Page 53 of With a Vengeance

In Car 12, she no longer bothers trying to explain herself. She simply knocks on all three doors in the car. Sal, then Lapsford, then Dante. When she sees that each one is in their room, she moves on.

It’s the same in Car 13 and Room A, where Herb gives another nervous peek through the cracked door. Anna sidesteps to Room B. Edith’s room.

She knocks.

There’s no answer.

She knocks again.

Still nothing.

Anna twists the knob and the door clicks open. She steps into the room, thinking that Edith might have fallen asleep.

The room is empty.

Back in the hallway, Anna looks to the last place she saw Edith. The observation car. In the center of the door is a round window that resembles a submarine portal. Fitting, for it feels to Anna like she’s just been thrust underwater as she approaches it.

Breathless. Panicked. Swept up in a dangerous current that takes her through the door against her will, unable to stop despite knowing what waits on the other side.

Edith.

Anna finds the woman on her back in the middle of the observation car, her arms flopped at her sides and both legs slightly bent at the knees. Edith’s eyes remain wide open, as if she’s staring at the night sky above, even though there’s no life behind them.

Wrapped around her neck is a cord from one of the drapes, which someone had used to strangle her.

The scene is so horrible that Anna’s forced to look away. A flinch that even Aunt Retta would understand. She turns her gaze to the car’s windows instead, seeing nothing but a curtain of snow, rustled by wind that whistles against the side of the train.

They’ve entered the heart of thestorm.

1 a.m.

Seven Hours toChicago

Twenty-Two

A minute passesbefore Anna is able to look again at the corpse of Edith Gerhardt. Unlike after Judd’s death, she doesn’t cry or rage. All she can do is gaze at Edith’s body and try to summon a bit of the hatred she’d felt for the woman. It should be easy. She’d despised Edith for so long that it became second nature to her. Something ingrained. But, much to her surprise, all Anna can think of is Edith’s warmth beside her as she woke her in the mornings. And the sound of her footsteps, so light for such a sturdy woman, in the hallway outside her room. And the way the entire house smelled when Edith made her apple strudel. A rare treat reserved for her and Tommy’s birthdays.

Whatever anger Anna feels is reserved for the person who took Edith’s life.

And for herself.

No, she’s not the person who killed Edith, but she is responsible for her death. Judd’s, too. Both would still be alive if she hadn’t tricked them into getting onto this train. It doesn’t matter that each of them came of their own accord. Or that this trip wouldn’t have been necessary had they not betrayed her father twelve yearsearlier. This was all her doing, and now a second person will be denied the justice she so craves.

Anna hears movement in the preceding car, followed by the low hum of voices. She must have screamed, although she has no memory of it. Based on the sound rising behind her, she had to have done something to draw the others’ attention.

Sure enough, when she turns around, she sees the Phoenix’s remaining six passengers huddled around the doorway. All display various states of shock. None more so than poor Reggie Davis, who Anna is certain didn’t expect one murder when he boarded the wrong train. Now there have been two. And someone currently standing in front of her is responsible.

“Which one of you did this?” she says, needing to ask the question even though she doesn’t expect an answer.

“If I had to guess,” Lapsford says, “I’d say it was you.”

The accusation isn’t a surprise. Lapsford saw Anna put her hands around Edith’s throat. They all did. They’d watched her knuckles clench as she squeezed.

“I didn’t do it,” she says. “I found her like this. I swear.”

Seamus pushes past Lapsford. “Did you leave this car after the rest of us?”

“She did,” Herb says. “I saw her go by.”

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