Infinity + One (14 page)

“Funny,” Finn said, though it really wasn’t funny at all. “What feels necessary on the Inside makes you a freak on the Outside.”

“The inside?” Bonnie asked.

“Inmates call prison the inside.”

“And the outside is . . .”

“Life. Freedom. Everything beyond the walls. I thought the tattoo was necessary. I thought it was survival. In the end, though, the tattoo didn’t save me. I was saved by numbers. I was attacked, yeah, but I’d made my point, and eventually I had people coming to me, powerful people, and I didn’t need the tattoo after all.”

There was a long silence between them, Bonnie staring wordlessly at him, Finn staring back, wondering if she could really understand. Finn touched his chest and her eyes followed his fingers.

“The tattoo is a reminder that choices made out of desperation are almost always bad choices.” Finn paused, hoping Bonnie was thinking about her choice to climb the bridge. She’d been desperate too, and it had been a bad choice. “I don’t take off my shirt at the beach or in the weight room or when I go for a run or play ball with my friends. And I would never have shown you. It’s there, over my heart, making me look like something I’m not. Pretty hard to get past, I know. But it’s over my heart—not
in
my heart. And hopefully that makes a difference.”

Bonnie nodded and reached over and placed her left hand over his right one, peeling it off his chest so she could hold it. Finn was so surprised that he let her. It hung between them, and she wrapped both of her smaller hands around it, cradling it.

“I’m sorry about Fisher,” she said sincerely.

Finn snorted in disbelief and pulled his hand away. She grabbed it back and swung on him fiercely, bringing their conjoined hands to her chest, his arm resting between her breasts, her right hand clinging to his forearm.

“I’m sorry that happened to you, Finn.” She repeated the words with a vehemence that had him snapping back at her.

“Don’t do that, Bonnie! Don’t be one of those girls who thinks I’m something to save! You can’t save me. I can’t save you. I sure as hell didn’t save Fish, and you couldn’t save Minnie, could you?”

Bonnie’s brow was furrowed, resistance written all over her face.

“Could you?” He was being a son-of-a-bitch. But it was the truth, a truth he didn’t think Bonnie had come to terms with.

“No.” Her lips trembled, and she shook her head. “No. I couldn’t. I didn’t.”

Finn swore, an ugly word for all the ugly feelings in his chest, and he tried to pull his hand free. Instead he just pulled her with it.

“But you did save me, Finn.” Her face was tipped up to his, his arm pinned between their chests.

“No, Bonnie. I interrupted you. If you wanna die, you’re gonna die. You know it, and I know it. I just hope you change your mind, because you’re better than that. Fish and Minnie are gone. Maybe we failed them. Hell, I don’t know. But we don’t help them by jumping off bridges.”

“I am?” she asked, still clinging to his hand.

“What?”

“I’m better than that?”

“Yes!” Finn sputtered. “You are!”

She smiled at him then, just a wry twist of her lips and a softening through her eyes. But her tone was wry as she said, “You’re gonna have to make up your mind whether or not you hate me, Clyde.”

“I don’t hate you, Bonnie.” How could he hate her with her lips inches from his and her chocolate eyes so full of compassion? “I just don’t know what the hell to do with you. And now, I’ve got the police looking for me, thinking I’ve kidnapped you.”

“You don’t hate me, but you don’t like me very much.” Bonnie ignored the part about the police looking for him. She was still holding his hand and Finn felt ridiculous and irritated and more than a little turned on with his hand clasped between her breasts. He tugged again but she held fast.

“I do like you, Bonnie.” Damn it all. He did, too. “But you’ve got to call your gran, your friend Bear, and everyone else who needs to know where the hell you are, and clear this up. Do you understand? Remember what I said about games? This isn’t one. This is my life, my freedom, and I don’t want to go back to prison.”

Bonnie sighed but didn’t respond. She just held tight to his hand for a minute longer and then released it. Together they walked back to the Blazer, climbed in, and without further fanfare, headed down the road.

Finn was tired, and he felt filthy, the result of sleeping in the car all night, wearing the same clothes for two days solid, and brushing his teeth with snow and his middle finger—his way of saying eff-you Mother Nature. They needed to find a hotel and recoup. And Bonnie was going to make those calls if he had to hold her down and dial for her.

THE MAN WHO has been seen with singer Bonnie Rae Shelby has now been identified as Infinity James Clyde, a twenty-four-year-old ex-con from the Boston area. Clyde served five years for armed robbery and was released from Norfolk Penitentiary in Massachusetts in 2012. A vehicle registered to Clyde, an orange, 1972 Chevy Blazer, seen leaving the scenes of both recent sightings of the young superstar contributed to his identification. Bonnie Rae Shelby’s family is convinced that Miss Shelby had never met Infinity James Clyde before and had no relationship with him prior to her disappearance, leading police to believe that Miss Shelby either met or was bodily detained by Clyde in Boston, the last time her family or friends saw her. Infinity James Clyde resides in South Boston and left the area the night Bonnie Rae Shelby performed at the TD Garden.

Infinity James Clyde is a white male, approximately six-two, two-hundred-ten pounds, and twenty-four years old. He has dark blond hair and blue eyes and is currently wanted for questioning by the police. If you have any information for police, you can call the number at the bottom of the screen.

WITHIN MINUTES THEY were on 271 which, just like the old man said, eventually spit them out back on 71, heading toward Columbus, but they’d burned through most of their gas keeping warm the night before, and before too long Finn pulled off the freeway in a town called Ashland to refuel. Bonnie hadn’t said a word since they’d hit the road again. She was full of contradictions. Most of the time she couldn’t shut up, and then there were moments like this, stretches of time when she just turned it off and went somewhere else. They had both sat in contemplative silence, looking anywhere but at each other. She’d stared sightlessly straight ahead, and he had stared at the road while his gut had churned, and his mind had raced, the peace from that morning destroyed.

He pulled into the gas station feeling like he wore a target on his chest, worried that any moment someone would step forward and point, yelling for the police who would swarm in and haul him off. But the world seemed oblivious to him, the way it usually was, and cars and trucks caked in dirty ice and snow rolled in and out of the gas station, refueling and recharging without taking note of the old, orange Blazer or its occupants. The knot in his gut eased slightly.

Bonnie slid a pair of sunglasses on and stepped out of the passenger side, not looking right or left, and headed inside. He washed his salt and sleet covered windows before he noticed that Bonnie had put $70 down on the pump. He supposed that was her way of telling him they were going to be together for a few more miles. He just shook his head and commenced refueling.

He was usually good at figuring things out, good at unraveling complicated equations and ferreting out solutions to problems most people wouldn’t even attempt. Here he was, surrounded by a complex, puzzling, and elusive problem, and he wasn’t talking about math. Bonnie was a woman, and the functions and formulas that ruled one had no obvious bearing on the other. Bonnie should be running from him as far and fast as she could, and for the life of him, he couldn’t figure her out.

Finished fueling, Finn headed into the convenience store to take advantage of the bathroom break and secure some coffee for the road.

Bonnie nodded at him as he came through the doors and held two large Styrofoam cups aloft, indicating she was one step ahead of him. He couldn’t complain that she wasn’t conscientious. He nodded back and headed toward the bathrooms, but not before he noticed that Bonnie’s attention was fixated on a child who sat in one of the tables in the corner, an uneaten breakfast sandwich in front of her. The child had the smooth, hairless appearance of someone undergoing chemotherapy. A sock monkey hat covered her head, but her non-existent eyelashes and brows gave her away. A woman sat beside the little girl, bouncing a baby on her knee and talking into a cellphone. The woman was obviously agitated, and the bouncing baby was not mollified by the motion.

When Finn came out of the restroom five minutes later, Bonnie had approached the woman and was now sitting at the small table next to the little girl who was smiling at her shyly. Finn bit down on a curse and shook his head in wonder. Wasn’t keeping a low profile kind of important?

He strode toward the table, and Bonnie welcomed him with a smile and patted the chair next to her.

“Finn, this is Shayna and her two daughters. Riley and Katy.” She looked at the little girl when she said Katy, so Finn assumed Riley was the drooly baby now happily chomping on a paper cup. Finn didn’t want to sit, but his height and the fact that the females were all sitting, staring up at him, forced his hand.

“Shayna’s car broke down, Finn.”

“We’ve been in Cleveland since Friday at the children’s hospital, and we’re on our way home,” the woman named Shayna rushed to explain. “The transmission’s been slipping, but I’ve always been able to coax it into cooperating. But I pulled in here to get gas, and I couldn’t shift it back into drive again. I’m blocking a pump. The owner isn’t too happy with me, I don’t think. But I can’t move it. The wheels are all locked up because it’s stuck in park.”

“Finn’s really smart. I know he can help you,” Bonnie said, nodding her head and smiling at Finn. Finn almost growled, but Shayna looked so relieved, he set down his coffee and stood.

“Let me take a look. Show me which car.”

“I’ll stay with Riley and Katy, Shayna.” Bonnie held her arms out for the squirming Riley, and Katy seemed completely fine with the suggestion. Her eyes were glued to Bonnie’s face as if she couldn’t believe what she was seeing. Finn truly hoped she wasn’t a Bonnie Rae Shelby fan, but given his luck as of late, that was probably expecting too much.

“Are you sure?” Shayna was doubtful, looking between Finn and Bonnie as if she weren’t sure she could trust them, but not knowing what other options she had.

“We’ll stand right there at the windows so you can see us and so they can see you, all right?” Bonnie said kindly, and they all trailed after Clyde as he made a beeline for the entrance. The front of the store looked out onto the busy pumps, and Bonnie waved them away as she dug some quarters out of her purse, and she and Katy began feeding the sticker machine to the right of the front doors.

Shayna led him to a green Ford Fiesta that had seen better days and stood, her attention shifting back and forth between him and her children, who watched from inside the store. She looked exhausted, and Finn felt instant remorse for his ill feelings. He climbed inside and turned the key, hoping that the woman was wrong. The gear shift wouldn’t budge. He turned the key off and then just to the right, turning on the radio and the interior lights, but not starting the engine. Then he pumped the gas a few times and turned the wheel. Then he tried the key once more. No luck.