Sins & Needles(65)

“Where are we going?” Camden asked as the houses on the street got smaller and more spread apart. Sand and brush invaded the suburbs.

Why, I thought, so you can text your new buddies? I had to stop thinking that way, thinking that Camden could have made a deal with the Devil, but my paranoia was at an all-time high and there was no such thing as being too careful.

“We’re going to clean your money,” I told him, taking a sharp left onto a street that led out into the desert.

“You know how to do that?” he asked.

I gave him a wry smile. “Of course I do. I’m a con artist. Almost every paycheck is dirty in some way.”

“Dirty deeds done dirt cheap.”

“Oh, I do nothing for cheap. Not even this. Put your cell phone on the dash.”

He was startled. “What?”

I nodded at the dash. “Do it. Put it up there. I don’t want to see you sending any covert messages.”

There was silence. I looked at him out of the corner of my eye. He was staring at me, seemingly befuddled.

“What?” I asked impatiently. “What’s the problem?”

“You don’t trust me?” he asked, indignant.

I snorted. “No. You put yourself in my shoes and tell me…would you trust you?”

“Yes,” he said right away. “If I were you, I would trust me.”

“And I thought my ego was bad,” I said under my breath.

“I’m not trading you in for money.”

“No, you’re just keeping me around for money.”

“I was. Everything is different now.”

“No it’s not. I still can’t get away from you even if I tried,” I pointed out. “No matter what, you’ve still got that evidence on me. Don’t think I haven’t forgotten. I’m willing to bet that you’ve emailed the file to yourself. You said so; you have it ready to go at the click of a button. But if you turned me over to the cops—over to your father—you wouldn’t get any money and you wouldn’t be able to run. Now you have money…and the potential to make a lot more.” I sighed bitterly. “You don’t need me and I’m more screwed than ever.”

“Have I hurt you?”

“What?”

He repeated himself, voice hard. “Have I hurt you?”

“Physically? Not really. Mentally, yes.”

“How have I hurt you mentally?”

I bit my lip and started looking for signs for the highway. I hated the way he turned the conversation around. “You said some pretty mean stuff.”

He shook his head and muttered, “Unbelievable.” His gaze went to the window where the landscape of rolling alabaster and russet flew past. “You tried to rob me, Ellie. I’m allowed to be mean. I have the right to.”

“You’re justified?” I asked poignantly.

“Yes.” He sighed and took his cell out of his pocket, slamming it onto the dash. “Here. You can keep it if you want. It’s of no use to me. I haven’t hurt you and I’m not about to.”

I hesitated, then took the phone and stuck it in my bra for safekeeping. It made me feel a little bit better but I wasn’t ready to give him the benefit of the doubt yet. It would take a lot more driving without any suspicious vehicles trailing us before I’d even think about letting my guard down.

Once I reached as far as I could go in Palm Valley, I pulled the car onto Highway 62 and headed east.

“Keep your eyes peeled for anyone that could be following us,” I told him, though I didn’t know what the point was if he was in on it.

He turned in his seat and peered out the back window, which was unfortunately covered in a layer of thick dust. Damn desert living. Everything turns to dust after a while.

He eyed the side mirrors for the next few minutes, as did I. It was about 1:30 in the afternoon and traffic wasn’t too bad. If someone was following us, they’d be easy to spot, though we probably wouldn’t really know until we made our first stop.

An hour later we pulled into a gas station at Vidal Junction. As I pumped gas and as Camden went into pay, I brought his phone out of my bra and checked his messages. There was nothing, just a few clients wanting appointments and Snooty Neo from the band wanting to discuss the next show. I felt a pang in my heart for Camden, the fact that these clients, his band, they’d all cease to exist for him. He never even got a chance to say goodbye.

I scoured the gas station, looking for anything out of the ordinary. We were literally in the middle of nowhere and Vidal Junction was nothing but a ghost town that sat on all four corners of Highway 62 and 95. It kind of gave me the creeps but at least the lack of traffic and people made spotting the unusual easier. And aside from a family who was bitching at each other as they climbed out of their overheating station wagon, there was nothing strange.