“You have the right to an attorney. If you can’t afford one, one will be appointed to you.” He couldn’t afford one. But Bonnie could. And that was more important anyway. He hoped she’d been able to make a call, and Bear and her grandmother had come swooping in to whisk her away. They hadn’t given him a phone call. He’d kind of lost that privilege when he’d lost his temper when they’d put Bonnie in the back of a police car. It didn’t matter anyway. He wasn’t going to call anyone.
“Do you understand your rights as I have explained them to you?”
Finn understood. And he didn’t have much faith that understanding them would help him at all. Somewhere between Massachusetts and LA, his world had been turned upside down and shaken, loosening the change from his pockets, scrambling his brains, and leaving him dizzy, dazed and disoriented.
“Name?”
“Infinity James Clyde.” The detective knew his name. It was on the paper right in front of him. But he asked it with a note of incredulity in his voice, like he couldn’t believe what he was reading.
There was a raise of the eyebrows and the slightest smirk, which Finn ignored. I have a stupid name, douche. Grow up, he thought. But he didn’t say what he was thinking out loud.
“And why do you think you’re here, Mr. Clyde?”
Finn stared stonily at the man across the table from him. He’d introduced himself as Detective Kelly, “I honestly don’t know, Detective.”
Another smirk.
“Says here you’re wanted for kidnapping, extortion, theft, grand theft, assault, and attempted murder. That ring any bells?”
Finn stared at the detective in stunned stupefaction. He kept waiting for the punch line, but there was none forthcoming.
“What did you say?” he asked, his voice a hoarse whisper.
“Kidnapping, extortion, theft, assault, grand theft, and attempted murder,” the detective rattled off once more.
He didn’t understand any of it, except the kidnapping part, which was easily explainable. He focused on the most horrifying first. He tried to keep his voice steady, but the blood had been pounding in his veins since they’d dragged Bonnie Rae off like she was trash, and his outrage returned with a heady rush. With every question his voice increased in volume.
“Who did I attempt to murder? What the hell is grand theft? Who did I extort, and who did I assault? I’d really like to know.”
“Cut the crap, kid. Grand theft auto.” The detective sighed wearily. It was one o’clock in the morning on Monday, and he looked wilted and worn thin, a man just doing his job, but the detective would be going home to his own bed, and Finn would be going back to a cell. Finn reined in his frustration and tried to focus on the task at hand.
“Okay. One by one. Whose car did I steal?” he asked. “I can’t exactly defend myself if I don’t know what I supposedly did.”
“You didn’t return a rental car—but that’s not the big one. We’re awaiting a warrant for the attempted murder of Malcolm Johnson and the theft of his car.”
“I don’t know who you’re talking about! I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Finn shook his head in denial, staring at the detective who was looking back at him like he was ready to be done with the interview.
“You don’t know Malcolm Johnson—called Bear Johnson by everyone close to him? Bonnie Rae Shelby’s bodyguard? You didn’t drive his car across several states and abandon it when you thought you were going to be apprehended?”
“Bear?” Finn felt the earth shift, and the room grew dim for a moment, like his brain had checked out, needing a break from the Twilight Zone.
“Oh, you do know him?” the detective asked with feigned interest.
“Is he okay?” The unreturned messages and the unanswered texts suddenly made sense. And he and Bonnie had been too wrapped up in each other to worry. They’d been too intent on just moving forward, on making it.
“You said attempted murder. Is he all right?” Finn demanded again. Bonnie would be finding out the same way he was. And she would be devastated.
“He’s going to recover. That’s all I can tell you.”
“What happened?”
“We don’t have any surveillance footage but we think we have a pretty good idea. You see, some ex-con arranged a meeting with Mr. Johnson at a gas station just outside of St. Louis. Maybe Mr. Johnson thought he was coming to get the girl, maybe it was something else. Instead, the ex-con proceeded to shoot Mr. Johnson, who was at the pump filling up his tank with his iPod blaring. He didn’t hear the guy coming up behind him. He was shot in the back and left for dead while the suspect drove away in his car. But you know that.”
Finn was shaking his head emphatically. “No! Bear wasn’t driving his car. He was driving my rental car. We switched in St. Louis, at my dad’s house. He was going to turn it back in in Nashville. I called the rental place and told them it would be returned by four o’clock on Thursday.”
“Well, it never was because you took Mr. Johnson’s Charger and left your rental sitting at the pump.”
“Bear was driving that rental car. Bonnie and I were already headed in the opposite direction. Bear knew we had his car. How stupid would I have to be to leave my rental car sitting there after I tried to kill someone!”
The detective raised his eyebrows and looked down at the pages he held in his hand.
“How about we start at the beginning–when you left Massachusetts. Okay? You give me a timeline of where you were, when. I want specifics. When you’re done, I’ll look at your timeline, I’ll see if there’s corroborating evidence to substantiate your story, and we will go from there.” He pushed the pad of paper and pen closer to Finn and stood.