Page 59

Forty-Nine

Sal drops the bottle and wipes the crimson spot on her forehead, destroying the illusion of blood and a bullet hole. While it lasted, though, it was surprisingly effective. Anna was taken aback when she first saw it, even though she knew it was created by two items in Sal’s handbag.

Lipstick and nail polish.

While not the most sophisticated way to fake a shooting death, their options had been limited.

Anna knew it was a risk, but she hoped that Sal shooting out the window behind her would cover the lack of blood spatter, while keeping Seamus at a distance would hide the fact that she wasn’t dead. Thank God, the risk paid off.

The entire ruse had been Anna’s idea, thought up on the spot when she started to suspect Judd had been strangled to death by Seamus.

Because she assumed he would target Sal and Lapsford next, she decided to make it look like one of them had been eliminated.

The other would then be used as bait to lure Seamus and catch him in the act.

What Anna hadn’t counted on was there being a third killer on the train.

“What will you do for us if we go along with this?” Sal asked after Anna presented her idea while Dante and Seamus were moving Judd’s body for the second time.

Anna shook her head. “Nothing.”

“Then why should we help you?” Lapsford said.

“Because both of you will die in the next three hours if you don’t. He’s after you, not me.”

That was enough to convince them.

It was decided that Sal should fake being shot after Lapsford pretended to have a heart attack more convincing than his first attempt.

The goal was to make him look more vulnerable to his would-be killer, thereby encouraging an attack.

To sell the illusion of urgency, Anna angrily peppered Lapsford with real questions.

That his answers might not have been true doesn’t matter.

It kept Seamus distracted enough to not realize Sal had stolen the gun from his jacket pocket.

“Can I trust you?” Anna had asked them before going ahead with the plan.

“No,” Sal said. “But just like me, you don’t have any other choice.”

Anna didn’t. But Sal ultimately did the right thing. Now the two of them move into the corridor, stepping over Reggie’s unconscious form.

“Nice work back there,” Anna tells Sal, who accepts the compliment with a nod.

“You’re welcome.”

“But it doesn’t make us square,” Anna adds. “Not by a long shot.”

Sal nods again. “I know.”

They burst into Sal’s room, where Lapsford’s been hiding.

A last-minute decision made after his close call with Seamus.

Stuffed into the room with the two of them, Anna still can’t quite believe they’re temporary allies.

Sally Lawrence and Jack Lapsford are the last people she thought she’d be working with.

A truce that might not last much longer.

Anna can only trust them so far.

With that in mind, she sprints back into the corridor, on the way to Dante’s room. One of the trip’s other unlikely allies. She gets as far as the door when he opens it and peers outside. “Here to accuse me of murder again?”

“I’m sorry,” Anna says. “I know you didn’t do anything wrong. It was part of my plan to catch the real killer.”

“You could have at least warned me,” Dante says with a sniff.

“I’ll explain everything later. Right now, I desperately need your help.”

“What’s happening?” he asks.

“Nothing good.”

Dante slips out the door and follows her down the hall. At the door to Lapsford’s room, he spots Reggie unconscious on the floor.

“You should tie him up.”

“That’s my next order of business,” Anna says.

“Where’s Seamus?”

“Gone.”

Anna says nothing more than that. One, there’s no time, and two, saying what happened out loud will make it real. And she’s not ready for that. Certainly not now. Likely not ever. So she keeps moving, pulling Dante into the room with Lapsford and Sal.

“The three of you stay in this room, no matter what. Lock the door behind me. Open it only when this train comes to a stop in Chicago.” Anna turns to Dante. “Can I trust you?”

Dante doesn’t so much as blink. “Yes.”

Anna presses Seamus’s gun into his hands. “Guard them with your life.”

She leaves the room, pausing in the corridor just long enough to see Dante close the door behind her and to hear the lock being turned.

Then she’s off again, racing to Reggie’s room in the next car.

Inside, she spots his overnight case and flips it upside down, spilling its contents onto the bed.

A tie. A shirt flecked with Herb’s blood. A list of names with three crossed out.

And bullets.

A whole box of them.

Anna grabs it and with shaking hands loads six bullets into Reggie’s gun. Seamus was right. She can end this.

She’s out the door a second later, bursting into the next car. Halfway down the corridor, she skids to a stop and looks into Lapsford’s room.

The patch of floor where Reggie had been sprawled only two minutes earlier is now empty.

The window on the other side of the room is wide open.

And Agent Reggie Davis is gone.