Page 91 of With a Vengeance

“I think so.”

Anna keeps tugging, eventually getting him into the previous car. Dante is already there, helping Sal prop Lapsford up as they guide him back to his room. Despite the frenzy, Seamus assumes Lapsford is again faking illness. One last desperate attempt to stop the train now that Chicago is less than three hours away.

Seamus follows them into the room. “Get him onto the bed.”

This proves more difficult than expected. The others crowd around Lapsford, all jostling limbs and bumping elbows. It doesn’t help that Lapsford is an unruly patient, writhing when he should be lying still, fighting them off instead of letting them help. After heaving him onto the bed, they face their next big task—figuring out what to do next.

Lapsford opens and closes his mouth like a fish on dry land, gasping for air. The effort turns his face beet red, making Seamus fear he has only minutes, if not seconds, before he passes out.

“Tell me what’s wrong,” he demands.

Lapsford clutches his chest. “My heart.”

With Anna, Sal, and Dante huddled around him, Seamus takes Lapsford’s wrist and checks his pulse. It taps out like Morse code, irregular and unintelligible. Anna was right. This is real.

“What do we do?” she says, panicked.

Seamus pulls the pillbox from his jacket and retrieves one of the chalky white tablets. He holds it out to Anna with a trembling hand. “Give him this.”

Anna eyes the pill with suspicion.

“It’s a muscle relaxant,” Seamus says, reading her mind. “It might slow his heartbeat enough to keep him alive until we reach Chicago.”

When Anna takes the pill, Seamus notices the way Lapsford eyes its transfer from his fingers to hers. He licks his lips and swallows, as if rehearsing how to get the pill down his throat as fast as possible.

Lapsford, Seamus understands,wantsit.

Anna knows it, too, and dangles the pill over Lapsford’s mouth, which yawns open.

“Can you talk?” she says.

Lapsford’s voice is a desperate rasp. “Yes.”

“Then tell me why you did it. Was it just for the money?”

Lapsford stares at the pill, eyes wide and begging. Anna pulls it farther away from his mouth.

“Answer me,” she says. “Did you destroy my family just for the money?”

Seamus looks across the bed to her, startled. “Jesus, Anna. Just give it to him.”

“Not before he answers,” she says.

“Yes,” Lapsford hisses.

Anna keeps the pill away from his mouth, silently taunting him with it. “Do you ever think about my family? Do you think about what you did to them?”

Lapsford, no longer able to speak, gives the smallest of nods.

“Anna,” Seamus says. “The man isdying.Give him the pill.”

“One more minute.”

“He doesn’t have that long!”

To Seamus, Lapsford seems to be fading fast. His breathing has shallowed to nothingness, and his eyes go dim. The last flicker of a candle before it goes out.

“What about those soldiers who died?” Anna quickly says. “Men like Seamus’s brother. Do you think of them?”

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