Page 12

Nine

The memory of that moment makes Anna’s heart skip, just as it had back then. Staring at her soon-to-be-dead aunt, she’d leaned in close and said, “What kind of proof?”

“Documents. Dozens. Showing he had nothing to do with it.” Although Aunt Retta had begun to fade, she mustered a wicked smile. “And showing who did.”

“Where are they?” Anna said.

Aunt Retta’s head lolled across the pillow. “Not here. Somewhere safe.”

“How can I find them?”

“They’ll find you,” her aunt said, in a voice that the approach of death had reduced to a murmur. “When they do, make the people responsible pay. Make all of them pay.”

Those were the last words Aunt Retta ever uttered. Within the hour, she was dead.

The proof found Anna soon enough, as did Seamus. Now both are on this train, intent on fulfilling Aunt Retta’s last request.

She’s going to make all of them pay.

“Contrary to his testimony, it was Jack Lapsford who approached my father about manufacturing a train to transport troops, and not the other way around,” Anna says, making sure to direct her gaze at the former military man.

He stands in a self-important way familiar to anyone who witnessed his testimony at the Senate hearing that all but buried the reputation of Anna’s father.

He’s filled out since then, Anna notices.

Turned soft by wealth and a shocking lack of remorse about his role in what transpired.

“He did so with the full knowledge that the engine would be designed to fail, causing mass loss of life.”

“That’s preposterous,” Lapsford huffs.

“Is it?” Anna says, turning her attention to Judd Dodge.

He sits slumped in one of the lounge’s chairs, looking dejected, his long body folded in on itself.

A man with no more tricks up his sleeve.

“Mr. Dodge was the man who designed that ticking time bomb of an engine, although he had shown my father a far different set of plans.”

“That’s a lie,” Judd mutters so weakly it’s clear that not even he believes it.

Anna swings her gaze to Herb Pulaski, seated next to Judd. He twitches in his chair, his face slick with guilt sweat. He avoids eye contact with Anna, looking everywhere but at her.

“Mr. Pulaski oversaw the building of the faulty locomotive, following the plans hidden from my father,” Anna continues. “Even though, as the man who monitored the construction of every locomotive at the company, including the one at the front of this train, he knew it was doomed to failure.”

Herb opens his mouth, as if about to defend himself, before snapping his jaws shut and staring shamefully at the floor.

Seated on the other side of the car is Sal Lawrence, making Anna avert her gaze. She can’t bear to look into Sal’s eyes.

“While all that was happening,” she says, “the women were doing their part. Sally Lawrence, my father’s devoted secretary, spent her time writing false correspondence, creating fake memos, and forging my father’s name, all in an effort to incriminate him.”

Anna turns her attention to where Edith sits, her posture perfect, her hands folded primly in her lap.

“Some of those documents were kept in his office, while others were planted inside his home by his housekeeper, Edith Gerhardt,” Anna says.

“When later asked about them, Edith told the authorities she wasn’t surprised by their presence, seeing how she suspected my father of being a Nazi sympathizer. ”

It’s a dizzying set of accusations, made worse by how Anna imagines all of them enacting their misdeeds. A movie montage of treachery.

Jack Lapsford, smug in his uniform, telling Congress how her father had begged to build a troop train, his bottom lip quivering as he claims that never in a million years did he think it would lead to sabotage.

Judd Dodge bent over his drafting table, calculating the exact weaknesses he’d need to add to the engine to make it look like it was running fine while also ensuring its eventual failure.

Herb Pulaski on the factory floor, looking on as men in welding helmets and leather aprons built a locomotive to Judd’s specifications. “Don’t worry, fellas,” Herb says amid the sparks and clanging. “I’ve been assured this engine will be as solid as all the others.”

Sal Lawrence typing away in the middle of the night, her bent desk lamp a spotlight on her fingers as they fly over the keys. Appearing across the page is a fake memo with fake dates and fake details. After ripping it out of the typewriter, Sal forges Arthur Matheson’s signature.

Edith Gerhardt creeping upstairs while no one else is home, the pages clutched to her chest. In the office of Anna’s father, she places them in desk drawers, hiding them beneath ledgers and stationery. Places where no one but the police would think to look.

“It was a six-person conspiracy,” Anna says, wiping the images from her mind because she fears she might do something rash if she doesn’t.

“Jack Lapsford, Sally Lawrence, Judd Dodge, Edith Gerhardt, and Herb Pulaski all helped frame my father. They lied to the authorities. They covered up their own crimes. And it was done at the behest and instigation of my father’s biggest business rival, Kenneth Wentworth. ”

Anna stares directly at Dante as she says it, taking great pleasure in the way his features freeze in shock.

She doesn’t know what he expected by coming here, but she’s certain it’s not this.

She hadn’t expected it, either, when she finally examined the evidence her aunt had gathered, all of it pointing to Kenneth Wentworth as the plot’s mastermind.

Once she did, though, it all made sense.

“Your father’s just as bad as the rest of them,” Anna tells Dante. “No, I take that back. He’s worse. Which is why he should be here instead of you.”

Dante remains frozen for ten, twenty, thirty seconds. After what she’d told him finally sinks in, he does the unthinkable.

He smiles.

It’s a wide smile. Slightly crooked and blindingly bright. The kind of smile that had once made Anna melt whenever she saw it. Now it only leaves her frustrated, for it means he doesn’t believe anything she just said.

“You really think my father was behind all of this?” Dante says. “Why would he do that? He’s as patriotic as they come.”

“This wasn’t about devotion to America. In fact, it had nothing to do with the war.

This was greed, pure and simple. Your father wanted to expand his holdings and grow his wealth while not spending too much money in the process.

My father’s railroad was the easiest target.

Did you know your father had tried to buy my father’s company? Twice?”

“I didn’t,” Dante says, his lips still curved.

“Both times, my father’s answer was an outright no.”

Dante’s smile falters. “And my father doesn’t take no for an answer.”

“Exactly,” Anna says with a nod. “Angered by my father’s refusal to sell, he created an act of sabotage, framed my father, devalued the company, and bought it dirt cheap.

As a bonus, he was awarded the lucrative military contract my father received.

Millions of dollars that flowed directly to your father, who then divided it up and gave it to the five other people in this lounge tonight.

A reward for doing his bidding, betraying my father, and betraying their country. ”

Dante’s gaze floats around the lounge, briefly alighting on each of the others gathered there. His stare contains a mix of confusion and amusement, like he still thinks all of it is simply some elaborate prank.

“But why? Why would any of them take part in something like that?”

Anna doesn’t know. That’s one of the reasons she brought them all together like this. She needs to learn why each of them did it. Now she watches them, her breath lodged in her throat, waiting to see if one of them has the guts to answer.

No one does.

Weaklings, Anna thinks as she gestures to Seamus to bring her the briefcase. Once it’s in her hands, she raises it so the others can see.

“In the past year, I have obtained dozens of documents detailing the plot against my father. Not the ones you forged,” she says, glancing toward Sal.

“Or that you planted in our home,” she adds, shooting a harsh look Edith’s way.

“Real ones. Taken together, they tie all of you and Kenneth Wentworth to the deaths of thirty-seven people and the cover-up that happened afterward.”

“You’re bluffing,” Lapsford says.

“I can assure you, Mr. Lapsford, that I’m not.” Anna holds out the case. “Would you like to see for yourself?”

“ I would,” Sal says as she marches toward Anna, grabs the briefcase, and takes it back to her chair. There, she sets the case atop a small cocktail table and opens it up.

Anna and Seamus watch from the back of the car as the others draw closer to Sal.

Judd Dodge stands behind her, adjusting his glasses.

Herb Pulaski pulls a handkerchief from his jacket pocket and wipes his glistening brow while Edith Gerhardt blinks several times, as if preparing to see a ghost. Even Dante, still pitched somewhere between shock and incredulity, cranes his neck from his spot at the piano, straining for a glimpse.

By now Sal has the lid fully lifted. Inside the briefcase is a large sheet of paper folded into quarters. Sal opens it to full size, revealing a blueprint.

“What is this?” she asks everyone and no one.

Judd Dodge reaches over her shoulder and snatches the blueprint from her hands. “It’s my design. For the locomotive. The real one. The one that—”

“Don’t say another word,” Lapsford warns.

Judd ignores him and turns to Anna, his face paler than the white lines curving over the blue paper in his hands. “How did you get this?”

Anna honestly doesn’t know. By the time all the evidence was presented to her, it was too late to ask Aunt Retta when or how she had gathered it.

“What else is in there?” Lapsford asks while lunging for the briefcase.