Run Rose Run(79)

She stared up at the ceiling again. Would that bit of her past be enough to satisfy him? She was tired and drunk and she didn’t want to talk anymore.

“I get it,” Ethan said quietly. “But I still have a few questions, AnnieLee. Like how and when you got out, and whether or not somebody from there might be trying to get you back.”

She squeezed her eyes shut again. “That part I can’t tell you about,” she said. “Not yet. Maybe not ever.”





Chapter

68


That was all she would say, and she was relieved that Ethan didn’t press her any further. Instead, he’d gotten up from the bed, kissed her on the cheek, and wished her a good night. She’d passed out immediately, still in her clothes and not even under the covers.

She woke up late and stumbled down to the lobby for the free continental breakfast. Her head ached horribly, and she kept her sunglasses on as she poured herself a bowl of Corn Flakes.

Ethan, who’d clearly been up for hours already, gave her a sympathetic look as she sat down across from him. “How’re you feeling?”

She pressed her fingers against her temples. “Like I got hit by a semi,” she said. “Then dragged behind it for a while, and then thrown off a cliff.”

He pushed a mug of coffee toward her. “I had them brew it twice as strong,” he said. “It’ll help.”

She took a grateful sip. It was hot and bitter and delicious. “I need some water, too,” she said, “and a wheelbarrow of Advil.”

He started to get up. “There’s some in the van—I’ll get it.”

She tried to shake her head, but she had to stop because it hurt too much. “It’s okay. I’ll take it when we’re on the road,” she said.

“I’ve already checked us out,” Ethan said. “Once we start driving, we’ll be in Vegas in about seven hours.”

Seven hours. The thought made her stomach lurch. Las Vegas—her final show, and by far her biggest. AnnieLee stared down at her cereal, and instead of soggy flakes floating in bluish skim milk, she saw crowds of people streaming into a huge arena. She saw an empty stage, and herself waiting in the wings, clumsy and self-conscious, palms so sweaty she could barely keep hold of her guitar as lyrics flew from her mind like birds loosed from a cage.

She dropped her spoon and looked up at Ethan. “I’m petrified,” she said.

He reached across the table and took her hand. “I know the feeling well,” he said as he twined his fingers through hers. “Me and that feeling go way back.”

But Ethan didn’t seem like the kind of man who’d ever be afraid. “How far back?”

“All the way to my jail cell, if not before.”

“So what did you do?” AnnieLee asked urgently. “How’d you manage?”

“When I was heading into court, I’d say to myself, Nothing can go wrong today, because everything has gone wrong already.” Then he withdrew his hand from hers and offered up a small, sad smile. “But that kind of thinking’s not for everyone, AnnieLee. It only helps someone who’s been hurt beyond what they think they can stand.”

AnnieLee sucked in her breath and let it out slowly. “I might be one of those someones,” she whispered.

“I guess I figured that,” he said.





Chapter

69


Both AnnieLee’s mood and her hangover improved as they headed southwest under a vast and cloudless sky. They found a satellite radio station playing nothing but classic country, stopped to stretch their legs every few hours, and filled up at a gas station that sold old-fashioned candy by the pound. Ethan bought a bag of caramel creams, and AnnieLee ate so many licorice jelly beans that her tongue turned blackish green.

They arrived in Las Vegas at dusk. As Ethan drove the Sprinter slowly down the Strip, AnnieLee leaned halfway out the window, taking in the flashing neon lights, the towering hotels, and the masses of people streaming along the sidewalks. They passed an Eiffel Tower, a Statue of Liberty, and a four-story LED sign advertising a BUFFET OF BUFFETS, “whatever that means,” AnnieLee crowed. She couldn’t believe a place like this could exist at all, let alone in the middle of a huge, dusty desert.

“Careful,” Ethan warned. “You’re hanging out that window like a dang spaniel.”

Indignant, she pulled her head back inside, but before she could protest such a comparison, he started singing “Ooh Las Vegas.”

Ethan sounded nothing like Gram Parsons, but AnnieLee joined in on Emmylou Harris’s harmony, and they sang their way past the Luxor’s enormous black pyramid, past a showgirl grinding on an embarrassed-looking grandpa outside Mandalay Bay, and bridesmaids in bright feather boas skipping down the sidewalk like a bunch of drunk Dorothys in Oz.

Finally they reached the south end of the Strip, and Ethan turned the Sprinter around so he could point out the iconic WELCOME TO FABULOUS LAS VEGAS sign, shining like a beacon against the dark-blue sky.

“The only cigarettes I ever smoked were in Vegas,” Ethan mused as they headed back north to their hotel.

AnnieLee brushed her windblown hair out of her eyes. “You’ve been here before?”

“Only once,” he said. “I lost a lot of money, ate myself sick at the Emperor’s Buffet, and got harassed by a prostitute. Then I got drunk at a dive bar with a bunch of Elvis impersonators, and that’s the last thing I remember.”