Definitely not a Morgan Freeman fan.
“Just because we are talking over coffee, do not for a second think that you aren’t royally screwed,” he hissed at me, eyes blazing. “Don’t for a second think I’m going to go soft on you, that I’m going to have a change of heart. You broke my heart, Ellie, all those years ago. That was the last time you’d ever see it.” He sat back, took off his glasses, and calmly began to wipe them off with a napkin. I could see from the way his hands were shaking that being calm was taking an awful lot of effort on his behalf but I was grateful for it. “This isn’t a joke. And this isn’t a game, no matter how hard you try and figure out the angle and the play. I’m playing you, do you understand me? I’m the one in control.”
My voice trembled. “Okay.”
“Okay. So now you know what I need. I want to leave this place and I want to leave it with their money. I want to leave and never look back. I want to be able to open a trust fund for Ben, something he can have when he’s older. An anonymous donation. I want to live on the Pacific Ocean and eat at my favorite restaurant and work on my art all day. I don’t want to be Camden McQueen anymore. I want to be someone else. And I want you to make all of this happen.”
It was nearly impossible, extremely risky, completely dangerous and the tallest of the tall orders. But I was done making light of it. I was done pretending that Camden was putting on an act and that he just wanted to scare me. This was no act. I would have to help him disappear, or else I’d disappear too. And not to a place I wanted to go.
“Fine,” I said, clearing my throat. “I’ll help you. I’ll help you get all of that. But I think I’m going to need some of your trust to make this happen.”
He grinned at me before pushing back his chair and taking a dishtowel over to the mess by the wall. “Ellie Watt,” he said as he crouched down to clean, “I wouldn’t even trust you if you were dead.”
And there was a strong chance I’d end up dead if we didn’t play our cards right. Stealing money from drug lords was something I knew a lot about. It was only luck that I was still alive and actually sitting in Camden’s kitchen. I had no idea if luck would be on my side this time.
“All right then, don’t trust me. But you should at least believe the shit that I’m telling you, because I know a thing or two about this and a thing or two about disappearing.”
“That’s why I hired you,” he said. The broken glass tinkled delicately as he scooped it into a pile.
“This isn’t going to be as easy as you make it seem.” I exhaled loudly, feeling like I couldn’t clear my lungs enough. “There’s a chance we’ll have to do some…illegal activities. No one takes on a new life without committing some sort of crime. Are your morals going to have a problem with that?”
“Ellie,” he said, shooting me a wry look. “My dad’s the Sheriff of this town and I’ve been operating a money laundering business right under his nose. I doubt I’ll have a problem with it.”
“Good. Because like I said, this isn’t going to be easy. I don’t know what kind of men you are dealing with but if they are anything like the men I’ve dealt with, you can’t afford to slip up. Once you commit to stealing from them, you have to follow through. There is no mercy. No one will forgive you or tell you to forget about it. If you have a change of heart, you can’t just give the money back. They don’t care about the money anymore. They have enough money. They care about making a point. You made a point last night by cocking your gun. These guys won’t give you that. They’ll blow your face off before you have a chance to say you’re sorry.”
He had stopped cleaning and was now just staring at me. “Jesus. Who the hell are you on the run from?”
I did a quick shake of my head. “That’s neither here nor there. It doesn’t affect anything to do with us.” When he didn’t look convinced I said, “It was a very, very long time ago. It has nothing to do with Camden McQueen. It has nothing to do with Ellie Watt. I promise.”
The last thing I wanted was for Camden to get cold feet about this whole thing and then decide to turn me over to the cops after all. There was no way he’d just let me go free when I had all the knowledge I now had.
He nodded.
“So when were you thinking about doing this? In other words, how much time do we have?” I asked.
“A week,” he said. “Actually, six days.”
“Six days?” How the hell was I going to round up a fake life for him in six days?