Page 41

Thirty-Two

Noise floods Anna’s skull as she stares at the corpse of Herb Pulaski.

Not her screaming, which ends as abruptly as it began, but a loud clanging that reminds her of when she was a girl visiting her father’s manufacturing plant.

All that pounding and thundering as men shaped stainless steel into what would eventually become a train.

She covers her ears, just as she did as a child, but it does nothing to mute the sound jackhammering inside her skull.

Trapped in the noise, Anna can’t tear her gaze from Herb and the blood and the slit across his throat, that sick smile. She’s grateful when Reggie edges into the room, steps gingerly over the blood, and grabs the sheet from the bed to drape over the corpse.

Having Herb out of sight dulls the clanging in Anna’s head enough for a dreadful thought to emerge.

He was right.

Someone is indeed moving up the train, killing them room by room.

Herb knew this and had warned her, but Anna didn’t truly believe him. Instead, she thought a promise to keep him safe was all that was needed. Now he’s dead in the most horrific of ways.

And just like with the previous two victims, Anna can’t be satisfied with this particular brand of justice. Their suffering is at an end, over too quickly, which might be the point of all three murders.

The killer didn’t do this to silence Judd, Edith, and Herb.

They did it to deny Anna the satisfaction of bringing them to justice.

She looks to Sally and Lapsford, who along with Dante approach the door to Room A, willing themselves to peek inside, regretting it once they do.

Sally and Lapsford look especially stricken.

It’s clear they realize their number is dwindling.

Normally, Anna would have taken satisfaction from that.

She wanted them afraid, the anxiety ratcheting higher as they got inexorably closer to Chicago.

But not like this.

She wanted them to be afraid by her actions, on her terms. This is something else entirely, and she feels a quiver of fear herself when she considers that one of them is most likely responsible for this change of events.

Lt. Col. Jack Lapsford.

“You monster,” Anna says, staring him down as he backs away from the door. “I know you did this.”

Lapsford’s eyes widen. “Me? We all know it was you. You’re the only one carrying a knife.”

Anna falters. A wobbling half step that brings her to the cusp of the room, blood-soaked carpet squishing beneath her shoes. “No, I—”

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

“With me for most of it,” Reggie says, still by Herb’s corpse.

“And with me,” Seamus adds. “Right up until we saw blood trickling under the door.”

“In between, I was in Sally’s room.”

Sal doesn’t immediately speak up to confirm her claim.

The silence, combined with the hesitant expression she wears, makes Anna realize nothing between them has changed since their conversation.

She still hates Sal for what she did, and Sal still suspects her of being a killer.

Knowing that, Anna sees no reason for Sal to speak up in her defense.

That’s why it’s a complete surprise when Sal, slowly and grudgingly, says, “And she was with me before that. She’s not lying, Jack. ”

“Well, I didn’t kill him,” Lapsford says.

“I’m not sure any of you could have done it,” Reggie says as he rotates slowly, eyeing the entire room. “The door was locked, including the dead bolt.” He points to the solid nub of metal jutting from the splintered door. “Which can only be engaged from inside the room.”

Anna looks to the doorframe, where a chunk roughly the same size as the dead bolt is missing, presumably broken off when Seamus and Reggie smashed the door open.

While it’s easy to assume someone gained access to the room because Herb let them in, despite Anna telling him not to, the presence of the dead bolt complicates matters.

“How did the killer get out?” Dante says.

“Maybe Herb did it to himself,” Sal suggests with a shrug. “He locked himself inside and committed suicide.”

“Then where’s the knife?” Reggie gestures around the blood-spattered room. “There’s nothing here. If Herb slit his own throat, the knife he used would still be around, most likely in his hands.”

Anna’s gaze drifts to the sheet-covered corpse, her stomach churning as she recalls the sight of what’s beneath it. Herb’s wide, lifeless eyes. The gash across his neck. The glistening blood.

This, she thinks, isn’t the corpse of a man who slit his own throat and then somehow managed to discard the knife before settling back into a chair. It’s the corpse of someone who was killed by surprise.

Likely by someone Herb knew.

Someone he trusted and willingly let enter the room, perhaps locking the door behind him. Or maybe the killer locked it after swiping the blade across Herb’s neck. Either way, the locked door left them no means of escape.

Anna takes a halting step into the room and looks around. She can’t shake the feeling that she’s missing something. A key detail that might not only provide an idea of who the killer could be but how they left the room.

Then she sees it.

“They used the window,” she says.

Reggie turns to face her, surprised and impressed. “How do you know that?”

“The blood.”

Herb’s corpse sits at a spot where the wall and window meet behind him. To the left of the body, the wall is speckled red by arterial spray from when his throat was slit. So, too, are the curtains to his right.

But the glass of the window is free of such gore. There’s not a speck of blood on it. That means the window had been open when Herb’s throat was slit. And while the killer might have entered through the door, that window was their only way out.

Reggie nods to her, and they wordlessly approach the window.

“What do you think?” Anna says.

Reggie touches the glass, his fingers spread. “I’d say there’s no chance someone could do it—if it wasn’t the only other way out of this room. Is the window even big enough?”

Tilting her head, Anna sizes it up, estimating the window to be about three feet tall and just as wide.

Big enough for Sally, Dante, Reggie, and even Seamus to fit through.

The only person it would seem to rule out is Lapsford.

She can’t imagine him squeezing his considerable girth through such a tight space.

“When they left the room, they likely climbed onto the roof to get to another part of the train,” Reggie says.

Under different circumstances, Anna would think it impossible. The Phoenix seems like it’s going too fast for such a feat. The motion would make keeping one’s balance on the roof very difficult. That is, if they weren’t immediately blown off the train first.

An even bigger problem is manipulating the window.

The ones on the Phoenix open and close by sliding up and down.

Since Herb’s window was already partially open, getting inside would have been, if not simple, at least relatively manageable.

A quick lowering followed by a legs-first entry that, if done right, would catch anyone by surprise.

But climbing out the window and closing it behind them? That’s a greater degree of difficulty. It would have required the killer to clamber out the open window and then close it while clinging to the side of the train. During a blizzard, no less.

To see if it’s possible, Anna moves to the window by the bed and opens it in a single, smooth motion. Immediately, wind and snow blast into the room. Along with the noise of the train wheels, it’s an assault on her senses that makes Anna plant her feet to keep from being blown onto the bed.

Using the sill as support, she pushes through the window until her entire upper body is outside.

Immediately, she understands how strange it is to be on the outside of a moving train.

How utterly wrong. Especially a train moving as fast as the Phoenix.

Its speed whips up both wind and chill, which work in tandem.

The cold instantly brings a bone-deep shiver.

Making it worse is the torrent of snow. Each flake that hits her skin feels like a needle prick, while the wind acts as a large, invisible hand that’s constantly shoving.

As she remains jutting outside the window, Anna notices how everything that’s insulated and silent when tucked into a rail car becomes dangerously loud and real. Wheels churn mere feet beneath her, their metallic rattle-crunch sounding eager to chew her to bits if she should fall.

And how easy it would be to fall.

All someone would need to do is sneak up behind her and give her a shove. That fact makes Anna tighten her grip on the windowsill as she leans farther out of the train and looks to the room’s other window. The one next to Herb’s body that the killer slipped through.

A flat metal frame runs along the top edge of the glass, overhanging it by half an inch.

There’s a similar overhang inside the train, there to allow passengers to easily open and close the window.

All someone needs to do is jam their fingertips beneath the jutting sliver of metal and either push or pull, both inside and outside the train.

But can it be done while clinging to the train’s side? So far, it doesn’t look like it.

Still hanging outside the train, battered by wind and snow and cold, Anna maneuvers herself into a sitting position on the windowsill, facing inside. With a death grip on the window frame, she leans as far outside as possible to examine the top of the train.