Sins & Needles(87)

She wanted to hold onto that secret for as long as she could. This other woman, this infidelity, it changed her heart. It made her the cold, heartless person she was supposed to be. The person she needed to be to survive.

The girl quickly slunk down the hallway before she could disturb them, plucking the beer off the counter. She went back to her truck and drove just a few houses down. She cracked open the beer and drank it while crying and watched in the rear view mirror as the woman eventually left the house and drove down the road in her Mercedes Benz. She never even looked the girl’s way.

Later that night, the girl pretended she had worked her whole shift. She brought Javier the beer. She pretended everything was okay, lying through her teeth. She kissed him goodnight and they fell asleep like nothing was wrong.

The next morning, Eden White stole the extra cash that Javier kept hidden in the house. Then, while he was off on his morning jog, she stole his car.

She never looked back.





CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE





We drove all through the night, heading west while the sun came up in the sky. Though we were both exhausted to the bones, neither of us slept. We didn’t talk either. We just listened to Guano Padano and tried to hold on as long as we could. I was worried about Javier still, wondering how I was going to avoid him down the line. I’d need a new identity again, a new look. He’d never stop trying to find me, I knew that for a fact now.

Camden, too, needed to start becoming Connor Malloy soon. Any day now someone would report him missing and perhaps that same someone would report the money missing too. We had checks in his name from the casino, but there was no way he could cash them until he had more ID and papers that could only come from Gus.

Now that it was a weekday, we were closer to getting everything ready. But we couldn’t do anything until we picked a place to hunker down for a while. Camden had Gualala on his mind and at times seemed convinced we could drive another ten hours to get there. But by the time the sun was high in the sky and we’d passed Tulare, we had to find a place to crash or we would crash ourselves. We would have gotten there quicker but the headlight and the windshield had to be repaired. We were lucky it was even done in two hours (though we were several hundred dollars poorer).

We pulled into a small motel on the roadside, making sure to park Jose behind the buildings and out of view from the highway. We must have looked quite the sight to the front desk clerk as he observed us behind coke-bottle glasses; me in boxer shorts and a bandaged leg, Camden in a tuxedo. But he didn’t give Connor Malloy or Emily Watson any grief.

Our room was shabby and smelled like too much Lysol, but it didn’t matter. Camden and I crawled into bed—now we were sharing—and passed out in each other’s arms. Our sleep was deep and we didn’t wake up until I heard my cell phone ringing.

I groaned and frowned at the clock, all messed up from the nap. It was 6 p.m. and the light outside had faded. I got up and looked for my phone, then remembered it was in my clutch. It was a bit unusual for my phone to ring—everyone I knew almost always texted me.

I peered at the screen, heart in my throat. It was Uncle Jim.

“Hello?” I asked, trying to hide the worry in my voice.

“Ellie!” he exclaimed. “Oh, Ellie thank God you answered. Are you all right?”

I eyed Camden nervously. He was sitting up, taking off his tuxedo jacket, now all wrinkled from our nap.

“Yeah, I’m fine Uncle Jim. Why, what’s going on?”

“Where are you?” he asked.

I had to remember what the last lie I told him was.

“Santa Barbara.”

A pause. “Ellie, I don’t want you to freak out, but I…I need your help.”

My heartbeat got louder. “What? Why?”

“I’m in a lot of trouble,” he said in barely a whisper. “Some men came to my house while I was in town. They…they roughed up one of the workers and lit fire to some of the trees.”

“Holy shit!” Now Camden was at my side, trying to listen, his solid grip on my shoulder steadying me. “Did you call the cops?”

“I did,” he said. “They got a description of the men from the workers and said they’d look for them, but that’s all they could do. Ellie, I’m scared. These men…I think they were after you.”

I felt like bricks were being shoved on my chest. “Oh, I…I’m sorry, Uncle Jim, I…”

“It doesn’t matter. I just don’t know what to do. I left, I got out of there. I packed up some stuff, told the workers to stay away for the week until I figured things out.”

“Good, good,” I told him, feeling relieved. “Where are you?”