Page 25 of With a Vengeance

“I have my ways. After all, the train needed to be empty. I didn’t want to offer anyone a single means of escape.” Anna gestures to the doors at each end of the car. “On a crowded train, with people bustling to get on and off, it would be easy for someone to slip away in the crowd.”

“And it avoids having innocent bystanders onboard when things get ugly,” Dante adds. “Now that they know they’re trapped on this train, it’s only a matter of time before these people start to turn on each other.”

Anna doesn’t think so, despite already assuming things will get heated once desperation sets in. She predicts accusations, confessions, blame being lobbed from one person to the next. And while she knows there’s a chance they’ll go after her and Seamus—hence her knife and his own form of protection—she doesn’t think any of them will resort to targeting each other.

Still, as she and Dante enter the baggage car, Anna immediately clocks their manic mood. Judd Dodge stands at the door to the locomotive, slamming his fist against it to no avail. That doesn’t keep Jack Lapsford from also trying. Trading places with Judd, hetries the door himself, first pulling the handle, then pushing it, then pulling again. When neither motion causes it to budge, he resorts to pounding on the door and yelling, “Hello? Whoever’s in there, open up at once!”

Sal joins in, punctuating her words with sharp raps against the door. “This! Is! An! Emergency!”

Anna pictures Burt Chapman at the front of the locomotive, oblivious to the racket. Even if he can hear them, she knows he’ll ignore it.

“I told him one of you would probably say that,” Anna says, announcing her presence in the baggage car.

Judd gives her a desperate look. “Then why isn’t he answering?”

“Because I knew we’d end up here eventually,” Anna says. “So I told him not to open the door. After paying him handsomely, of course.”

“Whatever she’s paying you,” Sal says with another bang on the door, “we’ll offer double!”

Anna puts a hand on her hip, impatient. “I told him you’d say that, too.”

“A million dollars!” Lapsford shouts, an amount that makes Herb Pulaski gasp. The others, too, give him looks of stupefied shock. The only person not surprised is Anna.

“He knew that was coming, too,” she says. “There’s literally nothing you can say or do that will get him to stop this train.”

“Butyoucan stop it, right?” Judd asks.

“On the contrary, not even I can do that. Because I assumed one of you would try to imitate me—or, God forbid, coerce me through violence—I instructed the engineer to not obey a word anyone said. Even me.”

“You’re nuts,” Sal says. “Truly insane.”

Lapsford affirms that sentiment with a nod. “Why would he agree to that?”

“Because everyone who normally works on this train, from the dishwasher to the chief engineer, knows the purpose of this journey,” Anna says. “And they were all too happy to step aside or, in the engineer’s case, provide assistance. Workers also died because of your scheme. The engineers. A conductor. Two porters. On the railroad, devotion runs deep. They want justice as much as Seamus and I do.”

Lapsford either doesn’t understand or doesn’t care. Pounding his fists against the door, he yells, “I am a high-ranking member of the United States Army, and I command you to stop this train.”

“Retiredhigh-ranking member,” Dante says, coming to Anna’s side. “Which doesn’t give you any authority at all. In fact, since this train belongs to my father—and since it will someday be mine—I think I’m the one who has the ultimate say over where it goes and when it stops, don’t you?”

“Then stop it and let all of us off,” Lapsford demands.

Anna goes rigid as Dante approaches the door. Before boarding, back when she still expected Kenneth Wentworth, she told Burt Chapman his boss would be on the train—and that he’d likely do anything to stop it. Burt assured her she had nothing to worry about, especially once she told him what Wentworth had done. It didn’t hurt that she’d paid him twice as much as the rest of the train’s crew.

But Dante isn’t his father. Charm and persuasion are his specialties. If anyone can sweet-talk his way into stopping the Phoenix, it’s him.

He knocks on the door and clears his throat. “My name is Dante Wentworth. My father owns this railroad, including the train you’re controlling. As you’ve heard, there are some people out here desperate for you to stop it so they can disembark. Considering these circumstances, I think it’s best that—”

Dante turns to give Anna a look she finds unreadable. For asecond, she can’t breathe, certain he’s about to single-handedly stop the train and ruin her plan. All that work gone. All that plotting for nothing. All that expense wasted.

But then that crooked grin spreads across his face, and Anna exhales.

“I think it’s best that you keep this train moving,” Dante continues. “Ignore what anyone out here says, just as Miss Matheson instructed. Do not stop for any reason until we reach Chicago.”

He raps twice on the door and waits. A moment later, two more raps rise from the other side. Burt has received his message.

The train will not be stopping.

Twelve

---