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Now that Sal’s mentioned it, Anna realizes Edith has been silent for most of the night. Following, never leading. Usually speaking only when spoken to. A far cry from the gregarious woman who’d once regaled Anna with stories from German folklore.

“I’ve done nothing wrong,” Edith says. “I’ve barely moved since we returned to this car.”

“Who took the second drink?” Anna asks.

Herb raises his hand. “That was me.”

“And I took the third,” Lapsford announces. “Anyone who watched me do it saw that I didn’t tamper with the remaining glass.”

“But you did change your mind,” Dante says, drifting back to the bar top and placing his hands where the final two drinks had been.

“I saw you reach for one glass, decide against it, and grab the other. What made you change your mind? And don’t say it’s because one had more in it than the other.

I poured the same amount into each glass. ”

Anna approaches Lapsford, curious. “Was there something wrong with the other drink? Is that why you left it for Judd?”

“Not the drink itself,” he says. “Both looked exactly the same. It was the glass that prompted me to choose the other drink.”

“The glass? What was wrong with it?”

“There was a smudge on the inside rim.” Lapsford holds up an index finger. “Like a fingerprint. So I took the glass that was cleaner.”

Anna rushes back to the table beside Judd’s corpse.

The martini glass is still there, now sitting upright after she found the residue inside.

Turning it over in her hands, she sees several fingerprints, including a lengthy smear left by her own index finger when she swiped the inside rim.

If Lapsford had seen a print mark there, it’s now indistinguishable from the rest.

“Dante,” she says, returning to the bar. “Which direction were the martini glasses facing when you grabbed them? Up or down?”

“Up,” Dante says before ducking behind the bar to double-check. “Just like all the others.”

“Did you examine any of them before putting them on the bar?”

“I barely even looked at them.” Dante pauses, awestruck. “Wait, I know what you’re thinking.”

There’s a gleam in his eyes that Anna remembers well from her youth.

It revealed itself whenever Dante was excited about something, whether it was her agreeing to go on a first date with him or that time he suggested they go skinny-dipping in his backyard pool.

Every time, Anna found herself eagerly going along with it.

Including, to her shame and eventual regret, the skinny-dipping.

Now, many years later and under very different circumstances, she realizes how easy it would be to get swept up in that old, familiar rhythm with Dante. Tearing her gaze away from his sparkling eyes, Anna reminds herself who Dante is, what he did to her, and what his father did to her family.

“And what am I thinking, Mr. Wentworth?”

If Dante notices her change of tone, he doesn’t show it. “That it was the glass, and not the drink, that was poisoned.”

“It’s possible,” Anna admits, countering his enthusiasm with a frown.

This is nothing to be excited about. A man is dead, her plan has been reduced to rubble, and they’re not even close to reaching Chicago.

Then there’s the fact that, if poison had been placed in that glass, it means Judd might not have been the intended target—and that the killer could have put it there before they’d all gathered in the lounge.

“So it wasn’t one of us,” Sal says, thinking the same thing.

“I didn’t say that,” Anna snaps.

Yet she’s certainly considering it. If her theory is correct, the killer might not even be among them.

Yes, they’re currently the only people aboard the Phoenix, but that hadn’t been the case earlier that evening.

Anna thinks about the dozens of workers and pretend passengers who were aboard the train minutes before its departure.

Any one of them could have slipped behind the bar of the first-class lounge and coated the inside of a single glass with poison.

Why someone would do that is beyond Anna. It makes absolutely no sense, which is why, in her mind, it remains likely that it was the work of someone in this very car at this very minute. After all, the car had been empty at some point immediately after the Phoenix left the station.

“Mr. Pulaski,” Anna says.

Herb, still gripping his handkerchief so tightly his knuckles are white, looks up, startled to hear his name. “Yes?”

“You said you and Mr. Dodge were alone in this lounge before the others arrived. Is that true?”

“Yeah.”

“I can confirm that,” Sal says. “They were the only ones inside when I got here.”

“And which one of you was here first?”

“Me,” Herb says after a nervous swallow and another dab of his brow. “But I didn’t do anything to any of the glasses. I swear. You can even search me.”

That, Anna realizes, isn’t a bad idea. If the killer is someone in this car who dropped the poison directly into Judd’s drink, then whoever did it still has the container that held it. A vial or pillbox or small bottle.

“I’ll take you up on that offer,” Anna says. “In fact, everyone needs to empty their pockets and purses. Starting with you, Mr. Pulaski.”

Herb does as he’s told, slowly emptying his pockets and revealing the contents.

Two invitations—one for the lounge, the other for the train journey itself—a thin billfold, a pack of Lucky Strikes, and a silver lighter.

Anna examines all of it. The billfold is empty except for a five-dollar bill, there are eight cigarettes left in the pack, and the lighter produces a flame with a single flick.

Before handing everything back to Herb, she nods toward Seamus. “Pat him down. Just to be sure.”

“Now you wait just a goddamn minute,” Lapsford says as, five feet away, Seamus frisks Herb from feet to shoulders. “This is a free country. You have no right to search me or anyone else without just cause.”

Anna gestures to the cloth-covered corpse at the far end of the car. “I think that’s cause enough, don’t you? If you’re innocent, you have nothing to worry about. But if you refuse to be searched, we’ll all just assume you’re the killer. The choice is yours.”

Lapsford thinks it over before turning his pockets inside out. There’s nothing in them but a Baby Ruth candy bar partially melted by body heat. When Seamus swoops in to pat him down, Lapsford expresses his disapproval with several annoyed huffs.

“I’ll go next,” Dante says as he steps from behind the bar.

He removes his suit coat and passes it to Anna, who roots through the pockets, finding only a striped breath mint in a cellophane wrapper.

As Seamus approaches to search him, Dante grins and says, “You sure you don’t want to do the honors, Annie? ”

Anna cringes at another use of his nickname for her. Although several threats currently exist on this train, failing to resist Dante’s charms is among the biggest.

“I’m certain,” she says before motioning for Seamus to frisk him. The ensuing search is rougher than the others, with Seamus spinning Dante around and shoving him against the bar. The pat-down is even worse, leaving Dante looking rumpled by the time it’s over.

Anna tosses his jacket back to him as she and Seamus turn to Sal.

“I suppose you should search the women,” Seamus says.

An impossible task, Anna realizes as she faces Sal. She can endure Sal’s presence when she’s among the others, in the thick of the group. But being one on one with her is too much for Anna to bear. Her anger is too great, Sal’s betrayal too painful, her memories too raw.

Like the year Sal spent Thanksgiving with her family and they stayed up late painting each other’s toenails, giggling so hard they woke Tommy in the next room.

Or during the Phoenix’s maiden voyage, when Sal slid open the window and told her to wave at all the people who’d gathered to watch the train go by.

Or when she was sixteen and had told Sal her biggest secret—that she was in love with Dante Wentworth.

“Be careful,” Sal had warned. “Boys will break your heart without a second thought.”

Dante did indeed break her heart, but not nearly as much as Sal had. Anna would rather touch the cooling corpse of Judd Dodge than lay hands on Sally Lawrence.

“You do it,” she tells Seamus. “I’ll check her bag.”

“Don’t get any ideas,” Sal warns Seamus as he comes in for the frisk. “You’re not my type.”

Seamus starts patting her down. “Good. Because if I were, I might have to throw myself off this train.”

Anna turns to the bar and grabs Sal’s handbag. Sorting through it, she finds a compact, lipstick, a small bottle of nail polish, and a silver flask with a bit of liquid sloshing inside. Uncapping the flask, Anna smells what’s inside. Whiskey. Not poison.

“She’s clean,” Seamus says.

Anna drops the flask back into the handbag before returning it to Sal. “So is her bag.”

That leaves only Edith, who remains in her seat, arms stubbornly folded across her chest. “I refuse to take part in this indignity,” she says. “You should be ashamed of yourself for treating ladies this way.”

“Ask me if I care,” Seamus tells her. “Now get up so I can search you.”

“My purse is in my room, and I have no pockets. There’s no place for me to hide anything.”

Desperation has crept into Edith’s voice.

With it is a tinge of fear that Anna wants to enjoy but can’t.

She’s too busy thinking about all the times Edith had awakened her from childhood nightmares, kissing her forehead while whispering, “It’s just a bad dream, Schatzi. Nothing will hurt you while I’m here.”

“Let me do it,” Anna says, surprising everyone, including herself.

Just like with Sal, she has no desire to engage with Edith on an individual level.

But it’s clear Edith isn’t going to let Seamus pat her down without a fight.

Anna’s willing to push her distaste aside and do it herself if it means speeding things up.

Standing before Edith, she says, “Come on. Let’s get this over with.”

Edith slowly rises to her feet. “Schatzi,” she says, not without warmth.

The word unlocks something in Anna. Not mere anger, although she’s plenty angry.

It’s more complex than that. Anna hates this woman.

She hates who Edith is and what she’s done.

Yet Anna also still loves her. At least the memory of loving her, which is made more complicated by knowing that she once thought Edith had loved her in return.

“Don’t call me that,” Anna says, her tone a warning.

She begins her search at Edith’s feet. That she wears sensible shoes doesn’t surprise Anna in the least. She’d always valued comfort over style, and these black flats, polished to a shine, are no different.

Anna moves her hands quickly up Edith’s sturdy legs, barely skimming the hose she wears like a second skin.

“You look well,” Edith says as Anna begins patting her thighs, her hips, her waist. “So grown-up now.”

Anna refuses to look at her. She focuses only on Edith’s dress. The drab shade of gray. The scruff of the wool beneath her palms. How, within seconds, those same palms will have to travel to more intimate places.

“Your mother and father would be proud of how beautiful you’ve turned out,” Edith says, perhaps to make what’s coming next less awkward. Anna doesn’t think so. There’s a sly edge to her voice that feels to her like Edith is needling.

“Don’t talk about my parents,” Anna snaps.

She’s at Edith’s bosom now, patting it down quickly, before moving on to her upper arms and shoulders.

Edith shakes her head. “They’d be proud, but they would also weep at the person you’ve become.”

Hearing that unleashes in Anna a rage so ferocious it literally blinds her.

Stars dot her vision, blocking out Edith’s face.

The anger is all-consuming, filling Anna’s ears with the sound of her pounding heart and making her hands go numb.

For a moment, she sees nothing, hears nothing, feels nothing.

Sound is the first sense that returns, in the form of ragged, pained croaks that Anna can’t quite identify.

Next comes sight, the stars fading just enough for Anna to see her hands wrapped around Edith’s throat.

A second later, she feels the bunching of skin beneath her palms as she squeezes Edith’s neck.

Anna drops her hands, shocked. By now Seamus is upon her, dragging her away from Edith while hissing in her ear, “Get a goddamn hold of yourself.”

Seamus guides her to the nearest chair and Anna falls into it.

Across the lounge, Edith also returns to her seat, taking in air with great, heaving gasps.

With a trembling hand, she massages the spot on her neck where Anna’s own hands just were.

Seeing the twin red marks she left behind makes Anna angry at Edith for egging her on but even more mad at herself for falling for it and entirely losing control.

“Pull yourself together,” Seamus tells her. “She’s not worth going to prison over. None of them are.”

“I’m s—”

Anna stops herself from saying the word.

Sorry.

Because she’s not. Of all the emotions colliding inside her, sorry definitely isn’t one of them.

“It won’t happen again,” she tells Seamus.

He nods. “Good. I’m assuming you didn’t find anything.”

“Nothing,” Anna says. “Just like the others.”

“Because none of us did it,” Sal says from the opposite end of the car, making Anna realize they’ve all been listening—and watching—this whole time.

Anna stands and smooths out her dress, trying to signal strength and composure. But it’s too late. They’ve all seen how easily she can snap. Forget her parents. It’s Aunt Retta who’d be disappointed. Her actions were a flinch writ large.

“One of you killed Judd Dodge. There’s no one else here who could have done it. And none of us are leaving this car until the killer confesses.”

No one does, which isn’t a surprise to Anna. She didn’t expect anyone to come forward—yet. Clinging to the hope that it’s only a matter of time before one of them cracks, she decides to wait them out.

Five minutes pass.

Then ten.

Then fifteen.

As they near twenty minutes of unbearable silence, Anna finally hears something. But the sound doesn’t come from inside the lounge. It’s on the outside, just beyond the door at the front of the car.

Footsteps, followed by a single, desperate “Hello?”

Hearing it, Anna swings her gaze to the door, watching in astonishment as it opens.

A man stands on the other side, peering into the car. His gray flannel suit and light blue shirt make it clear he’s not an engineer, and the shocked look on his face suggests he wasn’t expecting to find anyone in the lounge. Those inside it stare right back, equally stunned.

Because it turns out there aren’t only eight passengers aboard the Philadelphia Phoenix.

In truth, the number is nine.