But it’s got a bus stop where I can catch a regional bus to Reno.I check the posted schedule and I have a few minutes to kill, so I go into the mini-mart.
It’s nothing but booze and junk food, from floor to ceiling.
I’m not hungry, but I get a Gatorade and some peanut butter crackers since I’ve been traveling outside for a bit.
“Where ya heading?”the cashier asks, ringing up my purchases.
“Mexico,” I lie, in case Declan tracks me here and asks around.
And Declan will search for me—no matter how much I begged him not to.Because regardless of the challenge, the MacLaines never give up.
Vincere Vel Moriand all that crap.
CHAPTER 58
Summer
Not only do the MacLaines never give up, but they also have unlimited resources to do whatever needs to be done.I’d be a fool to assume they won’t sic their private investigators on me, like they did with Evander and Phoebe, or wave their cybersecurity magic wand in my direction.
I’m a lot of things, but I’m not a fool.
At least I’m doing my damndest to make it hard enough for them that I buy some time.
Where I’m really headed is about as far from Mexico as a person can get.I’m going to the shale oil fields of North Dakota, where I plan to find work.I’ve never done that type of job before, but I’ve heard there’s plenty of positions to be had and that it pays well.There aren’t many women in that line of work, but that’s nothing new for me.I’m used to doing men’s jobs, and I’m not afraid of proving myself.
Or taking care of myself.
Besides, I need that kind of punishing physical work.It will help me shake off the grief of what I’ve lost.
I leave the mini-mart, take a long swig of the Gatorade, and walk to the bus stop.I get through the rest of the Gatorade and half of the peanut butter crackers when the Reno bus arrives.It’s about an hour to Reno, and once I step off, I check the schedule for my transfer.It’s a three-hour wait to head north.
But something on the schedule catches my eye.
There’s a bus to Santa Barbara that’s due to arrive in ten minutes, and it stops in nearby Lompoc.My parents are in Lompoc—my father in the federal penitentiary and my mother in the minimum-security female annex.They’re both serving long, long prison sentences, and for very good reasons.
I’ve only visited them once.Just before my eighteenth birthday.It was a clusterfuck, and I’ve regretted it ever since.
Truly, I don’t know what’s possesses me, but I walk to the ticket counter.I tell myself that if I can manage to purchase a ticket to Lompoc before the Santa Barbara bus has come and gone, then it’s a sign I need to go.Before I travel to North Dakota.Before I travel anywhere.
I buy the ticket and turn around, just as the bus pulls up.
Looks like I’m headed to Lompoc.
Some might call this fate.
I call it a long overdue housecleaning.
I climb on board and take a seat.We move as slow as a box turtle chugging up the mountains on our way west, but it’s not like I can make the bus go any faster with my impatience.
It’s going to be a long-ass bus ride to Lompoc, more than sixteen hours in all counting all the small-town stops and the passengers we’ll take on in Sacramento.It’s bright daylight as the bus reaches the northernmost part of California’s Central Valley, but I’m not sure if I should be thankful for that.
It’s strange to be back after so long in Nevada, but the Central Valley is where I spent most of my childhood.I never stayed in one place for long, moving from town to town as my parents either skipped out on rent in the middle of the night or took over before someone snitched them out to the cops.
California is a ginormous place, so as much as folks might try to conquer it with their concrete jungles, they can’t seem to beat back all of its natural grandeur.
The Central Valley is as beautiful as my years here were ugly.And I have to fight back a wave of sickness that crashes through me as I see it again for the first time in a decade.
Maybe I’ve made a horrible mistake.Maybe I should have gone to North Dakota.Or North Carolina.Or North Bumfuck.Anywhere but here.
