Page 13 of When You're Lost

No immediate response.She jiggled the handle, but it was locked from inside.She felt a surge of anxiety.If it was Wendell, cornered, he might be armed.“Police,” Amelia repeated, voice sharper now.“Open this door.”

The lock clicked, and the door slid open.A lanky man in a gray hoodie stared at her, brow furrowed.“What’s the problem?”he grumbled.“Can’t a bloke take a dump in peace?”

She blinked, taking a swift step back.“We… sorry, sir.”Her gaze flicked over his face—no sign of Wendell’s distinctive features, no sign of a disguise.“We had reason to believe—”

He scowled, zipping up the hoodie.“You've got the wrong bloke, love.”

Amelia exchanged a quick glance with a plainclothes officer who’d sidled near the carriage door.“Apologies,” she said stiffly.“We, uh, must have made a mistake.”

“Bloody ridiculous,” the man mumbled, brushing past her to take a seat.

Amelia pressed her earpiece.“Not our suspect.Just a passenger.I’m getting off the train before it leaves.”She could hear Clint sigh in relief from the adjacent aisle.So it was a false lead—someone who merely resembled Wendell.

As Amelia moved to exit the train, the quiet station sounds resumed—footsteps, a faint announcement garbled by static.Then an odd drip-drip sound reached her ears.She paused on the platform, glancing down.Something dark trickled from beneath the carriage.Her stomach lurched.

She bent to look, heart thundering.In the dim shadows under the train, she could make out a figure—or rather, a body pinned to the undercarriage by rope.A slick wetness that could only be blood dripped onto the rails.Amelia’s mouth went dry, and a cry tore from her throat.

“Stop!”she shouted at the driver, who was leaning out of his cab window.“Don’t move the train!We have a situation!”

"Go, go, go!"McNeil yelled over the radio.

Within seconds, half a dozen undercover officers and uniformed police converged on her position, the tension crackling in the air.McNeil came rushing from the other end of the platform, and Detective Clint sprinted out of the carriage, both looking alarmed.

Amelia pointed, voice low.“There’s a body—under the train.A woman, tied up under there.”

McNeil looked and then stood up, his face paled.“God help us,” he muttered.He signaled to the others to cordon off the area.

Clint placed a hand on Amelia’s shoulder, concern flashing in his eyes.“You all right?”

She swallowed, stepping back so the forensics crew could approach.“I’m fine,” she lied, gazing once more at the twisted shape.“This must be what Wendell wanted us to find.But we're missing something.”

McNeil nodded grimly, turning to speak urgently into his radio.The station staff, wide-eyed and shaken, gathered at a distance.Passengers began to realize something was terribly wrong, and an officer shouted for them to move away.

“Who is she?”Amelia asked, voice unsteady.The question hung in the stagnant mist, unanswered.The woman’s face was concealed by the tangle of rope and the awkward angle.Blood smeared her hair.

No one spoke for a moment, the shock too raw.Finally, McNeil shook his head.“We won’t know until we get her out from under there.”

Amelia closed her eyes briefly, wishing she could block out the gruesome sight.Another victim.Another life ended in Wendell's twisted game."He left that note at the jeweler's specifically so we'd come here for the 2 PM train.We walked right into his plan."

“Or he lured us,” Clint said, biting his lip.“But at least we found her.If the train had started moving—” He didn’t finish the sentence.

Amelia forced herself to meet McNeil's gaze.“We'd have seen the trail of blood left behind...We need to find out who the victim is.Then figure out if she’s connected to Wendell or one of us.Because if he’s leaving bodies like this…”

McNeil set his jaw, frustration emanating from him.“We’ll have the body identified.Meanwhile, station’s locked down.Let’s do our jobs.”

Amelia nodded, stepping away from the grisly scene.She wiped a shaky hand across her forehead.Her earpiece crackled faintly, but all she could think was the same question:Why did you kill this woman, Wendell?

It echoed in her mind even as she ushered passengers off the platform, even as forensics went to work, even as the creeping dread settled deeper and deeper into her bones, that Wendell Reed would always be one step ahead.And with no immediate answer, she could only stand there, the cold mist coiling around her, sorrow and anger twined in her chest.

CHAPTER SIX

Edmund Garner leaned back in the high-backed chair of his spacious sitting room, the embers in the fireplace casting shifting ribbons of light across the walls.The room itself spoke volumes of his status: plush burgundy wallpaper, gold-framed portraits of various European landscapes, and shelves of leather-bound books that had never truly been read.Shadows danced across a large portrait mounted above the mantel—his latest acquisition, a painting of Edgar Allan Poe, which he’d managed to snatch from a struggling estate sale at a fraction of its presumed worth.

He sighed, swirling a glass of Amontillado between his thumb and forefinger.The wine glowed a deep amber in the fire’s flicker.He found grim pleasure in the irony: Edgar Allan Poe’ chilling story ‘The Cask of Amontillado’ was said to have brought the drink to public attention, and here was Edmund, sitting before the author’s likeness, sipping that very drink.A slight smile tugged at his lips.

“All very fitting, don’t you think?”he murmured, raising the glass as if to toast the figure in the painting.Poe’s painted eyes stared back, haunting and inscrutable.

Just then, a soft buzz interrupted the quiet.Edmund glanced at the small marble-topped side table, where his mobile phone vibrated insistently.He huffed, annoyed at the disturbance but nonetheless leaning forward to pick it up.The screen read: Fontaine Williams.

---