Wanted (31 page)

She laughs. “Ha, ha. I'm fine, but thanks for looking out for my best interests.”

“Your breast interests, too.” I grin at her and she rolls her eyes. “Hey, you never answered me before. Was Jack Daniel heading off to the police station again?”

She looks out the window. “Yeah. He thinks turning ourselves in will be best in the long run. Do time now and then we'd be free.”

My blood boils at the thought of wasting away inside a prison cell. “What a fool.” I stomp even harder on the gas pedal, wishing I could teach Jack Daniel a lesson, face to face. Course, in the end, I shall hopefully live on in his place. With his dame. Ain't no better lesson than that.

She shrugs. “I don't think he was being foolish. He was doing what he thought was right, same as me. He thinks that you and Bonnie will go back to where you came from when the deadline hits.” Her face droops, her eyes look sad. “What was it like, where you were?”

I think about it, trying to find the right words. “It was dark and silent. Peaceful. Not happy like heaven, but after what I done, I thought I'd be standing in line at the devil's barbecue.” I shrug. “When God brought me back for my Second Coming, He didn't give me no directions. All I know is that I want things to be different this time. I don't want to live like I did before.”

“That's good to hear,” she says. “Maybe you learned your lesson.”

“I think so. What can you tell me about the ritual?” I'm real quiet now, hoping she'll slip and give me a clue about how this whole thing works. I hit the gas and bring it up to ninety-five. Now that most law-abiding folks are in bed, traffic's thinned out quite a bit. Hope there's less laws on the road too.

“All I know is that the ritual involves a last request. What was yours?” She sounds all coy and innocent, but I know better. We're both playing a game of cat and mouse, toying with each other, hoping to catch the other off-guard.

Enough of this. I'm tired of this game. “Why are you asking—you gonna try calling Jack Daniel out of me again, like you did with the perfume when we was on the bus?”

After a long bout of silence, Twinkle sighs. “Okay, so it's true. I did try to call Jack out of you on the bus. But I'm the one who did this to him in the first place,” she adds hastily, “so it was only right that I tried to bring him back. You can understand that, right?”

I don't look at her. “Yeah. But it don't mean I have to like it.”

“But since thinking about you-know-who is the thing that lets Jack back in and not strong scents, you threw away my perfume for nothing.” She props her knees up, her feet pushed against the dashboard, giving me a nice eyeful of her shapely legs.

I rub my chin, liking the view, but finding this discussion unsettling. I need to put some doubt in her mind about the state of Jack Daniel. “Could be we're both wrong about how we all switch places. Could be that God will decide our fate and nothing you or I do will make a difference. It could even turn out that I'm the one that gets to decide which of you gals I want, instead of you deciding which guy deserves to stay. Ever think of that?”

“No. But now that you say it, I don't know the rules either.” She toys with her skirt, folding and unfolding the pleats.

We cruise along, falling into a smooth rhythm of talking about everything and nothing, when I realize I'm near the end of the first set of directions she gave me. I look over and see her hands clasped together on her lap. “Twinkle, do you remember the rest of the highway numbers we need to take to get there? We don't have any time to spare getting lost. Wish I'd nabbed a map when we stopped for gas.”

“Actually,” she reaches into her bra and pulls out a piece of yellow paper, “when I was at the gas station, they had a wall map so I wrote the directions down.”

Leave it to Twinkle to be so wily. She unfolds the paper, narrating the directions. I plug them into my elephant mind—cuz I never forget.

“I asked the guy who works there how long it'd take to drive to Gibsland, but he said he never heard of the place.”

My head turns to look at her so fast it nearly breaks off at the shoulder blade. “Gibsland? That ain't even a town. That's just a place a horse did his business and they put a sign up pointing it out. Why go there?”

She fidgets with her ring—putting it on one finger, then the next. “That's the last spot where you and you-know-who were together.”

I nod, getting the picture. Makes sense we start where we ended.

She lifts the crinkly paper. “But the clerk did say he had a son who lives in Little Rock. Takes him around six hours to get there.”

“And Little Rock to Dallas is about five hours. But Gibsland ain't near as far as Dallas. Maybe three hours, I reckon.”

“That means we have roughly nine hours to go, give or take.” She scratches her arm, staring at the clock. “It's twelve thirty now, so that's…” Her voice trails off as she calculates. “Whoa! We've only got eight hours and forty minutes left. And we're going to have to stop for gas!”

“Don't cast no kittens now. Take a nap and leave the worrying to me.” I press the accelerator hard. Doing ninety-five should give us time for one roadside piss and get us there with twenty minutes to spare, provided we don't encounter no more time swallowers.

Which means I got eight hours and forty minutes to come up with my own goodbye ritual—one that'll get rid of Jack Daniel permanently—and then I'm home free.

After finding out we had even less time than I hoped, I freaked out for another twenty minutes before Clyde finally pulled out a silver flask from his back pocket. “Almost forgot I had this,” he said gleefully. He held out the flask and basically ordered me to take some or he'd have to hold on to me and make Bonnie drink it.

I knew, well hoped anyway, that he was only kidding about the Bonnie part, but I also knew I was being an angsting pain in the ass, so I took the flask and slugged some down, then a bit more. Even though I asked him not to, Clyde took two sips as well—one for “fortitude” and one for “concentration,” as he called it. He stuck it under the front seat, promising he'd have no more.

I must have eventually dozed off, because I wake up some time later drenched in sweat. “What time is it?” I bolt to a sitting position, my body in full alarm.

“Halfway to Tuesday, doll.”

Moving my hair from my eyes, I try to blink the world into focus. “I slept through the deadline?”

“Yep. It's you and me from now on.”

I look at the clock and then outside. “Wait. It's only 4:00
A.M.
”

Clyde laughs, slapping his leg. “Had you fooled for a second there, didn't I?”

With a hand on my chest, I catch my breath. “Don't scare me like that. My heart's going crazy.”

“Probably cuz you're thinking about you and me together, ain't you?” He smiles at me.

He's talking to me, sweetheart. Hope you enjoyed the show I sent of Clyde and me while you slept. Now that you saw how much we love each other, you can forget about coming between us.

I sift through my dreams—snippets of Clyde and I having sex in the back of cars, in hotel rooms, on a blanket on a mountaintop. He definitely wasn't lying about his bedroom skills. I know I should keep quiet, but I can't help gloating.

You must have forgotten that I was in your body, Bonnie. Thanks for the sweet dreams.

She cuts off my airway for several seconds, but just when I'm about to alert Clyde, she lets go.

That's for being a low-life tramp.

I want to remind her that it was
her
life I was reliving, but don't want to risk her wrath. I run my tongue around the inside of my mouth, which feels drier than dirt. Dabbing the sleep out of my eye, I yawn. “I can't believe I slept for four hours.”

“Almost five. And you was snoring,” Clyde says, sounding amused, relaxed. He laughs, his arm casually laid across the top of the seat. “Good thing I got a good memory, Twinkle.” He lifts the silver flask from between his legs and takes a sip.

My eyes widen. “You're drinking? You said you wouldn't.”

“You want some?” He offers the flask to me.

“No! And you shouldn't have had any either. Pull over and let's switch places.”

“Come on now. I wouldn't risk our lives, not when I'm about to have a second chance. I'm the best driver in history, with or without liquid fortitude. And don't fret. I ain't had much—a tiny sip now and then to wet my whistle is all—and I ain't tired in the least. But sorry to say, I don't plan to give up the wheel to no one, especially not a female.”

“I hope you're kidding because things have changed—a lot. Women are equal to men now, Clyde. We have full-time jobs, we own houses—hell, we even build houses! Anything a man can do, a woman can too. There are even females in the Indy 500.”

He laughs. “As what—flag wavers?” Before I can say something snarky in response, he glances at the rearview mirror. “Uh-oh. Don't look now, but we got us some company.”

I turn and look out the back window. There are blue flashing lights—approaching fast.

“I just said not to look!”

“Sorry!” My panic jumps from slightly nervous to pure terror. “What're we going to do now?” I cycle through possible excuses, cracking my knuckles. “Should we say this is my sister's car? Or that we just bought it and don't have the paperwork yet?” I'm about to check back again, when I stop myself. “You should pull over, Clyde.” I look down at his crotch. “And get rid of the flask!”

“Settle down, woman! They're going to think you're hiding something with all that fidgeting. Sit still and let me handle this.” Clyde hits the brakes, and for the first time during our trip, he uses his turn signal to move into the right lane. He doesn't pull over, just drives slow, as if waiting to see what happens.

“Handle it how?” I remember the gun. My heart drops.

Clyde shrugs. “I'll wait for the coppers to get out and walk almost all the way over to our car, then I'll take off like ammo from a Winchester. I'll ditch them in under two miles with this baby.” He pats the dashboard lovingly. He must mean it too, because he makes no effort to hide the flask.

Based on the way the trees on the side of the road light up in split-second intervals of blue light, I know they're right behind us. “Okay, fine. You're the boss.”

“About time you came around.” Clyde grins, pointing toward the glove box. “Now hand me that gun, just in case.”

“No, Clyde!” I jam both feet against the glove box. “Don't even think about it.”

Fool! You might need it!

“Don't be like that. Now hand it over.” With his palm up, he wiggles his fingers, gesturing for me to hand it to him.

“No! I've been doing some thinking, too, and I decided that Jack was right about one thing. As soon as the deadline's over, I'm turning myself in. The fewer illegal things I've done, the better.” The sirens are louder, lights right behind us. I close my eyes, my hands gripped together in prayer.
Mom, God, anyone? Help me to get through this. I don't want Bonnie sharing my body. Please!

“Crybaby's tomfoolery is making you change your mind about being with me?”

“It's just that…” I swallow my words, realizing that once again, I've revealed too much.

“Can't believe a girl as smart as you could be so dumb, Twinkle.”

He suddenly chuckles, staring straight ahead. “Well, what do you know? God must like you and me both. Looks like they's heading to arrest some other sad sack!”

It can't be. I watch open-mouthed as the police car zooms past us. I lift trembling hands to wipe the tears lining my eyes. “I can't believe it. I always get caught.”

“Now that you're with me, maybe your luck is changing.” He smiles for a second before snapping his fingers. “Oh, wait. You're choosing jail, not me.” He shakes his head. “Too bad about that. Not sure what I'm going to do now. Shame to have to get rid of such a sweet moll.”

I can't tell if he's serious or not. But I sense that I need to fix this now or I might not be going anywhere except a roadside ditch. “I only said that so you'd stop asking for the gun! I didn't want you to shoot another police officer. Truthfully, I don't know what I'm going to do after the deadline. I'm taking this one day at a time, okay?” I hold out my hand. “Look how bad I'm shaking.”

Clyde glances at my hand and his expression immediately softens. “You're quivering more than a wet cat. If we wasn't in this predicament, I'd pull over right here on the side of the highway and hold you 'til you calmed down. But since I can't, you'd better have some of this.” He hands the flask to me. “Have a swig or two. That'll cure the shakes.”

“No, thanks. I plan to drive the next time we stop. That'll make me feel better.” It'll also give me more control over the situation, but I'm not mentioning that. If Clyde decides to drive past the death memorial instead of stopping to let me do some sort of ritual, I can't do a thing to stop him.

Good Lord, girl! You are testing his patience. Keep quiet or he'll get rid of us!

Clyde clucks his tongue and smiles. “I wouldn't have thought it possible, but I kinda like your feistiness.” He shakes his head, chuckling. “I never dreamed a woman could be so headstrong as to stand up to a man. I tell you what I'm gonna do, Twinkle.” He nods at a glowing gas station sign atop a towering post that boasts
Open 24 Hours!
“We need to stop for gas now, so maybe I'll
consider
letting you drive after we fill up.”

“Perfect, thanks!” I know Clyde's not the type of guy to come out and admit he's taking a woman's suggestion, so I take his consideration as a yes.