Page 43 of With a Vengeance

There it is. Another flare of jealousy.

What happened between them occurred only once. An unplanned tumbling into bed when the burdens they both carried had become too heavy to bear. Fueled by wine and grief, they tossed those burdens aside, along with their clothes and inhibitions. Anna was surprised by the intensity of the encounter. How eager they were to escape their pain, if only just for a night.

One night was all they got. When they woke the next morning, their limbs still entwined, Anna felt not embarrassment but another, worse emotion: resignation.

“We can never do this again,” she said.

“It’s too sad,” Seamus added in agreement.

And while that had seemed to be the end of it for Anna,perhaps it wasn’t for Seamus, who’s more sensitive than his hulking appearance suggests. The possibility that he might still have feelings for her worries Anna. The night has already been disrupted enough. She can’t have emotions—Seamus’s or anyone else’s—messing things up even more.

“For me, the biggest suspect is Jack Lapsford,” Anna says, even though she has nothing to back the claim. Just a stirring in her gut that tells her Lapsford’s up to something. He’s certainly the most vocal of the bunch. The most desperate, too.

While he wasn’t close enough to slip poison into Judd’s drink when no one was looking, that doesn’t mean he couldn’t have done it another way. It’s possible he poisoned the martini glass in the first hour of the trip when no one had yet entered the lounge. Or he could have spiked Judd’s drink unnoticed when he went to the bar to collect his own.

“But why would he kill Judd?” Seamus says. “Why would any of them?”

Anna understands what he’s getting at. If anyone on the Phoenix has justifiable reason to commit murder, it’s her and Seamus. Which means the two of them also have the biggest targets on their backs. She can’t fathom why one of the others would, as Dante had predicted, turn on their own.

But turn they did. And Anna can’t shake the feeling that one of them, in a desperate bid to appear innocent, has decided to get rid of those who know the most about their guilt—their fellow conspirators.

“Because the dead can’t tattle,” she says.

“You think whoever killed Judd is planning to do it again?”

“Possibly,” Anna says. “To avoid that happening, we need to keep an eye on everyone for the rest of the trip. That means checking on them once an hour, maybe more.”

Seamus nods. “To make sure one of them isn’t up to something.”

“And to make sure the others remain alive.”

The irony isn’t lost on Anna. In order to destroy their enemies, they must first protect them.

But she also knows monitoring their every move isn’t enough. They can’t just hope Judd’s killer doesn’t strike again. They need to stop whoever did it before they get the chance.

“I still don’t understand the poison. Why did the killer have it? I mean, who brings poison onto a train?”

“Someone who intended to use it,” Seamus says.

“That’s what’s strange,” Anna says. “I don’t think anyone knew who else was going to be aboard the Phoenix. That makes it highly unlikely this was premeditated murder. I think the killer decided to do itafterrealizing what this trip is all about. That means it’s someone who always carries poison with them or else—”

Seamus sits up. “They found it on the train.”

“Exactly. And if we can also locate it, that might give us a good idea of who used it.” Anna slides off the bed, her eyes bright. “Find the poison, find the killer.”

Seventeen

Anna asks Seamusif she can take the first watch, and he agrees. By now he knows that when she asks something of him, it’s really an order.

One he obeys every time.

Almost.

It’s not that Seamus doesn’t have his own opinions about what to do. He certainly does. But when he disagrees, he willingly defers to Anna. Yes, he lost a brother, but Anna lost her entire family. If it were possible to weigh their individual grief, hers would surely tip the scales.

He was at least able to properly bury his brother, laying him to rest next to their parents in the meager family plot. According to Anna, nothing lies beside the graves of Arthur and Margaret Matheson. Just an empty coffin. The different ways in which their brothers died—his from internal injuries, Anna’s completely obliterated—makes it clear they were in different parts of the train when it exploded, and likely never met.

Seamus also knows it doesn’t matter.

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