Infinity + One (13 page)

IT WASN’T SUNLIGHT that woke him. It was brighter than that. The world around the Blazer was so white he wouldn’t have been surprised if a chorus of angels had surrounded the partially buried vehicle and pointed him toward the pearly gates. But heaven couldn’t possibly be this cold. And the girl in his arms was no angel, though she looked pretty damn sweet with her short brown hair sticking up at her crown and her bow-shaped lips parted on a soft snore. Her hat had come off in the night, and her face was buried where his armpit met his chest.

Finn looked down into her face and waited for the dread and disbelief he’d been feeling, in varying degrees, since becoming shackled with Bonnie Rae Shelby. Instead, he remembered the way she’d looked after he’d kissed her, her lips all pink and swollen. He thought about her diving over the seat to claim the pillow with the case, the way she’d returned her gran’s phone by chucking it out the window, how she’d sung “Bohemian Rhapsody” and fallen asleep to his mathematical mumblings, all in the middle of a crisis. It made him curious as to how she would behave when she wasn’t overcome with grief, when her world wasn’t coming down around her ears, when she wasn’t stranded in a snowstorm with someone she’d only known three days—two and a half, actually.

He grinned and laid his head back down.

“You’re scaring me. Grinning like that, at nothing,” Bonnie mumbled.

“It wasn’t nothing. It was something.”

“Ha ha. Are we going to die in this Blazer?”

“No. But I can’t feel my left arm, and that place where you drooled on my chest has frozen solid, freezing my nipple in the process.”

Bonnie started to laugh and rolled away from him, sitting up and throwing blankets this way and that, looking for her hat. Finding it, she pulled it over her bedhead, yanked her boots on her feet and threw herself back over the front seat, like she’d done it a thousand times.

“Ladies first, and it’s not dark anymore, so no peeking out the windows. I’m going to test you on the color of my panties, and you better not know that they’re red with black skulls.” Bonnie pushed the passenger door open, snow falling from the roof onto the seat as she climbed out.

An immediate image of Bonnie in red panties decorated in black skulls filled Finn’s mind and he half laughed, half groaned.

“Skulls are not sexy,” he said out loud. “Skulls are not sexy.” He pulled on his boots, taking the time to lace them tightly, his eyes on his hands, keeping his focus from wandering outside. “Skulls
are
sexy, dammit, and my boots are still wet.”

He ran his hands through the strands of his hair and pulled it off his face with an elastic band he’d shoved into his pocket the day before. He folded up the blankets and the sleeping bag, righted the seat, and moved their gear from the front seat. Then he pulled on his beanie and climbed out of the Blazer after Bonnie.

An hour later, after a bit of recon, Clyde had a much better idea of where they were, along with the number of the exit they’d taken the night before. But another call for roadside assistance was unnecessary. As he made his way back to Bonnie and the Blazer, his feet frozen solid in his wet boots, a pick-up truck pulled alongside him, and an old man wearing a Cleveland Browns hat with furry ear flaps stuck his head out the window.

“That your vehicle stuck up there in the snow?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I’ve got chains. I can pull you out. Jump in.”

Finn was only a hundred yards from the Blazer, but he didn’t argue. When they pulled up, Bonnie climbed out of the Blazer, her face wreathed in a relieved smile.

The old boy in the funny hat knew what he was doing, and within minutes, with Clyde pushing, Bonnie steering, and the pick-up pulling, the Blazer was freed from the snowbank. Bonnie left the Blazer running, letting it warm as she and Clyde walked to thank the owner of the pick-up for his help.

“You folks lucked out,” he said, unhooking the chains and stowing them in the back of his truck. “You’re in the middle of Cuyahoga National Park. I usually wouldn’t have been out this way, but my sister and her husband own a farm just west of here, outside of Richfield. Her husband got sick last year and died, right out of the blue. I go check on her now and then.”

“I thought we were on I-71 last night, but from what I can tell we’re now on I-80,” Clyde said.

“Well no wonder nobody found you if you told ‘em you were on 71! I-80 intersects 71 a ways back. You must have headed down the turnpike in that blizzard and not even realized it.”

“It was pretty bad.” Finn extended his hand to the man, thanking him. Bonnie extended her hand as well, but the old man was in a talkative mood and kept his window down as he climbed into his truck.

“It was terrible! There were a lot of stranded motorists out last night. Kept the snow plows and the highway patrol busy, that’s for sure. I have one of those police scanners, and it was lit up all night with people needin’ help. There was even a report of an ex-con who they think mighta run-off with that little singer comin’ through here. You heard about that? When the call went out to the highway patrol you shoulda heard the buzz on that scanner!”

Bonnie stiffened beside him, and Finn felt the bottom drop out of his stomach. Run off? What the hell was going on? His assistance call would most likely have been transmitted to the local highway patrol. That made sense. But the rest of it didn’t.

“Cute little gal, that singer. Little blonde gal. I like some of her songs. Shelby’s her name. We got a Shelby, Ohio, too. Did you know that? I’ve got a cousin in Shelby.” The old boy started singing something about a big blue moon and big green mountains and a great big broken heart, apparently one of Bonnie’s songs that he was fond of.

“Well, my feet are cold, and my hands are too, so thanks again!” Ever the performer, Bonnie reached through the window and patted the old man’s shoulder. Finn just stood there, the ache in his feet suddenly the least of his worries.

“Just get back on 80 here, heading east. You’re going to intersect I-271 right away. Head south on 271, and it will take you right back down to I-71. You’ll be in Columbus in two hours.” And with that, and a little wave, the clueless old man rolled up his window and rumbled down the road.

Clyde and Bonnie watched him go, their hands pressed into their pockets, their eyes trained on the
Dodge 4X4
stenciled across his tailgate. They watched until he was out of sight. Then Bonnie turned on him.

“You’re an ex-con?” she asked flatly.

“Yeah. I am,” he said swinging around, arms folded against the cold. “And apparently, I
ran off
with a cute, helpless, little country singer, and everybody’s looking for me!” Finn kicked the tire of the Blazer with his soggy boot, wincing as his frozen toes connected with the hard surface.

“Son of a bitch!” He yanked the driver’s side door open and climbed in, slamming the door behind him. He glared at Bonnie through the broad windshield, challenging her, knowing he wouldn’t leave her, knowing she knew it too.

She walked slowly to the passenger side and climbed in. The Blazer was warmed up now, blasting heat in their faces and urging them to resume their journey. But they sat, unmoving, and not surprisingly, Bonnie was the first to speak.

“You said you would tell me about that tattoo. That swastika. You never did. You didn’t tell me because you would have had to tell me you’d been in prison.”

It wasn’t a question. She’d put two and two together pretty quickly. Who says she wasn’t good at math?

When Finn didn’t reply to her opening statement, Bonnie tried again.

“The old guy said they were looking for an ex-con. Not an escaped convict. So I’m assuming you did your time. Did you violate your parole? By leaving the state, I mean.”

“No. I didn’t. And I don’t owe you an explanation, Bonnie.” And he didn’t. He didn’t owe her anything. At this point he figured she owed him. Big time.

“What did you do?” she asked, undeterred.

“I killed a famous country singer.”

Bonnie didn’t laugh. He didn’t blame her. It wasn’t very funny.

“How long were you there? In prison, I mean.”

Finn gripped the wheel and tried to rein in the helplessness that filled his chest and made the palms of his hands sweat. He didn’t want to talk about this.

But Bonnie did.

“Come on, Clyde. Tell me. You’ve heard my sad tale. Let’s hear yours.”

“Five years. I’ve been out for a year and a half,” he said, relenting, the response short and sharp, a verbal whip that left Bonnie temporarily stunned. But she was silent for all of five seconds.

“And you’re twenty-four?”

“Turned twenty-four in August. Eight, eight, remember? Heil Hitler.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Bonnie hissed, offended, just like he’d intended. He was angry. He wanted her to be angry too.

“You didn’t notice? I have a swastika on my left pec, and a double eight on the right. H is the eighth letter in the alphabet—Heil Hitler, HH, 88. The Aryan Brotherhood has all kinds of cute little symbols like that. It just so happens to correspond with my birthday. Nice, huh? Convenient too.”

“What did you do?” She went back to her previous question. Maybe the Hitler stuff was too much.

“My brother robbed a convenience store. To this day, I don’t know what he was thinking. I was in the car. I didn’t know he had a gun, and I didn’t know he was going to rob the store. Unfortunately for Fisher, the owner had a gun too. And he knew how to use it. Fisher got blasted. He ran out of the store, but not before he pulled the trigger too. I don’t know how he managed to get a shot off, because he had a huge hole in his stomach. But I heard the shots, and I saw him fall. I grabbed him, got him into the car. Took him to the hospital. He died on the way. And I went to prison.” Finn kept his voice clipped, his answers short, making it seem like it was no big deal, just water under the bridge.

“Your brother?” Bonnie sounded as stunned as he had been when she told him about her sister.

“My twin brother,” he answered, not looking at her. But after a few seconds of silence he had to look. She was staring straight forward, but tears streamed down her face, and her hand covered her mouth like she was trying to hold something in. He turned off the key, climbed back out of the Blazer, and shut the door behind him. He had to. He had to get away from her. Just for a minute. He knew he should have told her about Fish when she told him about Minnie. But he’d been too stunned. The similarities had felt wrong, strange, and even false somehow, and telling her then would have felt like he was trying to one-up her story after she’d bared all.

Fish had always done that. From the time they could talk, Finn would share something, and Fish would immediately have to top him. Finn would finish his dinner, and Fish would ask for seconds he was too full to eat. Finn would get a solid double in baseball, and Fish would kill himself trying to hit a home run. He kept track of all their stats, their grades, their girlfriends. Finn would tell him something, and Fisher would always come back with, “Oh, yeah? Well . . .” And Finn had hated it. He’d hated how competitive Fish was. How animated, how bossy. He’d hated how Fish could always wear him down. He hated how he always gave in to whatever Fish wanted. But most of all, he hated how much he loved him, and he hated how much he missed him.

Finn heard Bonnie behind him. The snow crunched beneath her boots, and her breathing was ragged. He noticed suddenly how ragged his own was.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I told you I had a brother named Fisher.”

“But a twin? Finn, I . . .” her voice trailed off. She seemed as lost for words as he had been. Then she slid her arms around his waist and pressed her face into his back. She never failed to surprise him. He thought she would grower colder with the revelation—that she would feel betrayed that he hadn’t shared all there was to share. Instead, she held onto him. For a long time, she just held on. And they stood there in the road, surrounded by white and nothing else.

“He died?” Her voice was a stunned whisper, more a statement than a question, though her voice rose a little on the end like she couldn’t believe it.

“Yeah. He did.” Finn hadn’t wept for Fish in a very long time, but his mouth trembled as he verified that truth. Fish had died. And that had been far worse than what had come next.

“Why did they send you to prison?” Bonnie asked, the question muffled, her face pressed into his jacket, but he heard her.

“Armed robbery. Seven year maximum sentence for a first time offender.”

“But you didn’t shoot anybody or take anything, right? You didn’t even have a gun.”

“I took the gun out of Fish’s hand. I threw it in the backseat on the floor. My prints were on it. I was there with him. I helped him get away,” Finn said humorlessly. He’d helped him get away. And Fish had gone far, far, away. “It wasn’t hard to assume I was in on it. We were both high. And Fish shot the owner of the store. The guy almost died.”

Finn could almost feel Bonnie’s dismay, her wonder, gauging his remorse, the truthfulness of his tale, but she stayed silent.

“They offered me a deal. It was three days after my eighteenth birthday, and I had no priors. Five years and no attempted murder charge if I would plead guilty to possession and armed robbery. I would have been out in less time, but I didn’t adjust very well.”

“So you got a tattoo of a swastika . . .” Bonnie moved to stand in front of him. She was biting on her lip, worrying it between her teeth like it held the answer to her dilemma. “I still don’t understand that. Was that something Fisher was involved in too?”

“No!” Finn shook his head vigorously, not wanting Bonnie to lay that on his brother’s head. “I got that tattoo a month after I arrived at Norfolk. I’d tried to impress some people by showing them what I could do with numbers, with cards. It didn’t go over very well. I got beat up, they marked up my back, and I was sure if I didn’t find a gang, I was going to die just like my brother, and die soon. So I joined up with the only gang who would have me.”

Bonnie’s eyes were wide like she was putting it all together.