Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 78295 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 391(@200wpm)___ 313(@250wpm)___ 261(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 78295 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 391(@200wpm)___ 313(@250wpm)___ 261(@300wpm)
I’m a wreck. I drift in and out, lying on that couch. Erick drinks, glares, talks. Eventually, the sun starts to come up, and I’m ready to stumble into bed for a few hours of sleep when Ren appears in the doorway.
I know it’s bad news before he talks.
“We found the truck,” he says. “Needed sunlight to do it, but we found it.”
“Where?” Erick comes around the desk, his shirtsleeves rolled to his elbows, clothes rumpled.
“You’d better come see.” Ren glances at me. “Maybe she should stay behind.”
“No,” I say, leaping to my feet. “No, I’m coming.”
Erick stares at me before nodding. “Alright. Let’s go.”
Ren leads the way. We get into a Jeep and follow a twisting dirt road. I understand why Erick wanted someone to show me how to navigate it before trying to drive it myself: there are false turns with multiple steep drops into ravines.
“We chose this place because it’s hard to reach,” Erick says over the noise of the Jeep’s engine. “Lots of dangerous shit just getting out here. There’s a reason it’s a fantastic prison.”
I give him a hard look. “No need to remind me.” Though he’s got a point and I’m glad I never indulged in my escape fantasies, because it’s all desert and steep drops all over the place.
“We have enemies, Hellie, which means this place has to be secure. That’s another reason why I want to keep you out here.”
That makes more sense to me. I don’t say anything as Ren slows the Jeep and rounds a corner. Ahead, more Jeeps are parked, forming a blockade across the path. On the left is another steep drop, a cliff that ends in nothing, and I understand that we’re high in the desert mountains at the top of some massive mesa.
Ren kills the engine and we get out. Men stand around, all of them looking grim, and I feel sick. This is bad—this is horrible—and my mind’s moving too fast to process everything around me.
“Maybe you should stay back,” Erick says, putting a hand on my arm, but I shake him off and walk to the edge.
Down below, there’s a twisted shape. It’s blackened, and the rocks are scorched all around it. I stare, brain refusing to make sense of what I’m seeing, until Ren speaks.
“If I had to guess, he went over driving too fast in the middle of the night. It’s not hard to do. He would’ve died on impact, nice and fast, if that helps at all.”
Then I understand. Down below is my truck. My new truck—now a twisted mass of metal and burned-out parts.
“No,” I say, horror grabbing me by the throat. Tears fill my eyes. “No, that’s not real.”
“I’m sorry.” Erick tries to pull me away. “You don’t need to see this.”
“No,” I say and try to fight him. I’m out of my mind, struggling, thrashing. I just got my father back, I wanted another day with him, there had to be another way—but he can’t be down in that ravine, down in that destroyed truck, burned beyond recognition, dead on impact. “No, please, no, this can’t be real.”
“I’m sorry.” Erick drags me from the edge. I’m not thinking anymore, I’m reacting on instinct, screaming in sorrow and mourning and rage.
“Why did you do it? Why did you try to run!”
Erick holds me tight. His big arms pin me against him, keep me from doing something stupid like running to that edge. I want to see Dad one more time, tell him I loved him, but the selfish bastard stole a truck and tried to run away, and all his games finally caught up with him.
Now he’s dead. A burned corpse in the desert.
“Come on, we’ll go back.” Erick wrestles me into the Jeep. “It’s okay, Hellie, it’s okay. I’ve got you.”
“It’s not okay. It’s nowhere near okay.” But I lean into him and I sob against his chest as the Jeep starts up and turns around, driving slowly to the house in the desert, away from my father’s body, away from the ruin he made himself. A terrible end, almost a fitting one.
Another con gone wrong and my father will never lie again.
Chapter 44
Erick
We can’t drag the truck out. It’d be impossible, and anyway, there’s no reason. It stays down there, a gravesite for Hellie’s father. She visits three times over the next two weeks. She sits at the edge and stares down at her father’s remains, saying nothing, only staring.
His funeral’s on a Tuesday. Since there’s no body, there’s no casket. Only a big photograph of Danny Accardi smiling out at the crowd. There are more mourners than I would’ve guessed: old gambling buddies, old girlfriends, old marks and partners alike. It’s as if all of ancient Vegas comes out, all the card sharks and call girls, the dangers and the freaks. They all miss Danny Accardi, even if he screwed them all over more than once.