Kara snorted. “As long as you’re wanted, this will never be over, and you’ll always be wanted.” She laid back and stared at the ceiling. “You don’t strike me as someone who’d struggle to understand the long game.”

Jen reached the door, waited a beat, and slid it open.

“Have a little faith,” she said.

The door rolled closed. The latch was secured. And Kara could have sworn Jen had whispered, “In yourself,” and left that addition hanging in the air.

CHAPTER 33

CHAPTER 33

McLean County
Illinois, USA

JILL

SHE WOKE IN THE DARK TO THE AMBIENT GLOW OF THE LAPTOP screen, train still rhythmic and rattling, Holden still watching the camera feeds, and no recollection at all of having drifted off. To fall under like that while they’d been talking meant she was still running a serious sleep deficit. She’d done what? Thirty-six, forty hours awake?

She groaned upright, eyes burning, body protesting.

Holden pulled the headphones off. Tone hushed, as if speaking normally might formalize things, he said, “You’ve still got forty-five minutes. Go back to sleep.”

There were too many pending pieces to just let go.

She said, “Has John found her yet?”

“Yeah, looks like it. I’ll show you later.”

“What about girl next door?”

“Reading. I’ve got this. Go sleep.”

She tipped back over, her eyes closed against her will, and she drifted down again, strategy and conversation, the things she had done and still needed to do, playing and replaying until dreams and reality blended.

Nearly thirty hours they’d been riding the rails.

She’d brought Kara warm meals from the dining car and handed off abandoned books and magazines she’d found, and stopped by just to sit and talk, entering and exiting at will courtesy of a conductor’s key, but the key was an illusion. Kara’s sleeper cabin, like every sleeper cabin, locked and unlocked from the inside. Shackles alone weren’t enough to stop her from trying to walk out on her own. But she hadn’t tried, and wouldn’t. Not because she was too dumb for it to have crossed her mind, but because she was smart enough for it not to.

Jill knew this, because she knew people.

They’d put the cameras in, anyway, and kept an eye on her in alternating shifts. The miles had dragged on, and Kara still hadn’t touched the door, and they were almost to the end, almost, almost, and there was coffee....

Jill’s eyes opened again.

A steaming mug sat on the table, not far from her head. Holden glanced her way and smiled. He was still at the computer, still watching the cameras, but the headphones were off. He said, “Good morning.”

She dragged her feet from bed to floor, rested her arms on the table, and dropped her head onto them. Eyes closed, she said, “On which continent?” and then, “How close are we?”

“Couple more hours.”