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Eighteen

An empty train is a quiet one. Disconcertingly so.

On a sold-out voyage, it’s never quiet, even in the dead of night.

There are always people whispering in the darkness, snores rising from berths in the sleeper car, men playing cards in the club car until the sun peeks over the eastern horizon.

Underneath it all is the sound of the train rushing inexorably forward.

A constant click-hum of steel wheels on iron tracks that soothes some, irritates others.

Now, though, that calming, maddening, unceasing sound of the train is all there is.

That’s especially true in the first-class lounge, where a man recently died and where Anna now carefully steps over the spot where it happened. She’s checked the other first-class cars to make sure everyone is in their rooms. They are, their doors closed and, hopefully, locked.

Anna knows she should do the same thing, but the itch to find the poison that killed Judd Dodge is too strong to resist. Based on its odor, she suspects a cleaning product.

And on the Phoenix, there are only two places where those reside—the galley and the janitor’s closet tucked into a corner of the club car.

For the first hour of the train ride, the entire lounge had been unattended, giving anyone a chance to sneak into both places.

But that’s not when Anna suspects the poison was obtained.

That would have required premeditation, and she doubts anyone quite knew what they were in for before she appeared in the lounge.

No, she thinks whoever killed Judd grabbed the poison when everyone moved through the train in their futile attempt to stop it.

By then Judd had all but confessed to his role in the scheme, giving one of the others the idea to kill him before he could implicate anyone else.

Continuing across the lounge, she looks to the window to check the weather conditions outside.

It’s snowing harder now, the flakes whooshing by the size of dimes.

But this is still the eastern edge of the storm—and Anna’s well aware it will get worse the farther west they travel.

By now the train has left Pennsylvania and is just beginning the long trek across Ohio.

She sighs thinking about that timetable.

Five hours into the trip, and they have so much left to go.

She pushes into the dining car, which feels haunted by its emptiness.

It unnerves her to be moving through these cars alone.

She chalks it up to their size, their opulence.

These are spaces intended to hold dozens in a luxurious embrace.

When they are devoid of that, it makes Anna feel like a trespasser.

And she’s not the only one.

As she enters the dining car, Anna spots someone else moving through the door at the opposite end, heading into the galley.

She hurries across the car, determined to catch whoever it is before they get a chance to move entirely through the galley.

But when she passes from one car to the other, she realizes that’s not their plan.

The person has stopped at the icebox in the center of the galley and now stands partially obscured behind the open door.

A man, Anna realizes. Beneath the door she can see trousers and black leather shoes.

“Who are you?” Anna says. “What are you doing here?”

“My name is hunger and I’m desperately looking to be sated.”

Anna groans. It’s Dante. Of course. Now peering around the icebox door to flash her that all-too-familiar grin.

“You could have at least ordered something for us to eat before you kicked the staff off the train.”

“I paid them off,” Anna says. “There’s a difference. And food was the least of my concerns when planning this voyage.”

“Obviously. The only thing in here are cold cuts.” He removes a slab of roast beef wrapped in butcher paper and drops it on the counter. “Is there any bread?”

Anna moves to the other end of the galley, where a breadbox sits next to an eight-slice toaster.

Once upon a time she knew every inch of this car.

She and Tommy were constantly here, cajoling the cooks into giving them treats.

Their favorite was Stella, who made a mean fried chicken and the best sticky buns on Earth. Anna could devour one in three bites.

She thinks of Stella as she opens the breadbox and pulls out a loaf for Dante. He claps in delight and grabs a nearby knife.

“Would you like a sandwich?”

“I refuse to eat anything you prepare,” Anna says. “Or have you forgotten what happened in the lounge?”

Dante pushes the knife through the loaf, cutting off two thick slices. “Come on, Annie. You know I had nothing to do with that. But at least you got your wish. Everyone’s definitely squirming now.”

“If you think I’m happy that Judd Dodge is dead, then you’re quite mistaken. I didn’t want any of this.”

“Maybe not consciously,” Dante says. “But deep down, hidden in a dark place you don’t like to think about, part of you wanted this to happen.

And that same dark part of you wishes it would happen to all of them.

That’s why I think you planned this trip.

You were secretly hoping it would end this way. ”

“I told you why I planned it.”

“And I don’t buy that excuse one bit. If you wanted to watch my father and the others squirm, you could have done it in court.”

Anna knows it would have been easier—not to mention far less expensive—to give the FBI the evidence and let them arrest everyone. It also would have been deeply unsatisfying.

“Seeing them in court isn’t enough,” she says. “I wanted to see their faces when they realized they were cornered on this train. I wanted them to know they’d been trapped—by me.”

“What did you think would happen then?” Dante asks. “That they’d all confess and tell you why they did it?”

Yes, Anna had indeed hoped for that, and still plans to get at least some of them to admit what they’d done—and why. Sal. Edith. Even Herb Pulaski. Even though learning the reasons for their betrayal won’t bring her family back, Anna suspects it might bring some closure.

Still, that’s not the main reason she planned this trip. For her, it’s not about the journey but the destination.

“I had to watch my father be handcuffed and dragged from our home,” Anna says.

“Now I need to see the same thing happen to all of them. I need to be there when they’re taken into custody.

I need to witness their public disgrace.

I need to see, with my own eyes, the moment their lives and reputations are ruined.

Then they can have their day in court, which my father was never given, and rot in prison for the rest of their lives. ”

“Including my father,” Dante says.

“Especially him. Which is why I’m still mad at you for taking his place.”

“I remember when you were happy to see me.”

“That was a long time ago,” Anna says.

Not so long, though, that she forgets every moment spent with Dante.

She remembers everything, especially when he showed up with those roses to her final performance as Juliet.

Even then, she resisted, likely for the same reason he pursued her.

It was forbidden. So Dante pushed harder, making it a point to show up at events where he knew Anna would be.

Parties and picnics and debutante balls.

Even when he wasn’t invited, he found a way in.

In Philadelphia society, the Wentworth name opened many doors.

Each encounter was a dance, the steps of which included flirtation, banter, some light verbal sparring.

Eventually, Anna’s defenses lowered bit by bit, while at the same time his boldness grew.

A brief touch of her hand. A featherlight kiss on her cheek.

Finally, after one such occasion, he offered to walk her home.

Instead of answering yes, all Anna said was, “Our parents can never know.”

They walked in silence, their steps slow and their pace languid.

At one point, Dante’s hand brushed Anna’s, and, much to his surprise, she clasped it.

As they neared her house, Anna drew closer.

The clasp became an embrace, which turned into a clinch.

Pressed against her, Dante leaned in for a kiss.

“We shouldn’t be doing this,” Anna whispered, even as her mouth rose to meet his. “It will only end in heartbreak.”

Dante swore that she was wrong.

She wasn’t.

“Why did you pursue me?” she says now. “Back then? You could have had your pick of girls, yet you chose me.”

Dante opens the nearest cupboard, revealing shelves neatly stacked with bowls and plates. He moves to the drawer below it. Inside are rolls of tinfoil and plastic wrap. “Because none of the girls were as special as you.”

“I’m serious.”

“As am I,” Dante says. “Very early on, I realized how amazing you were. That’s why I pursued you. Even though I knew my father would be furious if he ever found out.”

“Your father’s a terrible person.”

“I see. So what does that make me?”

“A heartless cad,” Anna says, making sure to inject the words with extra sting.

Because only heartless cads are capable of doing what Dante did to her.

The flirting, the wooing, the charm. By the time they shared their first kiss, she’d already been head over heels, although she made a point of trying not to show it.

After that kiss—that glorious, head-spinning, shudder-inducing kiss—it became impossible to hide her feelings from him.

She was sixteen, madly in love, and mistakenly thought Dante felt the same about her.

That’s why she behaved so foolishly for months.

Sneaking out in the middle of the night.

Meeting Dante in secret. Kissing him so intensely that her lips grew raw and her body ached with yearning.