Page 94 of With a Vengeance

“My gun,” Seamus says. “It’s gone.”

Anna bolts from the bed, instantly on alert. “Do you think it fell out of your pocket?”

“I don’t know,” Seamus says.

“When was the last time you noticed it?”

He continues to pat his pockets, as if it’s possible he’s mistakenand the gun isn’t really gone. “An hour ago. When we were all in the lounge after finding out Judd really wasn’t dead.”

“So it could be anywhere,” Anna says.

“Or with anyone,” Seamus adds. “We need to check the lounge.”

They bolt from the room, spilling into the corridor of Car 11 before rushing to the first-class lounge. Inside, Seamus immediately begins overturning chairs and cocktail tables, desperately searching for his missing revolver. Anna joins him, crawling across the floor on her hands and knees.

“Keep looking,” Seamus says as she reaches the piano. “I’m going to check the observation car.”

He hurries out of the lounge, leaving Anna to continue the search on her own. She continues along the floor for thirty more seconds before confirming there’s no gun here. The only place left to look is the bar. She climbs to her feet, about to approach it, when her attention is caught by strange sounds in the next car.

A bang.

A shatter.

Another bang.

Hearing them, Anna goes statue-still. The mirrored shelves behind the bar capture her motionless reflection, splitting and distorting her shocked face into dozens of pieces. Wide eyes. Opened mouths. Flared nostrils. Anna stares at those broken bits of herself as she slowly identifies the noises she’d just heard.

They were gunshots.

Two of them.

Forty-Two

Leaving the lounge,Anna stares down the empty corridor of Car 11, amazed by how long it appears. It stretches before her, seemingly endless, making her feel like a child again. So tiny, and the Philadelphia Phoenix impossibly huge.

Anna runs through the car, although to her the pace feels glacial. A long, slow slog to the other end in which she becomes aware of everything around her. The rocking of the train. The hum-rattle of the wheels. The world outside the window, passing in a blur.

At the last room of the car, she peers through the open door and spots Reggie on his feet, clutching his side. When their eyes meet, Anna shakes her head, silently answering the question in Reggie’s gaze.

No, I don’t know what’s happening.

He takes an unsteady step toward the door and Anna offers another head shake, its message clear.Stay here. Stay safe.

She continues into Car 12, almost colliding with Seamus as he hovers just beyond the door. “Stay back,” he says.

Anna doesn’t.

She can’t.

Not when she sees Dante at the other end of the car. Another person still present and accounted for.

“Lapsford?” Anna says.

Slowly, nervously, Dante slips through the open door of Lapsford’s room. He returns a second later, visibly shaken. “He’s alive.”

A knot of fear forms in the pit of Anna’s stomach, getting tighter when she looks to the door of Sal’s room. It sits ajar, creaking in time to the rocking of the train.

Anna surges to the door, even as Seamus yells for her to stop. “Anna, wait!”

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