Page 5 of Murder Island

The steam opened my breathing passages. The hot water eased my muscles but stung the scrapes on my back. I tried to relax. But I couldn’t. My mind was racing.

What now?

Kira’s loft was gone—along with everything we needed.Weapons. Tools. Clothes. Our best hope was that the assassins thought that both of us were now in tiny pieces.

Something told me that Kira had a plan from here. She always did. I wondered if there was any chance she would let me in on it.

I lingered under the water for a while. Then I turned off the tap and reached for a towel. I heard Kira’s voice from out front, but it sounded different. Thinner. Weaker. What the hell was Denise doing to her? I wrapped the towel around my waist and stepped around the partition into the salon. I was about to ask for a robe, but I didn’t get that far.

All I could do was gape.

Denise spun the chair around so that Kira was facing me. But the Kira I knew was gone. The woman in the chair was maybe seventy-five or eighty years old, with gray hair and wrinkles creasing her face and neck.

“What do you think?” Kira asked, in that weird, creaky voice.

“Wow,” I said. “How long was I in the shower?”

Kira slid stiffly off the chair, walking with a hunched posture. Very convincing. When she smiled, her teeth had a slightly yellow tint. “Theatrical makeup,” she croaked. “It’s one of Denise’s hidden talents.” She sounded a lot like my late grandmother. Looked like her, too.

Denise patted her chair. “Okay, Hercules, you’re next.”

CHAPTER 5

Union Station, one hour later…

AS WE APPROACHED the train, two uniformed Amtrak porters pulled out a portable ramp and lined it up with the door of the car. “Need help with your husband, ma’am?” one of them asked.

Kira waved them off. “No worries,” she said. “He’s lighter than he looks.”

She tipped me back in the wheelchair and rolled me right up the ramp and into the aisle of the sleeper car. When we got to our compartment, she slid the heavy door open. Then, just in case anybody was looking, she stuck her arms under mine and hoisted me from the wheelchair to the compartment seat—like the aged invalid I was pretending to be. She folded the chair and stashed it to the side, then slid the door closed with a loud thump. She closed the blinds.

I let out a little breath of relief. We made it. By two minutes.

As soon as we settled into our roomette, an automated voice crackled through the PA system.“The Lake Shore Limited. Stopping at South Bend, Elkhart, Waterloo, Bryan, Toledo, Sandusky, Elyria Cleveland, Erie, Buffalo Depew Station, Rochester, Syracuse, Utica, Schenectady, Albany-Rensselaer… and New York.”

I slumped back on the seat. Jesus. Twenty-one hours from Chicago to Penn Station. An entire night and day. I looked at Kira. “Is there anywhere we’renotstopping?”

No reaction.

I tried a different tack. “What’s in New York?” I’d asked the same thing back in the salon when I saw Denise booking the tickets. I got the same reply.

“Wrong question.”

Kira said that a lot. I’d gotten used to it during my training. It meant I wasn’t going to get a straight answer. Most often, no answer at all.

The makeup and spirit gum were starting to irritate my face, and the fake whiskers were driving me crazy. “Can we at least wash this crap off now?” I asked.

Kira started folding the beds down—two narrow berths, one above the other, like offset bunks. “Savor your old age,” she said. “It’s good practice.”

Kira climbed onto the top bunk as the train rolled out of the station. I could see her pulling off her clothes under the covers. I settled into the pod below and did the same. Then I stretched out, or tried to. When I put my head on the pillow, my feet almost hit the wall.

I watched the lights of the station blink by as the train started to roll. My folded-up wheelchair rattled against the wall. I realized that I hadn’t been on a train trip for years, not since my expedition to Egypt my junior summer. What everybody says about the rhythm of the rails is true. I don’t care where you are in the world—a moving train is one big cradle.

I had a lot more questions for Kira, but I felt myself drifting off to sleep.

I tried to fight it.

I lost.

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