Page 33

Twenty-Four

Herb Pulaski nervously stuffs a cigarette between his lips.

“Mind if I smoke?” he says, even though he shouldn’t have to.

It’s his room, after all. The only reason Anna Matheson and this FBI guy are here is because they forced their way in.

They told him they need to talk to everyone on the train and that he’s first. Now they perch side by side on the bench seat while Herb squirms in the chair by the window.

“Not at all,” Agent Davis says.

Herb lights up and lowers the window an inch, letting in a whistling gust of icy wind.

A few snowflakes ride in with it and pinwheel across the room.

Herb doesn’t mind. He’s been sweating like a pig all night, with good reason.

Anyone finding out they were tricked the way he’s been would do the same.

He should have known this wasn’t a get-rich-quick scheme the moment he opened that damn invitation.

But he was desperate—and that always leads to poor decisions. He knows that from experience.

The only consolation is the fact that everyone but Kenneth Wentworth was also tricked onto this damn train.

Of course the richest of the bunch would know enough to avoid getting caught.

If he had any money to wager, Herb would bet it all that Ken Wentworth is at this very minute hightailing it out of the country.

Mexico, maybe. Hitting one of those fancy Acapulco beaches with a fake passport in hand and a wallet thick with pesos. Herb wishes he were that lucky.

Still, he’s luckier than Judd Dodge and Edith Gerhardt. The poor bastards. Five minutes ago, Herb had watched Seamus Callahan and Agent Davis carry Edith’s body to the room next door. Knowing her corpse is now lying there makes him take an extra-long drag off his Lucky Strike.

“Where have you been for the past hour?” Agent Davis says.

Herb blows out a stream of smoke. “Right here.”

“The whole time?”

“Yes, sir. After what happened to Judd, I figured it was best to stay put.”

The FBI agent arches a brow. “Did you assume there’d be another murder?”

“No, I—” Herb can’t finish the thought. He doesn’t know what he assumed. He was too busy panicking about going to prison to dwell on anything else. “I just had a bad feeling, that’s all.”

“So you’re scared,” Anna says.

“Of course I am.”

Herb’s answer seems to please her. The corners of her mouth twitch into a half smirk. This is what she wants, Herb realizes. To turn up the heat and see them sweat. Well, she succeeded. He’s now sweating buckets.

“Did you have any animosity toward Judd Dodge or Edith Gerhardt?” Agent Davis says.

“Not really,” Herb says. “Judd always acted like he was smarter than everybody else, but I didn’t mind it too much. Some guys are like that. And, in his case, he was probably right.”

“And Edith?” Anna says.

“I barely knew her.”

“So you didn’t wish them dead?” Agent Davis asks.

Herb inhales, shakes his head, exhales.

“What about my father?” Anna says, leaning forward. “Did you wish him dead? Or my brother? Or my mother?”

“I didn’t.”

Anna stares at him, her gaze so piercing it makes Herb squirm. “Then why’d you do it?”

Good question, Herb thinks. He did it because he’s not smart like Judd Dodge is. Was, Herb reminds himself. Judd is dead like Edith. Just a corpse laid out in a room down the hall.

“I was in a jam,” he says, when in truth he was stuck in something far more serious. Financial quicksand.

Like a lot of guys, Herb needed some way to blow off steam at the end of the day.

Rather than booze, which he didn’t have much taste for, or women, who didn’t have much taste for him, Herb liked to gamble.

Little stuff at first. A couple of trips to Saratoga.

Card games in smoke-filled backrooms. He wasn’t looking to get rich.

Not really. It was just a hobby. A way for a lonely man like himself to pass the time.

But each morning, when he returned to the heat and the noise of the manufacturing plant, he couldn’t help but dream of changing his fate.

Knowing all it would take was one big-time score, Herb increased his gambling, winning some and losing some until soon all he did was lose.

But he believed that men made their own luck, so he kept at it, always waiting for that single, life-changing win.

After burning through his meager savings, he started borrowing money.

First from his folks, then from his friends, then from the kind of guys who demand speedy repayment and take drastic measures when you fail to provide it.

Like his life.

It was those guys Herb was thinking about when Judd told him the truth behind the faulty engine design. And paying them off was the reason he said yes.

Now here he is, on a train being shuttled to the feds, sharing a car with two dead bodies. Herb pictures them stone-still in their rooms, their dead eyes wide open. An image so horribly distracting that he misses what Agent Davis is saying now.

“Mr. Pulaski? Did you hear what I said?”

“Yes,” Herb says. “I mean, no. I was—”

Thinking about Judd and Edith. That’s what he was doing. Wondering what they felt when they were dying.

“I asked if you heard anyone else in the car after you saw Miss Matheson.”

“No. Just her.”

“So there was no one else in this car but you?”

“No,” Herb says, still distracted. He can’t stop thinking of Car 13 as a coffin. They’re the same shape, after all, and now share the same purpose. Long narrow boxes in which the dead are laid to rest. And Herb feels like he’s trapped inside this coffin on wheels, about to be buried alive.

Or killed.

Because Herb’s starting to realize that’s the pattern. Judd was the first, followed by Edith. Respectively, they occupied the last room on the train and the second-to-last. If the killer continues working his way down the train, room by room, his is next.

The idea sends so much panic streaking through him that Herb can scarcely breathe. He stubs out the cigarette, suddenly craving nothing but fresh air in his lungs.

“Am I going to die tonight?”

“Not if I can help it,” Anna says.

Herb feels tightness growing in his chest. That last cigarette was a bad idea. Just like getting on this train was a bad idea. And now he’s terrified he’s about to pay the ultimate price.

“I don’t want to be here anymore,” he whimpers.

“You should have thought of that before ruining dozens of lives,” Anna says.

“But what if I get killed?”

Herb becomes aware of the way Agent Davis and Anna Matheson look at him. Not with scorn and definitely not with pity. Their expressions are something in between. A potent disgust.

“I’ve made it very clear that I want you alive when we reach Chicago.”

“How long will that be?”

“A little under seven hours.”

That’s a long time trapped in a room, with two dead people elsewhere in the car, and a killer on the loose. Herb swallows hard. Anna notices and softens, just a tiny bit. A kindness Herb knows he doesn’t deserve.

“Just keep your door locked,” she says. “Don’t let anyone in. Either Seamus, Agent Davis, or I will come by to check on you every hour.”

While nice to hear, it doesn’t halt the panic spiking through Herb’s thoughts or ease the aching tightness in his chest. He still can’t breathe properly—an affliction that’ll likely last the rest of the trip.

As Anna and Agent Davis leave, Herb opens the window all the way. Buffeted by snow and howling wind, he sticks his head out the window and takes a couple of deep breaths. Inhaling and exhaling as the frigid air stings his face, Herb can think of only one thing.

He should have jumped when he had the chance.