Run Rose Run(89)

“You look familiar,” the one who was driving said. “Did we party with you last night?”

AnnieLee offered up a false and sparkling laugh. “Maybe so,” she said. “There’s a lot I don’t remember about my whereabouts.”

“You and me both,” the driver said, rolling her eyes. “My name’s Bella.”

“I’m Rose,” AnnieLee said. Then she sucked in her breath. It wasn’t what she’d meant to say.

But no one noticed the way she paled. The other two girls were Molly and Taylor, and they were desperately hungover from the night before, they said, though Molly seemed possibly drunk still. The three of them had caravanned from New Mexico with two other friends, both of whom were still asleep in their hotel rooms—“and not alone, either,” Bella said archly.

While they were heading southeast along Route 93, Taylor, who was in the passenger seat, put her head between her knees and said, “You gotta pull over, girl. Now.”

Bella sighed, flicking on her turn signal and pulling onto the shoulder. Cars whizzed past as Molly giggled and Taylor staggered out of the car, bent over at the waist and clutching her stomach.

Five minutes later she returned, wiping her mouth and pink with embarrassment while her friends made sympathetic noises and tried not to giggle. Taylor shook Tic Tacs into her palm and then passed the container around the car. “If I try to order triple White Russians ever again,” she said to Bella, “I want you to punch me in the face.”

Soon they were on their way again, and AnnieLee gazed out the window, trying not to think about where she was headed. The city was already invisible behind them, and ahead lay nothing but brown hills dotted with desert sage. She looked down at her hands and realized that they were shaking.

Just what do you think you’re doing? Have you gone crazy? How is this going to solve anything?

The voice in her head asked all sorts of questions she didn’t want to answer.

She knew she was betraying everyone who’d ever been kind to her by running away. Ruthanna Ryder, who’d taken her under her wing. Who’d come out of retirement to sing with her at a show that would never happen. Kind, wise Jack, who’d worked so hard to build her audience, and the people at ACD, who’d taken a chance on believing in her.

And of course there was Ethan. Unlike the rest of them, he had nothing to lose if she destroyed her career. But leaving him felt worst of all.

She thought back to the conversation they’d had in that Salt Lake City hotel room. When Ethan told her about the pain of his past, she’d seen how a weight suddenly lifted from his shoulders, how the restlessness that always seemed to animate him suddenly quieted. He’d wanted a confession from her, too, probably because he thought that it would mean relief for both of them.

But she couldn’t give him that, and she couldn’t even tell him why.

She’d tried to imagine the explanation. Your secret was about a bad thing people thought you’d done. But mine’s about a bad thing that was done to me. And those aren’t the same kinds of secrets at all.

He wouldn’t understand. And if he knew the truth, he’d never look at her the same way again. It wasn’t the kind of thing a man could forget.

AnnieLee reached down and rubbed her wounded leg. Whatever painkillers they’d given her had worn off, but the cuts weren’t painful so much as they were uncomfortable and itchy. Her skin felt tight and hot beneath the bandages, and the thick cotton-poly sweatpants that she’d grabbed off the rack—they were the first extra-smalls she’d come across—didn’t help matters. The right pant leg read LAS VEGAS RAIDERS. Was that a football team? She didn’t even know.

She leaned forward, trying to see how fast Bella was going. Was she speeding? AnnieLee hoped she was going ten miles over the limit at least.

“How far are you going?” Bella asked. Molly and Taylor seemed to be asleep.

“Farther than you,” AnnieLee said brightly. “So I’ll ride along as long as you’ll have me. And I’ll fill up the tank at the next pump.” She met Bella’s eyes in the rearview mirror. “I’ve got money,” she said. “Just…not wheels.”

“We’re glad to help out,” Bella said.

Molly raised her head, blinked sleepily, and said, “Hos before bros, right?”

AnnieLee laughed, for real this time. “Sounds good to me,” she said.





Chapter

80


A hundred thousand miles, huh?” Ethan said, squinting at the truck that was parked in front of a dilapidated ranch just outside Paradise, Nevada. It was a 2004 Dodge Ram, a quad cab V-6 with a towing package and a few other needless bells and whistles.

“Yeah, that’s right,” the owner said. He was a skinny, nervous-looking dude in a faded Golden Nugget T-shirt, a leather vest, and a pair of jeans that hadn’t been washed in so long they looked like they could walk off somewhere on their own. “It runs like a dream.”

The truck was newer and nicer than Gladys was, but it had none of her charms; it was a truck without a soul. Not that this mattered in the slightest. Ethan wasn’t interested in the Dodge because he liked it; he was interested because he needed a reliable set of wheels that wouldn’t make him look like a tourist or a cop when he was driving down the back roads of Arkansas, looking for AnnieLee. “Why are you selling?” he asked. “Trading up?”