Page 54

Forty-Four

Anna knew.

Not all night.

Just recently.

When she realized Judd had been murdered, she suspected Seamus was behind it. Unlike Dante, he not only had the ability and opportunity to strangle Judd to death but also the motive. And when Seamus admitted his affliction, Anna realized the one thing he didn’t have was time.

If he wanted to see justice be served, it would have to be now.

But the fact that Anna assumed Seamus was the killer doesn’t keep her legs from feeling like they’re about to give out beneath her. Or maybe it’s the floor that’s collapsing. Or the train itself.

“Why?”

The word comes out more plaintive and despairing than Anna intends. She can’t help it, for even though she suspected it was Seamus, she is indeed in despair. Betrayal burns through her, so hot she’s shocked she’s still alive. She should be dead now, she thinks. Surely this will kill her.

Yet somehow, she remains stubbornly alive, swatting away Seamus’s hand and crab-crawling out of the room. In the corridor, she leaps to her feet and attempts to run, but Seamus is quickly upon her, clamping a hand over her mouth and dragging her to the front of the car.

That he can do it so easily doesn’t surprise Anna.

He’s strong. She’s always known that. Which is why she also realized that Seamus is the only person on this train strong enough to kill the others.

Anna easily pictures him smothering the life out of Edith Gerhardt and slitting Herb Pulaski’s throat before squeezing out the window and climbing onto the roof to reach his own room.

She vividly remembers Seamus’s words after they first sorted through those boxes of proof.

All of them need to die. And I want to be the one to do it.

And so he had.

Now Anna expects him to do the same to her, especially as they continue through Car 11 toward the lounge. An appropriate place for her to die, she thinks. The car where this whole cursed journey began.

But once they’re inside, Seamus guides her into a chair and kneels before her, his hands on her legs. He slips one beneath her dress, the sudden violation making her inhale sharply. Seamus continues to slide his hand up her thigh until he reaches the knife.

“You won’t be needing this,” Seamus says as he yanks it from the sheath and tosses it across the lounge. “Even without it, I know you can flatten me to the ground. I assure you, there’s no need to try. I won’t fight back. I won’t ever hurt you, Anna.”

Too late for that, Anna thinks. Already he’s hurt her more than she could have imagined. A cut so deep she doubts it will ever heal. As a result, she has no energy to fight Seamus. Grief and disappointment have depleted her.

“You knew Judd wasn’t dead,” she says, her voice flat.

“I knew.”

“When?”

“The same time you found out.”

“But only you found his hiding spot.”

Seamus settles into the chair beside her. Anna, refusing to look at him, focuses on the view outside the lounge windows. The Phoenix has reached another river, running parallel to it, the snow on its banks blinding in the early-morning light.

“Yes,” Seamus says.

Anna doesn’t need him to explain what came next. How Seamus then strangled Judd. To make it seem like he had nothing to do with it, he led her and Dante to the scene of the crime.

“That’s not what we agreed to,” she says. “We wanted them all alive.”

“No, Anna. You wanted that. I wanted vengeance, in whatever form it could come in. And if that meant all of them rotting in prison, I pretended to be okay with it, because it was better than nothing. But the truth is, I thought they deserved to die. Every last one of them.”

“Then why did you go along with my plan?”

“Because I love you,” Seamus says wearily, making it sound not like a declaration but a confession.

A deep, dark secret he’s only now being forced to reveal.

“I know you don’t feel the same way, and I’ve made peace with that.

But I knew I’d never make peace with what they did, what they took from us.

I needed to make at least one of them pay. ”

“Even though you knew it was wrong?”

Seamus jerks his head toward the row of cars behind them.

“What they did was wrong, Anna. They murdered our brothers, along with dozens of other people. They framed your father. Your mother went insane because of it. Don’t you dare sit here and pretend they don’t deserve exactly the same treatment. ”

“They deserve worse,” Anna says. “But not at our hands. We’re better than that.”

“You might be,” Seamus says. “But I’m not. When I got the opportunity to murder one of those bastards, I took it.”

Still unable to look at him, Anna keeps her gaze on the river outside.

Despite going in the same direction, both train and water are gradually splitting away from each other in elevation.

As the river dips lower, flowing through a snow-filled valley it carved millennia ago, the train climbs higher, following the gentle rise of the valley’s edge.

“The opportunity was there without resorting to murder,” she says. “You thought Lapsford was going to die. You even pleaded with me to give him the pill before it was too late.”

“Because I didn’t just want him dead. I wanted to be the one to kill him.”

Yet Lapsford is still alive, thanks to Anna. Ironic, considering that, other than Kenneth Wentworth, he’s the one she despises the most.

“Now that I know, are you still going to try?”

“No,” Seamus says. “I’ve killed enough.”

Anna wishes she still had her knife, because she longs to stab him in the heart. Not to fight him, and certainly not to kill him. She just wants Seamus to feel as much pain there as she does. Without the knife, all she can do is say, “I’ll never forgive you.”

Seamus nods. “I don’t expect you to.”

“They’re going to arrest you, you know. Once we reach Chicago, you’ll be rounded up along with the rest of them.”

“You don’t have to tell,” Seamus says, even as his eyes—those windows to his soul—make it clear he knows she will.

Anna’s own eyes well with tears. She might not reciprocate his romantic feelings, but she does love Seamus, in her own wounded way. Even now. Theirs is a more intimate bond than love, in which people sand down their rough edges for each other. She and Seamus sharpened theirs to brittle points.

Anna always knew one of them would draw blood. She just assumed it would be her.

“I wish you had trusted me.” Anna shakes her head, the motion unleashing a single tear that rolls down her cheek. “I wish you had stuck to the plan.”

“I couldn’t,” Seamus says.

Anna finally looks his way, overcome with curiosity. “How did it feel?”

“It was—” Seamus pauses, searching for the right word. “Beautiful. The sweetest release I’ve ever felt.”

“Even though it also meant dooming yourself?”

“You’re forgetting I’m already doomed.”

Seamus removes her father’s silver locomotive pin from his pocket. With extreme gentleness, he leans over and attaches it to the front of Anna’s dress.

“This belongs to you,” he says.

Seamus then kisses her on the cheek, stands, and, without another word, exits the front of the car.

Anna remains seated a few more seconds. Just long enough for her to understand what he’s about to do.

When she does, she leaps from the chair and follows Seamus into the dining car.

He’s already on the other side, moving into the galley, the door swinging shut behind him.

And so it goes for the next several cars.

Through the club car, the coach lounge, the sleeper car.

Anna, quickening her pace in each one, doesn’t fully catch up to Seamus until they’ve reached the baggage car.

By then, he’s already at the double doors in the side of the car, pulling one of them open.

“Seamus, stop!” Anna yells, her voice clanging off the walls.

He ignores her, moving to the second door and forcing it open, letting in the chaos of the outside world. The gusting snow. The whipping wind. The clattering wheels. It all makes Anna wince, even as she takes several steps toward the open doors.

“What are you doing?” she says, when deep down she already knows.

Seamus inches closer to the yawning opening, stopping only when he’s on the precipice.

The rush of air lifts his hair and flutters his jacket, which makes a flapping noise.

Like a bird taking flight. Behind him, the snow-swept landscape passes in a blur of whites and grays.

They’re high above the river now, approaching a trestle bridge that crosses it.

“I’m leaving,” he says.

Another tear cascades down Anna’s cheek. She’s not ready to say good-bye, in spite of what he’s done. For the past year, he’s been the only constant presence in her life. His absence will leave a void she’ll never be able to fill.

“You don’t need to do this,” she says, resisting the urge to grab him and pull him away from the door. But he’s so close to the edge that she fears one wrong move will send him tumbling off the train.

Anna knows what will happen to him after that.

“I already told you, I don’t have a future.”

“It doesn’t have to be that way. You’ll figure it out.”

“I already have,” Seamus says.

He turns to face the open door as the train reaches the bridge.

A moment passes in which he takes in the gray billow of sky above, the ice-covered river below, the white line of the distant horizon.

Anna holds her breath as Seamus remains framed in the doorway, perched on its edge.

He turns back around to look at her, and her heart skips.

She knows it means he’s changing his mind.

Sure enough, Seamus pushes away from the door, running toward Anna, wrapping his big arms around her. She hugs him back, relieved that he’s chosen to live.

But then he presses the revolver into her hand—and Anna realizes something else is happening.

“Take it,” Seamus says.

Anna shakes her head, jarring loose more tears. “Please don’t do this.”

“You know what to do,” Seamus whispers as he closes her fingers around the gun. “You can end this.”

He breaks away from her, leaving Anna holding the gun in one hand and grasping for him with the other. But Seamus is already out of reach, on his way to the door. When he gets there, he doesn’t pause or look back or even say good-bye.

He simply steps off the train and drops out of sight.