I liked to make things up about my life, as I recognized what a hollow shell it was right now. Perhaps it wouldn’t be so hollow forever. From the bottom of the well, you couldn’t see many of the stars.
The sun had completely set by the time I found Wes Kraemer’s loan offices on the outskirts of Iowa City. The building looked dilapidated, crooked, with half the roof needing new tiles. Outside, the building had a massive sign with the words “Wes Kraemer—For All Your Loan Needs” and a phone number. I found myself snorting. Who wouldn’t think this guy was some kind of crook just by looking at a sign like that? The guy reeked of bad dealings.
The place was locked up, dark, with the broken blinds covering what they could of the windows. I eased myself out of the Mustang and then crept toward the back of the loan office. My blood pumped past my ears, making me feel like a rabbit on the edge of the forest, poised to spring across the road. I had to be fast. I couldn’t allow my fear to hold me back.
The back window was easy to pry open using the tools from my trunk. With the window up, I waited for an alarm to sound, and was grateful when the silence continued, beating its gravity into my ears. With a quick gasp, I hustled through the window and let my left foot hit the ground to catch my weight. The carpet—a dirty beige that smelled vaguely of deodorant—made things a bit quieter. After getting my other foot inside, I crept through the back office, my eyes adjusting to the darkness.
In my experience with these crooked places, the money was often nearby, easy to retrieve, as these men liked to sit around, cartoon-like, and count their bills with their oily hands. I’d often done it myself during my brief time with the gang: stacks of 100s, 50s, 20s all in a row, making me feel like some kind of master. It had all been in my head.
A rusted safe was in the corner of the next room, near a desk, with a single lock clicked into place. I had to snicker at its simplicity. Sure, the crime scene of Iowa City was nowhere near the one in Detroit, but with stacks of bills around, wouldn’t you take precautions?
Still, feeling grateful, I broke the lock and then gazed into the interior at the dozen or so stacks of 50s, all green and stinking of whatever dull and grimy place they’d come from. These weren’t bills that had been lined up in any bank recently.
“Fuck yes,” I muttered to myself, collecting the bills. This was more than enough for gas, food, and any bribes I might need to pay on the way to Mexico. If I had to hide out or ask someone to cover for me, I had enough. I could almost feel the Detroit Seven sniffing at my heels, hunting for me.
This was a stroke of luck, perhaps my first since Aaron had passed. Reaching to the right, I grabbed an open suitcase, which had been collecting dust next to the desk. I flung the bills inside, bouncing them off one another. Jumping up from the carpet, I walked toward the open window, high on adrenaline.
This was the first crime I’d committed in months. It was a necessary one, without the pomp and circumstance of the dealings back in Detroit. Perhaps I didn’t miss the thrill of it after all. My bones ached.
The sooner I was out of Iowa City, the better. Beyond the Mexican border, I’d find freedom. Beyond the border, I could choose a new name, a new life—and forget about the one I was leaving behind. Jesus, it would feel good to stretch my legs for more than a few hours at a time. It would feel good to find peace.
Chapter Two
Luna
My father’s house, the home I’d grown up in, was in desperate need of a repaint. Once, it had been yellow and bright, a safe haven and a place of joy for me when I’d been growing up. The porch swing out front had moved in the breeze, creaking beside my bedroom window as I tried to fall asleep. But now it was broken, sagging, as if my father had come home from the casino one too many times, drunk off his ass, and slumped into it.
Nothing was sacred.
“Luna, hey.” Dad was still at the door, gazing out after me as I left in a huff.
I whipped my head around, allowing my red hair to scatter over my shoulders. My green eyes were aflame.
“What is it, Pop?”
“I’m going to be all right,” he said, creaking the door open. He leaned heavily against the frame, his face looking tired and gray after the stress of the previous few years. “You know I always pull out of this kind of thing.”
Tears sprung up in my eyes, making me blink rapidly to hold them back. I had to be the strong one. I’d had to be for years.
“They’re going to come after you if you don’t repay that money. A loan shark of all people? Jesus. You said it yourself: violent consequences. And they don’t care that you’re sick, Dad. They don’t care that you’re my only family, that you’re a good person. They only know your gambling debt. They only know that you owe them twenty thousand—”
Dad stuck his hand into the air, halting my words, the motion firm. “Keep it down, honey,” he whispered, his voice raspy. “I don’t want all of Iowa City to know about this.”
“Well, they’ll know if you end up dead,” I countered, then immediately regretted it. I brought my arms over my chest, crossing them tightly, and gazed into his faded green eyes. “I’m just so worried about you.”
He beckoned me toward him. Giving a final sigh, I crept toward him and accepted his weak hug, knowing his heart problems prevented any real strength. He hadn’t been able to laugh or play in a gruff and real way since his diagnosis years before. He needed surgery, but the bills for the medication were already piling up, leaving us at a loss.
Of course, he’d compounded them with his gambling addiction.
“You look tired, Daddy,” I said, breaking the hug early and gazing down at my shoes. They were scuffed, tinged with ketchup from the long days at the diner. I couldn’t afford to buy new ones, let alone dig us out of this kind of debt. “You should get some sleep. We’ll figure this out together.”
But as I said it, I sensed how doomed we truly were.
In the silence that fell between us, my father retraced his steps, entering the dark haze of the house once more, and locking the door behind him. I was left standing slumped and broken, gazing at the busted front porch and wondering how—at 25 years old—my life already seemed dilapidated and shadowed, without hope.
Slipping into my car, I collapsed upon my steering wheel, allowing myself to cry real tears. They coiled down my cheeks, dipping into my mouth and coating my lips with salt. A twenty-thousand-dollar loan from some shady local loan shark. Jesus Christ, Dad.
Of course, he’d thought he was taking the problem on himself. He’d thought he was helping me, ‘keeping me out of things’ as he’d put it. He’d never allowed me to go to the casino with him, knowing it was his most shameful activity—the one that was putting us both under, more and more, every time he tossed down chips.
I hadn’t caught onto the gambling addiction until I was maybe 17. It was pretty easy to see when you were the only one who couldn’t afford lunch at school and your pop was out till dawn. But I’d wanted to believe in him. The heart problems had only crept to the surface when I’d stopped by the house a few years ago and answered the phone call from the cardiologist, who’d told me, point-blank, that I had better demand some answers from my father. He was keeping the truth about his predicament from me. It would only add to the stress on his busted-out heart.
A literal broken heart. A gambling addiction. And now, a loan shark, after my dad’s head.
I reached forward and turned the key in the ignition before driving the car too fast down the neighborhood street. Under the cover of darkness, many of the houses I’d been accustomed to my entire life looked shaded, strange, like they belonged on a street in an old horror movie. They were no longer guarded with the titles of my childhood: “the one that passed out good Halloween candy” or “the one that always brought over casseroles when they thought Dad had been feeding me too many peanut butter sandwiches.”
Was that just a part of growing up, recognizing that everything you’d once trusted didn’t deserve your trust any longer? Was
it about forging new paths forward, taking tentative steps?
Without really thinking about it, a blind hand drove me toward the diner. I didn’t want to return to my teensy, half-decorated apartment to be alone, and besides, it was close by. As I drove, I tried to think through my dad’s problems, tried to imagine a way to pay his debts, his medical bills, and to get him into a clinic to overcome his addiction.
But, God, with my own expenses, it seemed impossible. I’d been working at the diner the last five years, and hardly had enough to rub two pennies together. The tips from people who were just driving through, eating biscuits and gravy with unlimited coffee, all at around four in the morning, were usually lackluster. And, beyond that, I’d been spending money on community college for my managerial studies, trying to yank myself up by the bootstraps, as they say.
Parking in the lot near the diner, I was grateful to be one of the only people there—no regulars asking me intimate questions about how I was doing or whatever. I didn’t have the energy for it. As it was after eight-thirty and the dinner rush had strung out, leaving just Marcia to run the diner by herself until midnight. I grabbed my purse and rushed indoors, directly into Marcia’s stringy arms. She was in her 50s, with wrinkles between her eyebrows and beneath her eyes; she was almost like the mother I’d never had.
“Darling, just you sit down over there and I’ll grab you a piece of pie. We need to get some meat on those bones,” Marcia said, pointing toward the far window.
“Just a cup of coffee, Marcia,” I said. “I think putting pie in my body right now would destroy me.”
My stomach grumbled angrily. Had I eaten that day? I couldn’t remember. Everything before the blast of information from my father was a complete haze.
Marcia rolled her eyes and hustled toward the coffee machine, where she poured a deep cup. “No milk, right?”
“Right,” I affirmed, accepting the mug and trekking toward the far booth. I stuck my elbows on the tabletop and leaned heavily on my fists, trying to calm my racing thoughts.
We didn’t have to be doomed. I just had to think hard enough. I just had to plan better.
But then the words pulsed through my brain again: violent consequences. What did that mean? A broken arm? A punch to the face? What did a surface-level threat mean if my dad’s heart didn’t beat correctly any longer?
I wasn’t too confident that Dad wanted to stay alive, anyway. Perhaps the words “violent consequences” meant something different to him, a welcome reprieve after the storm of his life. He’d finally be allowed to rest, to be with Momma, wherever she was. She’d died when I was just a toddler, and all I really knew of her came from a few photographs around the house.
Dad didn’t like to talk about her.
“Refill, honey?” Marcia called, eyeing my half-empty mug of coffee. “I’m making another pot.”
My tongue ticked against the top of my mouth, preparing to respond. But my heart raced so quickly beneath my ribcage, making me hear only a purr and feel only panic.
Chapter Three
Colt
I stuck my leg out of the open window before slipping the rest of my body from the loan shark’s shack. As I yanked the suitcase out behind me, it busted open, forcing me to clamp it closed against my chest. Fuck. I couldn’t have the bills spilling out all over the place.
Inside the car, I eased the suitcase into the front seat, giving it a loving glance—the only passenger I needed. As I revved the engine and cranked the car back, I smacked into the chain-link fence around the parking lot, making it creak. “Shit,” I murmured. With a burst, I then shot the car forward, driving as fast as I could away from the wreckage, my wheels screaming against the gravel.
The radio blared, telling me the time—just after eight-thirty—and that they’d be playing the greatest hits from the ’90s until midnight. That would put me where? Missouri? I tried to imagine a map of the United States and, with a bizarre clarity, pictured the one that had been on the blackboard in my fourth-grade class, the same year I’d met Aaron.
We’d formed a friendship over copied tests and homework, whispering each other the names of all the capitals. “Montpelier,” Aaron had said to me, ramming his elbow into my ribcage. “For Vermont.”
As I drove away from Kraemer’s loan offices, I felt my eyelids begin to droop. The adrenaline had left me, evaporating from my bloodstream, leaving me exhausted. It was like I hadn’t slept in fucking days. Glancing off the highway, I spotted a sign that read “24-hour Diner” with a large, plastic-looking burger on it.
If there was one thing I’d learned from two months on the road, it was this: 24-hour diners always refilled your coffee at least 12 times before asking you a single question. They didn’t give a fuck who you were or where you were going. You were essentially invisible.
The diner was similar to all the others I’d seen on the road: ultimately forgettable. It was outdated-looking, had a few busted-in cars in the parking lot, and there was a cutesy window on the side where kids could come up and order milkshakes in the summertime. A large mural was painted on the side, featuring a fireman, a cop, a man holding a briefcase, and a woman holding a pie.
The painting was spoiled and dotted with piss stains, and it had probably been done by the kids at the high school. What was it trying to say, anyway? That women were in charge of the pie while the men made the world go round? Maybe that was how it was in Iowa City, but it certainly hadn’t been that way in Detroit.
Before she died, my grandmother had been a force of nature, monitoring our block and hollering at hoodlums, keeping them far from her patch. Robbing from my grandmother had meant you had a death wish. She could handle a gun. She could handle herself.
And she certainly hadn’t made any goddamn pie.
Glancing inside the diner, I scanned the interior for cops. They normally congregated in diners, scarfing down pies and drinking coffees, awaiting calls on their radios. I was grateful to see that the place was more or less abandoned. There was one middle-aged woman wearing an apron and monitoring the coffee machine, a greasy-haired boy in the back dropping some fries into the fryer, and a young, stunning redhead near the back, staring forward and sipping her coffee occasionally, her lips pursed.
Thank God.
I reached for the suitcase, hopeful it wouldn’t burst open the moment I entered, and then stepped out of the car, telling myself I’d remain there for an hour, tops, before getting back on the road.
With a quick glance, I noted that the Mustang wasn’t damaged from the ding into the back fence. It had been scratched and scuffed countless times before on my travels, and didn’t seem any different. Still, it would make sense to rid myself of the car soon, just to get the Seven off my tracks.
But not tonight. Tonight, I’d be out of Iowa City before midnight, passing through whichever state was next until dawn.
I wished that Aaron could show it to me on the map, but I’d have to use my own damn head this time.
Shoving my shoulder into the front door of the diner, the suitcase wrapped tightly in my arms, I entered fresh-baked pie and burnt coffee scented air, grateful for a brief reprieve from the stale smoke smell of the Mustang. It didn’t matter who you were: a murderer, a banker, an ex-member of the Detroit Seven—everyone loved that smell. It made your heart sing.
“Howdy, stranger,” the middle-aged woman said from the counter, stabbing a finger over the coffee machine and brewing another pot. Her voice was raspy, as if she’d smoked thousands of cigarettes in her lifetime. When she flashed a smile, I saw the brown-tinged proof.
“Have a seat wherever you like. We’ve got a special today: burger and fries. Three-fifty, if you can believe it. Best prices in all of Iowa City.”
She leaned across the diner counter, wrinkled breasts pressing against the white top. “But I have to tell you, Bobby back there’s been stoned for the past twelve hours, so I can’t account for much flavor, just a bit of warm food in your belly.” She winked at me, giving a soft shrug
.
She reminded me of a great aunt I’d once met, when I’d been maybe nine, who’d smoked like an aging mechanic and chewed at toothpicks, watching horse races on the television while my grandmother refilled my iced tea glass over and over again.
“She’s the most alive person I know,” my grandmother had told me. But she’d looked half-dead.
Chapter Four
Luna
The handsome, muscular, dirty-blond guy who entered the diner that night had a far different air about him than most of our other diners. As he stood at the counter speaking with Marcia, he pressed that strange, vintage-looking suitcase against his chest like it was his lifeblood.
His eyes were focused, blue, and bright, with some kind of secret as he ordered a black coffee from Marcia. His chiseled face and gruff stubble told a story of hunger, of probably not having had a proper meal in weeks. I felt a surge of desire to care for him, to take his coat and feed him. But I forced myself to remain plastered to the broken cushion, reminding myself the truth: he was nothing but a stranger.
“I’ll have that to you real quick,” Marcia said. “And holler at me if you decide you really do want that burger.”
The man didn’t respond. He turned toward my side of the diner, making my heart grow frantic, and chose the booth across from me, sliding the suitcase across his cushion and sitting beside it. He crossed his hands and pressed his chin heavily into them, blinking at me.
He couldn’t keep his eyes off me.
My green eyes, his blue, met across the linoleum floor of the gritty diner, holding onto each other. The electricity between us was intense, making me wonder if time had stopped, if the world had paused on its axis. I could see the depths of his soul, that he’d loved and he’d lost, that he was afraid, that he was running.
Boss Me, Bind Me - A Billionaire Romance Page 12
