to the right, on a giant sign, Bonnie, blonde hair swirling, red lips parted, eyes beseeching, looked down onto the afternoon traffic flowing into Cincinnati, Ohio, reminding them all, belatedly, that she had been at the US Bank Arena on January 25th and making every man sorry he’d missed it.
Finn forgot to breathe, and if it hadn’t been for Bonnie’s shrill warning, he would have rear-ended the car in front of them.
“Fun venue,” was all she said. Finn swore and kept driving.
WE DIDN’T NEED to stop in Cincinnati. We could have kept going. It was only one o’clock when we settled on a motel. But Finn was still wearing his coffee-stained pants, and he was grubby from changing the tire. It had been an incredibly long twenty-four hours for both of us, and some regrouping was in order, so I didn’t argue. Plus, he was determined that I make that call.
I didn’t have a credit card, not counting Gran’s stolen, useless ones, and Finn was worried about using his, considering there was a bit of a man-hunt on. Finn said no decent establishment would want to rent us a room without a card, and if we insisted on paying cash it was going to draw attention.
So we opted for a less than decent establishment. One room, two beds, one night—$100 plus a $50 deposit in case we broke something that wasn’t nailed to the wall or to the floor, which left the mirror and each other, which could happen, I supposed. I was pretty sure Finn had fantasized about breaking me in half a few times since we’d thrown in together . . . or I’d thrown myself on him. At least he’d put us in the same room. If I was going to be sleeping in the shabbiest, scariest motel in Ohio, I wasn’t going to do it alone.
We walked into the room, threw our bags down, and Finn handed me his phone. I looked at it, the small black device laying on his long palm. But I didn’t take it.
“I’m not calling Gran,” I said quietly, sinking down on the bed.
“Bonnie!” Finn’s voice rose in warning.
“I’ll call Bear!” I said, offering up the solution I’d spent all morning stewing over. “I’ll tell him where I am and what I’m doing. I’ll tell him to call Gran off because you can bet she’s the one who’s got everyone stirred up. The Golden Goose has flown south . . . or west. Where we heading? What big city is next?”
“Indianapolis. But it’s less than two hundred miles away. We’ll be there in three hours, tops. I wasn’t going to stop in Indianapolis. I was going to go straight through to St. Louis, which is another four hours or so. Long day, but doable, if the weather holds.”