Page 44 of With a Vengeance

Both are gone and never coming back.

Alone in his room, he goes to his suitcase on the bed, untouchedsince he boarded the Phoenix. He didn’t pack much. Just a shaving kit, a change of clothes for when he’s finally allowed to shed his conductor’s uniform, and his wallet.

Seamus’s hand shakes as he reaches for the wallet. Damn this trembling. It’s gotten worse in the past few hours. So bad he could barely check Judd’s neck for a pulse he knew no longer existed. In that moment, he was certain everyone noticed. Especially Anna, who rarely missed a single detail.

Now his hand positively vibrates as he removes a photograph from his wallet, its edges ragged from a dozen years of similarly tremulous viewings. Seamus looks at the uniformed young man in the picture and his heart clenches.

Sean.

His big brother.

The Callahans were not a happy family. His father drank too much. His mother spoke too little. Both were quick to use their fists. As a result, Seamus and his brother grew up in tense silence that lasted until their parents died within a year of each other. After that, Sean became his north star, guiding him into adulthood through the power of example. Whatever Sean did, Seamus followed, whether it was joining the high school football team or enlisting in the Army.

Then Sean was killed, and Seamus, having no one to emulate, lost his way.

Until he found Anna.

He didn’t know what to expect when he approached her in the cemetery a little over a year ago. Her aunt had given him Anna’s name but no picture or description. “You’ll know her when you see her” was all he was told.

And he did.

The only person left in the cemetery, Anna was easy to identify. But even if she had been surrounded by dozens of people, Seamuswould have known it was her. Loss recognizes loss. He approached her and said, “Your aunt sent me.”

Anna turned to him, giving him a look unlike anything Seamus had seen before. Instead of grief, her eyes blazed with purpose, as if she sensed exactly who he was and why he was there. He’s been by her side ever since. Whether that will still be the case when they reach Chicago is unknown. They haven’t discussed what comes after their plan.

If there is an after.

He slips his brother’s picture back into his wallet, which is returned to the suitcase. Then he stretches, trying to release the tension of a long night that’s not even halfway over. As he moves, something deep in the pocket of his uniform vest knocks against his rib cage.

Seamus reaches into the pocket and removes a small pillbox Reggie Davis never got the chance to find after being spooked by his revolver. For that Seamus is grateful, because it spared him a lot of explaining.

With still-trembling hands, he lifts the box’s lid and peers inside.

Resting on the bottom are several pills, chalky and white.

Seamus counts them. Right now, there are five. Satisfied by the amount, he snaps the box shut and returns it to his pocket.

He knows that earlier in the night, the number of pills had beensix.

Midnight

Eight Hours toChicago

Eighteen

An empty trainis a quiet one. Disconcertingly so.

On a sold-out voyage, it’s never quiet, even in the dead of night. There are always people whispering in the darkness, snores rising from berths in the sleeper car, men playing cards in the club car until the sun peeks over the eastern horizon. Underneath it all is the sound of the train rushing inexorably forward. A constant click-hum of steel wheels on iron tracks that soothes some, irritates others. Now, though, that calming, maddening, unceasing sound of the train is all there is.

That’s especially true in the first-class lounge, where a man recently died and where Anna now carefully steps over the spot where it happened. She’s checked the other first-class cars to make sure everyone is in their rooms. They are, their doors closed and, hopefully, locked.

Anna knows she should do the same thing, but the itch to find the poison that killed Judd Dodge is too strong to resist. Based on its odor, she suspects a cleaning product. And on the Phoenix, there are only two places where those reside—the galley and the janitor’s closet tucked into a corner of the club car.

For the first hour of the train ride, the entire lounge had beenunattended, giving anyone a chance to sneak into both places. But that’s not when Anna suspects the poison was obtained. That would have required premeditation, and she doubts anyone quite knew what they were in for before she appeared in the lounge. No, she thinks whoever killed Judd grabbed the poison when everyone moved through the train in their futile attempt to stop it. By then Judd had all but confessed to his role in the scheme, giving one of the others the idea to kill him before he could implicate anyone else.

Continuing across the lounge, she looks to the window to check the weather conditions outside. It’s snowing harder now, the flakes whooshing by the size of dimes. But this is still the eastern edge of the storm—and Anna’s well aware it will get worse the farther west they travel. By now the train has left Pennsylvania and is just beginning the long trek across Ohio. She sighs thinking about that timetable. Five hours into the trip, and they have so much left to go.

She pushes into the dining car, which feels haunted by its emptiness. It unnerves her to be moving through these cars alone. She chalks it up to their size, their opulence. These are spaces intended to hold dozens in a luxurious embrace. When they are devoid of that, it makes Anna feel like a trespasser.

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