Jude paused, his expression softening as if he was fondly remembering the moment, then he simply huffed. “I’d rather you stay here.”
“We’re leaving eventually, right? You have to get used to me not being stashed away on top of a mountain.”
Jude and I had been practicing relentlessly for Vegas, going over game strategy, evasive measures to stay unnoticed by casino security, and how we would work as a team. What we hadn’t covered waswhenwe were going to Vegas and what exactly would happen when we left.
Jude had been very clear: we get in, win big, and get out. There was no dillydallying. The moment we left the cabin, Valentine’s henchmen would catch our trail. But what happened when we got the money? How would we make it back across the country and pay up?
And would this nightmarereallybe over?
“Yes,” Jude said. “We’re leaving soon.”
Well, that was news to me. “How soon? Today?”
“End of the week. We’ll play Saturday night. We want casino security to be stretched thin. Crowds make it easier to hide.”
I paused because I wasn’t entirely sure what day it was. I did the math in my head, trying to count sunrises and sunsets, landmark events, and how many times we’d had sex, but I couldn’t calculate how long we had been here. It all blurred together.
Jude’s voice softened. “Today is Monday.”
I swallowed down the feeling of a pinecone being lodged in my throat. “Right. Thanks.”
He didn’t speak again until the two of us had buckled up and were lumbering down the mountain. The headlights flashed across trees, making my heart jump in my throat every time one appeared out of thin air. Jude knew the way like the back of his hand. There was no road. Not even a trail or a footpath. It was all muscle memory.
“We’ll leave on Thursday, just before dark,” Jude said as he eased around a downed tree like it was an exit ramp.
“How long will it take to drive to Las Vegas?”
“We’re not driving to Vegas.”
“But I thought?—”
“We’re driving to Chicago. We’ll dump the truck there, then take a train to Arizona.” He glanced at me. “You get carsick. Train’ll be more comfortable for you.”
“Good to know,” I muttered as I tried to ignore the butterflies that came to life inside of me because he remembered something so . . . so minuscule about me. And it meanteverything.“Are we walking from Arizona to Nevada?”
“Taking a bus.”
“That seems overly complicated.”
“It is,” he said. “But if we can make it onto the train undetected, we won’t be seen until we get to Arizona. If we drove from here to Vegas, we’d have to stop for gas, for food, to go to the bathroom.” He sliced me with a sharp glare. “And I’m not giving you any more opportunities to climb out of a bathroom window.”
“That was one time!”
He cracked a smile. “Once bitten, twice shy.”
“And you weren’t going to tell me this until you were stuffing me in the truck to leave on Thursday?” I pressed.
Jude turned his eyes back to the path ahead. “I’m not used to running things by other people.”
“We’re a team. You have to keep me in the loop. I don’t want you to keep secrets from me,” I said. “I need you to promise that you won’t.”
Jude swallowed. “No secrets.”
“Promise?”
He hesitated, peeled around a large stump, then nodded. “I promise.”
“So what’s the real reason we’re going into town?” I asked. “Because we have plenty of food to get us through until Thursday.”
