Cindy, too, for all she knew. Nothing could stop it. Certainly not her feeble efforts.
She squeezed her eyes shut. 'So it's all a vicious conspiracy? Everything I do, everything I try to build, it's all an ugly joke, and I'm the butt of it. I'm never going to crawl out of this godawful stinking hole, am I, Connor? Monsters are waiting around every corner.'
'Erin, please—'
'It's like quicksand,' she quavered. 'The harder I try to climb out, the deeper I sink.'
'Erin, please,' Connor pleaded. 'Don't freak out on me. I could be wrong. Hell, I probably am wrong. Maybe I'm a paranoid idiot, and if so, I give you permission to kick my ass, OK? Please, don't cry. Come here.'
'No.' She shrank against the door. 'Please, just shut up and leave me alone.'
He knocked his head against the steering wheel with a snarl of raw frustration. 'Oh, Christ. What a mess,' he muttered, starting up the car with a roar. 'Put your seat belt on.'
The car was ominously silent for the next couple of hours. Erin kept her face averted. Connor finally pulled over at a roadside restaurant and parked. 'Let's get some food,' he said.
'I'm not hungry,' she told him. 'But go right ahead.'
He marched around the car, wrenched the door open, and yanked her out. 'You need to eat.'
She was too tired to fight. 'Don't, Connor,' she said. 'I'm coming. Please calm down.'
'Hah,' he muttered.
She ordered a bowl of chicken soup rather than argue over food, and made a show of eating it while he devoured his cheeseburger. She stopped at the bank of pay phones in the restaurant lobby on their way out, and plugged all her change into one of the phones. Her last quarter slipped from her fingers, and the damned thing rolled everywhere, deliberately eluding her. Connor finally subdued it by stomping it under his boot. He plugged it into the slot for her.
She dialed. A recorded voice said that the money she'd deposited was insufficient for that call, and would she please deposit another—
'Goddamn this worthless piece of garbage!' she shrieked.
She started pounding on it. Connor grabbed her fists and held her fast. 'Hey. Cool it before they call the cops on us, babe,' he soothed. 'The screaming is making the hostess nervous. What's the problem?'
'Do you have any goddamn quarters?' she demanded.
'Shhh. I've got better than that.' He wrapped his arms around her tightly from behind, surrounding her with his warmth. 'I've got a cell phone, and it's still charged up. Come on out to the car. You can make your call there, where it's private and quiet.'
He flipped open the phone and handed it to her as soon as they got to the car. She dialed the cell phone number for Cindy. Nothing.
She dialed Mom's number, crossing her fingers. It was Monday evening. Mom should have gotten the phone turned back on by now.
It was still disconnected.
She snapped the phone shut, handed it back to him, and twisted her hands in her lap.
'Dead end?' he asked.
She nodded.
'Who were you trying to reach? Cindy?'
'And my mom,' she whispered.
'What about your mom?' he prompted. 'Is she OK?'
She let out a tight, hitching breath and shook her head.
'Tell me, Erin.' There was no harsh note of command in his quiet voice this time.
She looked into her lap. 'Mom's losing it,' she said. 'Most days she won't even get out of bed. She won't pay her bills. She didn't get her phone turned back on. She's going to lose the house. There's no money left to pay the mortgage. And now she's seeing things. In the TV Impossible things. The videos that Victor Lazar used to blackmail Dad. Of him, with his mistress. In bed.' Her voice trailed off.
Connor made no comment. She looked up. His eyes were full of quiet comprehension. 'I watched my dad fall apart,' he said. 'I know how it feels.'
Her throat shook. 'It's horrible. It's… it's like—'
'Like the earth opening up beneath your feet,' he finished.
She started to cry, deep and wrenching sobs. He pulled her onto his lap, tucked her head beneath his chin, and rocked her tenderly. She let the storm rage through her, leaving her limp and exhausted, and so relaxed in the warm circle of his arms that she fell asleep.
The better part of an hour and a half went by. His bad leg was stiff and cramped beneath her warm weight, and they should have gotten right back on the road, but it was worth it, to hold such a fragrant, beautiful creature in his arms. He sneaked all the pins out of her hair and hid them in his jacket pocket, and her glossy bun had uncoiled and wrapped itself around his hand like a live thing before it lay quiet against her slender, graceful back. He pressed his cheek against her hair. So smooth and soft. Like nothing else on earth.
A car horn blared. She woke with a start. 'What? Where are we?'
He stroked her back gently. 'Same place we were before.'
'But it's getting dark.' She consulted her watch. 'Good God, it's been over an hour. Why didn't you wake me?'
'I didn't want to disturb you,' he said simply.
She scrambled off his lap. 'We'd better get going,' she murmured. 'What happened to my hairpins?'
'Guess they fell out,' he said, with a perfectly straight face.
He never would have thought he could be grateful for a woman's crying jag, but he was grateful for this one. It had drained away all their bitter tension. Erin yawned as he started up the car, and he reached out and touched the curve of her cheek. 'Why don't you try and sleep some more?' he suggested. 'It's been a hell of a day.'
He waited until Erin's head was lolling against the seat, her rosy mouth slightly open, hair waving across her face like a feathery dark veil. He pulled out the phone and pushed the scrambler code for Sean.
'Hey,' Sean said.
'So?'
'I can hardly hear you, dude,' Sean complained. 'Speak up.'
'I'm on the road. Erin's sleeping, and I don't want to wake her. Tell me what you've got.'
Sean grunted. 'Well, I checked out the babe lair, and you know what? Most of them actually were pretty damn cute. They couldn't tell me much about Billy the Fuckhead, though, except how loaded and hunkadelic he is, and that Jag just makes them all come. No surname, place of origin, occupation, or details of any kind. But I've spent the afternoon tracking down the Vicious Rumors, and—'
'The what?'
'Cindy's band,' Sean explained. 'She plays sax in an R&B bar band. She's a music major, you know. They tell me she's not half bad, either. Anyhow, I bought a pitcher of beer and a platter of wings for the lead guitarist and the drummer. They told me that this guy Billy got them some gigs in various roadhouses over the past couple of months. He's some kind of agent, or so he told them. He strung them along with big talk about record deals, national tours, and shit like that, but nothing ever came of it but a few sleazy gigs for thirty bucks a head in some roadhouse dives. Then he lost interest in them and sort of sucked Cindy up into his wake. She hasn't rehearsed with the Rumors for over a month. They're worried about her, too. They don't like the Fuckhead. And they want Cindy back.'
'Surname? License number? Anything? If they worked for him they must have paperwork, right?'
'Nah. It was all cash under the table, and the cell phone number they had for him no longer works. He called himself Billy Vega, but Davy hasn't uncovered anything under that name yet. It's an alias.'
'Shit,' he muttered.
'But don't despair. They told me that the Vicious Rumors soundman had a big, sloppy crush on Cindy. Ever since she ran off, he's been hiding out in his parents' basement, nursing his broken heart watching his
'Ouch.' Connor winced. 'That's bad.'
'Yeah, love hurts. I'm on my way right now to roust the sound man out of his basement. We'll see if jealousy made him notice anything special about this guy. And I've got a list of all the roadhouses where Billy got gigs for the
