She finished with her eyelashes, then started on her makeup, using a sponge to take some of the color out of her lips and cheeks. Nick took the moment to look past the sink to the farthest reaches of the room, toward an alcove with one wall lined with hangers, holding what appeared to be costumes. Clothes for all sorts of different settings and occasions, from shiny, sparkly gowns to leather and lace. There were more wigs, lining a waist-high shelf covered in more mannequin heads. And in front of that, a full-sized blackjack table, complete with a casino-level shuffling machine. Scattered about were dozens of decks of cards, some opened, some still pristine.

Nick turned back toward Hailey. Without the wig, with some of the makeup gone, she looked more natural, vaguely, perhaps partly non-white, though Nick couldn’t have guessed her heritage without more to go on. Her cheekbones were still high and sharp, but there was something softer about her. Maybe it was this place. She clearly felt at home here.

“Who are you?” Nick asked.

Hailey smiled again, briefly, at the mirror.

“Does it matter?”

“You’re a professional gambler? That’s what you were doing in the casino? Playing cards?”

“I play cards, but I’m not a gambler. I’m a card counter.”

Nick knew a lot of gamblers; everyone in prison gambled, one way or another. Like the cons and the redheaded kid. Card counting, he knew, was a little different.

“So you cheat. But it’s still gambling.”

Hailey ran a brush through her hair.

“Card counting isn’t cheating, and it isn’t gambling. It’s math. You keep track of the cards and take advantage of the moments when you have a mathematical advantage over the house.”

“Yet when I met you, you were being chased through the Encore by a couple of casino goons.”

“It’s not illegal, but that doesn’t mean the casinos like it. They can throw you out, and sometimes they go further, get a little rough.”

She nodded her head toward the costumes hanging from the rack, and all the makeup around her.

“You need to disguise your play, and sometimes yourself. The casinos have an idea of what a whale looks like, so you need to play the part. Card counting is almost as much acting as it is math. There’s a lot of strategy, a lot of cat and mouse. You need to keep track of everything that’s going on around you, not just the cards. To be successful, over time, you need to be able to see things that other people miss.”

She finished with the mirror and retrieved the wrapped eagle from the futon. Then she moved past Nick back to the front of the room, and cleared off one of the metal workbenches. She carefully unwrapped the eagle, placing it on the open towel. Then she pointed to Nick’s pants.

“The book,” she said, simply.