Camden leaned into my ear, whispering, “This isn’t going well, is it?”
I turned my head slightly, almost shivering when his lips caught the corner of my ear. “Some people are more suspicious than others. It happens.”
When she came back, she was with a thin, balding man with a giant grey mustache. Her manager, no doubt.
“Hello, miss?” the man said, leaning toward the bars. Cammie crossed her arms, watching him intently. “May I see some ID?”
They really had no right to ask for ID at this stage in the game—it was usually when you were cashing out and for over ten thousand dollars’ worth. But I wasn’t about to argue. I had a clean record, and I knew by law that where I got the money was none of their business.
“Sure,” I said, flipping open my wallet and bringing it out. He took it from me under the bars and peered at it closely. I felt Camden tense up beside me. Technically the ID was forged. I mean, it was my old ID, my real one, but I had to add a new photo and change the expiration date on it. It was set to expire next year. Anything later and the card would have been too old to have been issued to me.
“Is there a problem?” I asked as he kept flipping it over. I almost added “officer” at the end of that but didn’t want to piss him off.
“No, no,” he said quickly, sliding the ID back to me. “Just haven’t seen that type of license for a long time.”
“I know,” I said, peering at my picture. “Mine expires next year. I’m kind of sad to get the new issue. Plus I really like my picture in this one. It’s rare you get a driver’s license that you’re not embarrassed of, you know?”
Cammie nodded appreciatively and I knew I’d won her over. The man gave me an apologetic smile. “Have fun at the Avi resort,” he said and walked away.
Her smile matched his now. “Sorry about that. We have to take precautions when large amounts come in.”
“Oh yeah?” I asked innocently. “I always thought it was over ten thousand dollars.”
“That’s by law,” she told me. “Every casino has their own policy. All the casinos in Laughlin are pretty much the same, too.”
Oh, great. Well it looked like we wouldn’t be staying here very long.
She walked away and I could tell Camden was just itching to tell me something. Instead he sucked back the rest of his drink and tossed it in the trash. When Cammie came back, she had the card in her hands and slipped it to me.
“Good luck,” she said, and immediately smiled for the next customers who were standing behind me.
As we walked away, Camden grabbed my elbow and pulled me to him. “Who was that?” he whispered.
“Who?” I asked, playing dumb.
“That Ellie Watt. I know the real Ellie Watt and she’s not that much of a people person.”
“Which Ellie do you prefer?” I asked teasingly.
He stopped walking and pulled me closer to him, staring down into my eyes.
“Whichever one I’ve got.”
I felt a blush coming on as his stare intensified. I couldn’t help but stare back, trapped in his eyes. Thankfully a loud beep came from my phone, making both of us jump and interrupting the weird aspect of our relationship that kept cropping up like a weed.
I quickly fished it out of my purse, heart racing, hoping it was Uncle Jim.
It was. “Fuck, finally,” I cried out, opening the message.
Uncle Jim said: Not much, what’s new with you? Hope you’re staying out of trouble.
Camden’s forehead wrinkled as he read it over my shoulder. “Staying out of trouble? Does he know something?”
I smiled with relief. “No, he’s always telling me to stay out of trouble.”
“And you never listen, do you?”
“Nope. Though I’m starting to think he might be on to something.”
I quickly texted him back, telling him I was just checking in and that the weather was gorgeous in Santa Barbara. Then I put it and part of my worry away. Now came a little bit of fun. Like the getaway, you had to find it where you could.
We invaded the penny slots first since we both needed drinks and you could sit there for a long time playing. The longer you sat and the better you tipped, the stronger and more regular the “free” drinks were. After our fourth rum and Coke, our waitress never came back. I guess we’d been cut off.
At this time of the year, the casino wasn’t as busy as peak seasons, so Camden was able to sit at the machine next to me without pissing anyone off. Only sometimes would you have a local who had to sit at the same machine and usually we’d just move over. I didn’t want to sit next to the crazy gamblers anyway; they usually smelled bad and had a way of eyeing you down if your machine was paying out more than theirs.
We had the most luck at the twenty-five cent Wheel of Fortune games. I wasn’t that much of a gambler to be honest—I normally just cleaned my money and got out—but I always had some bizarre luck with these ones. Plus it’s fun to yell “Wheel! Of! Fortune!”
As I pulled the lever (much more satisfying than hitting the spin button), and as the pictures spun around, Camden whistled a short but familiar tune. A tune that made my heart wrench.
“That was it, wasn’t it?” he said. He was watching me expectantly.
“Pardon me?” Another pull, another sip of my drink.
He whistled again. “The tattoo on your arm. The tune. It’s from ‘On Every Street.’ Dire Straits.”
Again, I was impressed he was able to deduce it from just the few notes.
“It suits you,” he said, quietly this time.
“Rough and sweet and sad?” I joked.
“No,” he said. “Just sad. God, that’s a sad song.”
I don’t know why but my eyes suddenly flared hot with tears. What the hell? A few rum and Cokes and a sad song and I was ready to go.
I swallowed loudly. “I like that song.”
“I’d hope you would since it’s tattooed on your arm. What does it mean? Are you looking for somebody’s face on every street?”
He started singing underneath his breath, going through the lyrics. I blinked hard, shrugged my shoulders, and resumed pulling. I wanted him to stop. He did when he hit the part on my arm, the three notes from the guitar after Knopfler sings the titular sentence. Three notes that never sounded so desolate. Three notes that sounded so much like loss in a song that ended with hope.
“That song is not about someone. That song is about you. You still refuse to be traced.” He sounded awed.
“There’s a cowbell in that song,” I reminded him, trying to make light of it while simultaneously wiping away a tear that sneaked out of my eye. “Let’s not look into it too much, shall we?”
“Fine,” he said. The conversation was dropped and we went back to losing.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The two of us ended up going to bed quite early, well early for a casino. After we lost two hundred dollars and earned back one hundred and fifty, we cashed out. I got the same girl as before and she didn’t give me any grief over making up a cashier’s check. Nor did she tell me she’d have to report my earnings to the IRS. At least we had that going for us.
With our fancy check in hand, we got two more drinks to go and went back to our room. We had two beds, which was good because I didn’t really trust sharing a bed with Camden. I just don’t know who I mistrusted more–him? Or me?
After I sent Gus an email updating him on our whereabouts and checked both our phones for new messages (Snooty Neo for Camden, but no one else), I scrubbed off all my makeup, slipped on my boxer shorts and camisole, and crawled into my bed. The sheets were stiff, the comforter had a bizarre smell, but it would do. I couldn’t say I felt exactly safe, even though I knew there was security in the hotel, and even though our door was triple locked. I wondered if I’d ever feel safe with Camden by my side, or if I was going to live in a constant state of anxiousness. You’d think I’d be used to it by now.
“Ellie,” he called out into the darkness. I had been awake and thinking for such a long time I had assumed he’d be asleep.
“Yes?”
“Tell me the story about your scars.”
It was as if the room got darker. Colder. Heavier.
I pulled the smelly comforter up to my face, wishing I could hide.
“It’s not a fun story.”
“I don’t want a fun story,” he said. “I want the truth. I want to know what happened.”
I chewed on my lip, wishing I could buy time, but there was nothing but time on long nights like these.
“I think you owe me that much,” he added softly.
And that was true. I did owe him at least that much. I brought my knees up to my chest, full-on fetal position, and told my story to the opposite wall. It was easier than facing him in the dark. It was easier knowing he was behind me.
“Once upon a time,” I began, “there was a young girl. The girl lived outside of Gulfport, Mississippi. She didn’t call the place home but she’d been there for two years and it was as close of a home as she’d gotten before. In her home, she believed her life would turn out better and that her family would start acting like a family again. Her parents, or at least her dad, had gotten a real job at the casino. They promised her they were done being grifters and wanted to do things the right away. The girl believed them because they were her parents. She had always believed them, even when they were asking her to steal the wallets of moms at children’s birthday parties or distracting clerks while they stole pointless crap. She’d seen the movie Paper Moon and was happy someone had made a film about her life, that she wasn’t alone. One day, her mother was really angry. Her mother was always an angry person, but this day she was furious. The girl was scared. She loved her mother, but she especially loved her when she was in her rare happy moods. When she was angry, the girl was afraid of her. Even the dad was afraid of her.
So one day the mom tells the dad and the girl that they’re going on a little adventure. Just out to dinner to see an old friend of hers, a man called Travis. Now, the girl knew a lot about this Travis friend of her mother’s. She had seen him around the house when her father was at work. The girl was old enough to suspect her mother was having an affair but too afraid to ever ask her mother about it. If her dad ever suspected anything, he was too timid and too kind to say anything about it.
And so they went out for dinner at his fancy house in the north of town. At the last minute the mother told the girl she was to sit in the car and wait for a few minutes. With a fat black marker she wrote down a combination of numbers on the girl’s hand and told the girl she was to go around to the back of the house, go in the second window, and once inside go for a certain door. In the room she’d find a safe. She’d use the numbers on her hand to open the safe and take the money out. Then she’d leave the way she came in.”
I paused.
“I’m listening,” Camden said quickly, sounding enthralled.
I took a deep breath and went on. “The girl did as she was told. But she was so nervous that she opened the wrong door. She went into a very black room and before she knew it, there was no ground beneath her. She fell down a flight of stairs and landed on the cold hard floor, crying out from the fall. It took her a few minutes to snap out of it, to realize what had happened. But it was too late. The commotion brought people to the top of the stairs. The light flicked on. It was Travis, with her parents behind him.