Bad Boy Criminal: The Novel Read online

  I exhaled, long and low. He had a point. “I guess I would’ve turned you in,” I confessed. And if I would do it—so would anyone else. He needed a companion. A go-between. Someone who could represent him to the motel clerks and the gas station attendants between Boulder, Colorado and Juarez, Mexico. There were lots of stops on the way. Lots of hold-ups. “You need someone to come with you,” I went on.

  “And I suppose that someone’s got to be you?”

  I could hardly see Ashton’s face in the darkness, but his voice sounded like he was grinning.

  “Well, it’s got to be someone,” I flared defensively. “Who else is going to protect your ass while you undertake this brilliant ten-hour road trip on fucking I-25?”

  “Can’t think of anyone better, shortcake.” He was still grinning, the cocky bastard. “You must be bored as hell on Turner Dairyfarm to risk a shoot-out with this son of a bitch here.”

  “No one is going to shoot me, Ashton,” I informed him with a low, conspiratorial voice. “From a distance, I’m going to look like a hostage.”

  “God damn, girl, because that’s just what I need, another five years—”

  “No one will know the truth until it’s too late, and you’re acquitted,” I hissed. “Then, I can tell the world that I was always there for you, not because of you.”

  Ashton paused for a long time before finally responding to the notion, of which I was strangely proud.

  “We’re going to have to take your dad’s truck.”

  We?

  “Have to?” I clarified. I hated the thought of robbing my adoptive parents as I fled the country with a known felon. Their little hearts would just shatter.

  “I’m out of options here,” Ashton answered. “You know that. I mean, you have to know that, babe, before we go anywhere together. It’s called ride or die, not ride for a while, and then change your mind and agree to sell me out to the feds for a reduced sentence.”

  “Reduced sentence?”

  “Izz… Harboring a fugitive? Aiding and abetting a felon? Accomplice?” He hesitated, then went on, “Grand theft auto?” Another beat, another crime I’d have to commit for him: “Fraud?”

  “I’m not going to ride for a little while, and then bail,” I snapped, making the decision as suddenly and completely as I’d ever made any decision. “We can take Bill’s truck.” I just couldn’t bear to call him Dad, and know I was plotting to steal his car with Ashton. At the same time, I knew Ashton was right: we had to do it. And I believed in him innately. He was no killer. He could get acquitted—with a little help from his friend… No… With a little help from his friends. Jade. And me.

  “Just let me go do one thing first,” I asked of him. “I’ll grab some stuff and be right back. This will be much better than just stealing the truck. This way . . . They’ll think I just went into town or something. It’ll buy us a few hours. Okay?”

  Ash paused before he answered, and his hesitation was all the answer I needed. “Okay,” he said finally.

  “I’ll be right back!” I hissed, rushing into the rescue shed and grabbing Blue Jail’s cage.

  It’d been two days since I’d last checked his splint. He was probably ready to fly.

  And weren’t we all.

  I snatched up the cage and headed out the back of the rescue shed with it, alongside the pasture and out into the thickening brush. Blue Jail, excited by the sudden motion, awoke rapidly and began to chirp, though he still could not move with the bandage on his wing.

  “I think it’s time, little bird,” I whispered, sliding the door to the cage open and fishing him out.

  I unraveled the bandage and Blue Jail’s wings immediately pounded at the air, desperate for release.

  With a sympathetic smile, my hands came away from him, and Blue Jail tore off into the sky, disappearing almost as quickly.

  “Good luck, little Jail,” I called to him under my breath, returning to the rescue shed for my backpack and some supplies.

  Spotting a pen and a pad of paper on the workbench, I tore off the most recently used sheet—some simple equations meant to measure Blue Jail’s dosage of Doxycycline—and leaving behind a blank sheet. I put the pen down onto the first line and just let my mind carry it the rest of the way.

  Mom and Dad,

  I’m really sorry you have to find out this way. You probably think I just went to the store or something, but the truth is that I left with Ashton. Don’t worry about me; I’m a big girl. It’s him you need to worry about. Please don’t do anything to try to make me come back. I will come back as soon as I can…on my own.

  —Izzy

  I knew I should’ve been sad, or scared, or maybe I shouldn’t have been leaving with him at all. But goddamn, I wanted to. Excitement sang to the tips of my fingers as I scrawled out my farewell letter on the pad.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Ashton

  We were almost two hours outside of Boulder—though still in Colorado—when we got the alert that the Turners had reported their truck to be missing. So they had found that damn letter Izzy insisted on leaving . . . and we wouldn’t have much time. I had to admit, she was a sharp little pistol; the police immediately issued her presence as a hostage situation. How charming. Very cute.

  On the entrance ramp to 71, a dark green sedan was abandoned with a white t-shirt tucked into the passenger side window, the national symbol for a vehicle which will no longer run.

  If I’d have my phone, or my car, or my CDs, we could’ve been listening to Mozart…or, God, Schubert. But we were trapped listening to the musical stylings of The Eagles, and Chicago, and the like. Blugh.

  Maybe that sedan would have some classical in it. I whipped the wheel to the side and pumped the brakes. “Whoa!” Izz cried, turning to flash me wild hazel eyes. Did she think we were going to make it all the way to Juarez in her old man’s truck? Not anymore… Not after they’d called in and reported it missing. Not just it, but her, too, dammit.

  Ignoring her confusion and alarm, I reversed until we were angled parallel to the broken-down vehicle.

  “What are we doing?” she demanded.

  “Don’t worry about it,” I replied. In truth, although I appreciated her gesture, and it was cool of her to want to come, to help out, and to let me take her old man’s truck… Something about this didn’t sit right with me. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it—though I prayed I could put my finger on the reason I did want her here, God willing. Sex aside, her presence made me uncomfortable. As I glanced over at her, I shifted once, thoughtful as to this development, and ducked out of the truck. “We’re gonna have to leave this one for the cops to grab,” I warned her through the open window. “Can’t keep driving it now that it’s been reported.”

  The saving grace of this particular truck was that the truck bed was packed to the gills with useful equipment, including cruddy tubing and a spool of some thin copper wire. It was everything we’d needed to hot-wire this sedan, if I could get it moving. Slapping my palms together, I ducked out of the window and went to inspect our new find. My new find.

  The first step would be hot-wiring the car. Driver’s side unlocked, I slid beneath the steering column and popped its cover off easily. A tangle of wire guts came spilling out, and I used the owner’s manual in the glove compartment—naturally—to differentiate between the red and yellow and green and blue wires. It was a simple matter of splicing a few cords together…

  But, even after successfully hot-wiring the engine, the little bitch was still being ornery.

  Inspecting the gauges, I found the gas needle unwilling to budge.

  Hilarious. They’d just finished passing the last exit. I could only pray the gauge was broken; it was the only excuse I could possibly make for the sheer idiocy involved therein. But it also meant that the owners were very close to a variety of gas stations; I couldn’t imagine one being further than half a mile off the exit, a twenty or thirty minute walk for someone who didn’t really care about speed. But who di
dn’t really care about speed? It was only going to be a matter of minutes. Shit.

  Foraging in the back of Bill’s truck, I extracted a length of narrow tubing, sawed it off with the switchblade from my boot, and ignored the sound of Isabelle calling to me, wondering what was going on. I couldn’t get in the state of mind where she was the Bonnie to my Clyde. I just couldn’t. That would be stupid—stupid, and deadly, for both of us.

  Siphoning the gas from Bill’s truck to this unknown sedan, I sparked the wires again, and this time the engine roared to life. The gas needle still didn’t fluctuate; gauge must’ve been busted, hence their ability to completely ignore the red line until it was too late. At least Izzy and I were already going to drive it until the wheels rolled off. Where we were going, we didn’t need gauges to tell us anything.

  I dug the burner phone from my pocket next, and punched in one of the three numbers I had memorized in my life: Jade Rodriguez.

  Even though it was bound to be near midnight, she picked up on the third ring. That was my girl.

  “Que pasa?” her familiar, mousy voice piped over the line.

  “It’s me,” I answered grimly.

  “HOLY SHIT!” Jade cried. I heard a crash in the background. “Damnit…oh well,” she muttered. “I’ve got an entire box of keyboards anyway. So, HOLY SHIT, MAN! What the hell! The last thing I heard, you were being transmitted to max security, bro! Now you’re calling me from a cell phone?”

  “A burner phone,” I corrected her. “There’s a mild difference.”

  “STILL!”

  Over my shoulder, Isabelle called, “Who are you talking to over there?”

  “Who’s that?” Jade asked merrily.

  “Nobody,” I answered, defensive.

  “Well, nobody sounds cute.” I could hear the smirk in Jade’s voice.

  Over my shoulder, I hissed to Izzy, “Get in the car.”

  She didn’t resist. She climbed out of the truck and into the sedan, readily diving into the passenger seat for me.

  Damn. If I was looking for a Bonnie…she’d make a straight one.

  “Look, Jade, truth be told, I don’t have a lot of time,” I confessed, continually glancing over my shoulder for the approaching silhouettes of the car owners. “I need a hot favor, and then I’ve got to get back on the road.” Even as I said this to her, I collapsed into the driver’s seat of the sedan, pumped the gas, bringing the engine to a roar, and jerked onto the interstate. We’d have to get off at the next exit, in two or three exits at the most, and find our way to the next town via backroads. Now that the state police would be alert to the string of auto thefts, there’d be a blue boy idling at every speed trap, waiting for us. No. Waiting for me.

  “Sure, boo, anything,” Jade said. “Like I said, que pasa?”

  “First, I’m gonna need you to prep some new identities for me and my friend, Isabelle, here.”

  I saw Isabelle’s hair flip as she twisted to stare at me hard.

  “Oh, let me hook you up with Arlo, down in Albuquerque,” Jade answered, unaware of the hard stare I was receiving at the moment. I pretended like I was, too. “I’ll do the dirty work, and he can get you set up with the stuff when you get to New Mexico. Can you be there by this time tomorrow?”

  God, I hate all the driving being a criminal entails.

  “Yes,” I groaned.

  “Great,” Jade chirped, completely unaware of my tone. “What’s Isabelle’s full name?”

  “Hey, Izz, what’s your last name?” I whispered to my side.

  “Turner,” she answered, following a brief hesitation. So, she really had been a bad girl in life. I knew that hesitation.

  “You don’t have to be afraid to tell me,” I chastised her lightly. Of all the people to judge whatever she may have done, I’d be the last, and I was still somehow certain it’d probably been an accident…or a mistake, just like this was.

  “What?” Jade said on the line.

  “Shit, sorry,” I answered, glaring back at the highway. I needed to get Isabelle Turner off my damn mind. “Isabelle Turner,” I said. “Why?”

  “Just gonna snatch up a nice Facebook picture for her license,” Jade informed me.

  “You’re the most efficient nerd I know,” I told her.

  “High praise,” she replied.

  “Could you do one more thing for me, babe?” I wondered.

  “What?” Isabelle asked off to my right.

  “What?” Jade asked on the phone.

  “Let Dom and Xander know I’m all right. I’ll let you know where I’m headed when I know more.”

  Jade groaned. “Okay,” she finally agreed.

  I knew exactly what she meant.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Isabelle

  It seemed as if we’d been driving for an awful long time, for someone who was just trying to get to the border. I mean, what time had we left? Nine? Ten? And we’d taken the new car, the green sedan outside of Otero County, shortly before midnight. But what time was it now? I hadn’t brought my cell phone. That would’ve gotten me kicked out of this car.

  “What time is it?” I asked Ashton. I felt like we hadn’t been talking nearly enough for a criminal duo. I had to wonder at what he was thinking while he glared down the barrel of these winding, tree-clotted backroads. We’d gotten off the interstate around midnight, too. I wasn’t sure what time it was anymore, but a trip from Boulder to the border was nine or ten hours.

  “Almost four,” Ashton replied, seeming casual as he kept his eyes on the road.

  Yet here it was, almost four in the morning now, and I hadn’t even seen a single sign for New Mexico.

  “Shouldn’t we be…somewhere by now?” I wondered aloud.

  “We are somewhere,” Ashton assured me. “We’re at the tip of Utah.”

  “Utah?” I spluttered.

  “You know how it is,” he grumbled. “We’ve got to skirt around the interstates…about to head on into Arizona for a…” The sedan sputtered and lurched beneath us. “…bit,” Ashton finished, his face screwed into a scowl. “Shit.”

  “What shit?” I asked, unable to hide my alarm.

  “The gas gauge on this bitch has been broken the entire time, giving a false read on the E,” he informed me. “And now it is legitimately empty. God damn.”

  I sighed deeply and racked my brain for reasonable thoughts. It was my only purpose on this ill-advised road trip, apparently. Meanwhile, the dark green sedan lurched onto the side of the road, coughed, expelled one long, wistful sigh, and died.

  “Well,” I allowed, being the first to fill the silence, “how far are we from town?”

  Ashton grimaced. “Not very.” He pushed his door open, and I followed suit. We both grabbed our respective packs. I slung mine over my shoulder and joined him on the side of the dark and narrow road, somewhere in Utah, Ashton alleged.

  “I saw a sign about a mile back, pointing us toward a town called Bluff,” he informed me, his tone oddly light. “We could give it two miles of walking distance, find a motel in about an hour.” Just the kind of thing a tired farm girl who’s been trapped in the car for the past seven hours wants to hear. Walking. Great. “And the cops won’t be able to track where we are, because it’ll probably be a day or two before anyone finds this piece of crap this deep in the woods.”

  He sounded so cheerful about all of this. And, I supposed, no matter how exhausted I was, no matter how doubtful of the logic, it was still a hell of a lot more interesting than sleeping until sunrise, then dragging myself out of bed just to go collect eggs from the henhouse.

  But, as we walked in silence along this dark ribbon of country road, I had to wonder what, exactly, my purpose was. Although I had thought that I could bring him shelter and safety, as well as a piece of reasonable advice from time to time, he didn’t seem to really need or appreciate my input. So, why was I here at all, anyway?

  When we’d been back on Turner Dairyfarm, he’d been almost clingy. But now that we had left
behind my world, and plunged into his, he was quiet, solemn, and stood at a distance from me. I couldn’t figure out what I’d done wrong. Just be here? Just want to get to know him?

  My eyes panned up to the dark sky and I sighed. At this time of year, four AM was still deep night, and the stars were all twinkling as if it was only midnight yet.

  “We’re right under Leo,” I noted breathlessly, gesturing to the cluster of stars shaped like a shepherd’s crook. Just beneath that constellation was another, which looked to the uneducated astronomer like a mere thick spatter of bright, twinkling stars. I immediately became excited that she was so vibrant tonight, but it was obvious that Ashton didn’t catch the significance of the cluster.

  “Mmph,” he said, hardly glancing upward.

  “And that’s Berenice’s Hair,” I informed him, stopping and pointing. It was my absolute favorite location on the star map, and I wasn’t going to let him just “mmph” it away.

  When he noticed that I was no longer walking, he indulged me and grudgingly returned.

  I knew he was on a tight schedule. That was clear. But, dammit, if we weren’t going to have a little fun out here, what was the point of not being in prison after all?

  “Okay,” he said, smirking lightly down at me. For just a split second, I saw the Ash for whom I had begun to fall shimmer back at me, as if he’d been allowed to peer from the window of the otherwise shuttered fortress Ash had become. “You’re going to tell me, so go ahead and tell me.”

  “Berenice was an Egyptian queen,” I went on wonderingly, no longer looking at him but up at the amazing sheath of starlight she produced. “And she gave her long, shining hair away to the gods in exchange for the safety of her lover in battle.” I smiled up at the sky, even if it couldn’t smile back at me. “They found it to be so beautiful and bright, they laid out her hair among the stars themselves.”