“He’s the only family I have left,” I whispered.
“Then we need to keep both of you alive.”
Slowly, without peeling my eyes away from him, I put the money in the bag. It felt like stacking chips on a blackjack table and sliding them toward the dealer to place a bet.
There was a good chance I’d lose it all.
“There’s a phone in there. Hand it to me,” Jude said as he cranked up the truck. The engine spat and sputtered but roared to life after a moment.
I rummaged in the bag, found a cell phone that looked like a museum relic, and handed it to him.
Jude turned it on, dialed a number he knew from memory, and waited. “It’s me,” he said without so much as a hello. “I’m borrowing the truck.”
Oh. So he’s actually telling the owner he’s borrowing it. That’s something.
“How fast can you get to New Haven?” Jude asked, pausing to hear the answer on the other end. I stiffened as he rambled off my address by heart. “Your mark is on crutches, so good luck getting him down the stairs. Tell a good story. I’m going on vacation for a while.”
He didn’t even say goodbye before ending the call. He pressed on the brake, put the truck into drive, and pulled out of the space. With one hand, he sent a text to a five-digit number, then turned the phone off and tossed it into the bag. “Zip it up.”
“You sent someone to my apartment?”
“Yes.”
“You said you’d keep me alive,” I croaked as tears leaked from my eyes. “You have to keep my brother alive too.”
“I don’t make promises I can’t keep.”
I took a deep breath and tried to stay calm as he slowly eased between the rows of cars. Freaking out wouldn’t get me answers. Panicking wouldn’t keep me safe.How,not why. Howwas I going to get out of this?
“What did you mean when you said to tell a good story?” I asked, trying to glean a little more clarity as to what the fuck was going on. I had a hunch that, if I asked him directly, he wouldn’t tell me. “You said that chloroform told a good story. Are you sending someone to drug my brother?”
Jude’s gaze was trained on the road. “Telling a good story means making it look like you were kidnapped by leaving your car running with the door open. Maybe it was a mugging sinceI spilled some of your chips. It means leaving my car at the airport so John Valentine will think we’ve hopped a flight. And I just happened to have a car waiting for me in a spot that isn’t covered by the security cameras. It means driving an electric car since they’re known to have batteries that spontaneously catch fire and are nearly impossible to extinguish. It means leaving our wallets and IDs and the last pieces of who we are in that car until they turn to ash.”
Jude opened the dashboard console and pulled out a prepaid debit card as he neared the ticket kiosk. He paid, waited until the mechanical arm raised, and pulled onto the service road just as the night sky lit up in a hellish glow.
I jerked in the seat, craning to look through the window, and watched as the last remnants of my identity melted in a ball of flames.
I had no idea what was going to happen.
I didn’t know if Jude was my savior or a very patient devil.
I was fairly certain I needed to make an exit strategy of my own.
And as those flames disappeared in the distance and turned into a glowing nightlight, I was sure of two things. John Valentine wasn’t folklore and Jude was a master storyteller.
13
JUDAH
Friday, May 23 | 3:09 a.m.
Amelia was being far too amicable for someone who had just been abducted.
I had kidnapped plenty of people and even kept a pair of earplugs on hand should such an occasion arise.
The constant screaming and “please don’t kill me!”was always rather taxing.
But there she was—sitting in the front seat, ankles crossed, pretty as a picture.
