Sins & Needles

He grinned at me before pushing back his chair and taking a dishtowel over to the mess by the wall. “Ellie Watt,” he said as he crouched down to clean, “I wouldn’t even trust you if you were dead.”

And there was a strong chance I’d end up dead if we didn’t play our cards right. Stealing money from drug lords was something I knew a lot about. It was only luck that I was still alive and actually sitting in Camden’s kitchen. I had no idea if luck would be on my side this time.

“All right then, don’t trust me. But you should at least believe the shit that I’m telling you, because I know a thing or two about this and a thing or two about disappearing.”

“That’s why I hired you,” he said. The broken glass tinkled delicately as he scooped it into a pile.

“This isn’t going to be as easy as you make it seem.” I exhaled loudly, feeling like I couldn’t clear my lungs enough. “There’s a chance we’ll have to do some…illegal activities. No one takes on a new life without committing some sort of crime. Are your morals going to have a problem with that?”

“Ellie,” he said, shooting me a wry look. “My dad’s the Sheriff of this town and I’ve been operating a money laundering business right under his nose. I doubt I’ll have a problem with it.”

“Good. Because like I said, this isn’t going to be easy. I don’t know what kind of men you are dealing with but if they are anything like the men I’ve dealt with, you can’t afford to slip up. Once you commit to stealing from them, you have to follow through. There is no mercy. No one will forgive you or tell you to forget about it. If you have a change of heart, you can’t just give the money back. They don’t care about the money anymore. They have enough money. They care about making a point. You made a point last night by cocking your gun. These guys won’t give you that. They’ll blow your face off before you have a chance to say you’re sorry.”

He had stopped cleaning and was now just staring at me. “Jesus. Who the hell are you on the run from?”

I did a quick shake of my head. “That’s neither here nor there. It doesn’t affect anything to do with us.” When he didn’t look convinced I said, “It was a very, very long time ago. It has nothing to do with Camden McQueen. It has nothing to do with Ellie Watt. I promise.”

The last thing I wanted was for Camden to get cold feet about this whole thing and then decide to turn me over to the cops after all. There was no way he’d just let me go free when I had all the knowledge I now had.

He nodded.

“So when were you thinking about doing this? In other words, how much time do we have?” I asked.

“A week,” he said. “Actually, six days.”

“Six days?” How the hell was I going to round up a fake life for him in six days?

“Yes. Non-negotiable.” He got to his feet and threw the dishtowel in the trash. “In six days, one of Vincent’s partners will come by and make the drop. I want to take that money, as well as all the money in the safe.”

“Whose money is in the safe?”

“Theirs. They like to have some of the cash on hand.”

I felt a wash of ice go down my spine. “What would have happened if I had actually robbed you, Camden?”

His smile was sad. “If I hadn’t stopped you? They probably would have killed me. No, scratch that. They definitely would have killed me.”

Shit. In some backwards way, I was glad that Camden had been smart enough to see through me. This alternative was much better than the other. I would have never been able to live with myself if he ended up dead because of me.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered, looking down at the wounds on my wrists.

“Yeah, well it’s a good thing I’m not one of those guys, because apparently your head would already be blown off.”

I gave him a small smile. “It is a good thing.”

He sat back down in his seat and stared at me for a few moments before saying, “So now that you know what I want, can you do it in six days?”

“Yes. I can.”

“Then I guess you better get started.”

I nodded. “What about Uncle Jim? And my stuff, I need the stuff in my car. This basketball jersey is starting to smell.”

“Where is your car?”

“Just a block away, by the dog-walking park.”

He sucked on his lip in thought. “I’ll go with you. I know you’re not stupid enough to run but I can’t be sure. As for your uncle, I don’t know. I guess you’ll have to drop him a line telling him you’re still in San Diego, or whatever place you lied about, and that you’re not coming back. I know you love your uncle, but I have a feeling he’ll be relieved.”

I hated that he was probably right about that.

CHAPTER TWELVE

It was Wednesday when Camden told me the details of his plan, six days from the scheduled drop. It’s a good thing most con artists don’t have banking hours, or we would have gotten screwed over the weekend.

Aside from walking over to Jose and getting all my gear out of the car, I didn’t get to leave the house until Friday. Until then, I was holed up in his living room, the couch my new bed. In the living room, I felt open and aware. His spare bedroom was too dark and cramped for me. Like a cell.

It wasn’t a bad place to have house arrest. Camden stayed out of my way and spent as much time as possible in the shop or in the office, either inking the occasional client or dreaming about his new future. He was cordial to me when we did cross paths, and whenever he made himself dinner or ordered take-out, there was always enough for me. He had even offered me a beer at one point but I made a point of saying no. I needed to think clearly, more clearly than I ever had to before.

He had put away his gun somewhere and stopped throwing pots of coffee. He seemed a little embarrassed about that to be honest, but I probably would have done the same thing if I were in his shoes. Sometimes you have to shock someone to get them to see how serious you really are—I knew that all too well. And I saw that Camden was serious beyond reproach. I missed the days we had before this mess, when he was flirting with me and everything was fun. But, I guess all of that was a lie anyway.

There was no fun in the truth.

On Friday, while my friend Gus in Pismo Beach worked on securing Camden some fake Social Security Numbers, I was in the middle of making him a fake driver’s license. In order to get it done properly, we would have to go to a place to get his picture taken.

“I don’t see why I can’t go alone,” he said while we ate our All-Bran cereal like the world’s most fucked up married couple. “There’s a few passport photo places on the strip and in the mall.”

“Look,” I said pointedly, “You can’t keep me cooped up in here forever. I have to go out sometime. I’ll go crazy otherwise.”

“Too late for that,” he mumbled under his breath.

“And I have to make sure you look right and the photos are the right size and the right everything. It’s very easy to get wrong. You have no experience in faking IDs. I do.”

He obviously thought I was going to make a run for it, but I was beyond that now. I was starting to trust Camden a little bit and trust his intentions. I didn’t exactly want to help him escape with a shitload of cash and have more people to be running from, but it wasn’t too off from something I’d be doing anyway. If this was all Camden wanted to use me for, I could live with that.

He sighed and pushed his bowl of cereal away. “Well, if you’re coming, we better not let anyone recognize you. If your uncle saw you, it would look pretty bad.”

I shrugged. “I have some wigs. It’s you we don’t want people to recognize. To be more specific, we want you looking as different as possible. Are you sure Vincent or any of his cronies won’t be around between now and the drop?”

“Cronies?” he said with a laugh. “You’re making them sound like the mafia.”

I stared at him. “Yeah? They’re Italian aren’t they? They probably are the mafia.”

“That’s racist.”

“It’s racist if I said all Italians are part of the mafia. The Madanos run drugs or guns or whatever. You’re laundering their money. It’s probably safe to say they have ties to the mob in some way. My ex-boyfriend is part of a gang. He’s Mexican. Guess what? He’s part of a large Mexican drug cartel. I’m white trash with an Eastern European background. I’m also a gypsy and a con artist. We’re all stereotypes. Sometimes they come from somewhere. Sometimes when people pigeonhole you, you end up being the pigeon.”

“You’re not a pigeon,” he said. “You’re whoever you want to be.”

“Whatever. So, back to the question.”

“The answer is no. I shouldn’t see any of them until Monday.”

“Then we should get started on your new look now.”

“Should I be worried?” A wrinkle appeared on his forehead. I wasn’t letting my guard down, but my god he looked adorable.

“Well, aren’t we a little vain,” I remarked. “You’re not going to look like an idiot. I can’t do anything drastic with you anyway, you’re covered in tattoos.”

He raised his hands in the air and wiggled them. I’d forgotten how strong and elegant they were. “I don’t have any tats on my hands. They’re the last frontier for me.”

“Good. Let’s keep it that way.” At least long-sleeved shirts would do the trick. I peered at him, moving my head from side to side. “You’re going to start wearing your Kettle Black glasses, the black ones, all the time. We’re going to dye your hair black, cut off all this shaggy surfer dude-ness and make it short and a bit spiky.”

He grimaced.

“What?” I asked, leaning in. “That not cool enough for you?”

“Never mind,” he said. “Fine. Dye my hair, cut it off, say goodbye to contacts. Anything else? Should I remove my septum ring too or do I get to keep some memento of who I was?”

He was being sarcastic and missing the whole point. I almost put my hand over his to comfort him and add emphasis to what I was about to say, but I didn’t dare touch him.

“Camden,” I said delicately, “you’re not going to want any mementos of who you were. This isn’t about a disguise; you’ll barely look any different than you do now. This is about saying goodbye to the person you are, the person you were, and hello to the person you’ll be. You’ll have to change and change is big. Change is scary. You’re uprooting everything you have worked so hard to get. You’re not going to know who you are for a while, not until you relearn how to live. If you look in the mirror and you don’t immediately recognize yourself, then you’ll know you’re on the right track.”

“Is that why you’re so sad all the time?”

I frowned. “What?”

“You know when we were in my car, heading to the show and I said I liked Guano Padano because it reminded me of you? Rough and sweet at the same time? I wasn’t lying. I was just leaving something out. It’s rough and sweet and very, very sad. When I look at you, I see sadness.”