Page 73 of With a Vengeance

Reggie pushes her out of the way before throwing his full weight against the door, using his shoulder as a battering ram. The door rattles but doesn’t open, forcing him to make a second attempt. When that one also fails, Seamus joins in. Together they crash against the door, to no avail. The only door that opens is the one to their direct left, which leads to the previous car. Peering through it are Dante, Sally, and Lapsford, lured there by the commotion.

“Go back to your rooms,” Anna barks at them.

“What the hell is going on?” Lapsford says.

Behind him, Sally’s face goes pale. “What’s happened to Herb?”

Anna doesn’t yet know, but whatever it is, it’s not good. If it were, they’d be inside the room by now and there wouldn’t be blood on the carpet, now smeared by Seamus’s and Reggie’s shoes as they stumble away from the door.

With twin grunts, both throw themselves at it one last time. The door finally gives way, splintering at the frame with a deafening crack. Anna pushes between them, peering into the newly opened room.

The first thing she sees is more blood.

A dark pool of it sits just inside the door, spinning off additional rivulets that threaten to join the one in the hallway. The motion of the train makes the blood shudder sickeningly, like a puddle in an earthquake.

Anna wills herself to look beyond it, moving her gaze deeper into the room.

Past the pool of blood.

To the stream of it that runs to the chair by the window.

Then to the chair itself, where Herb Pulaski sits, obviously dead. Somehow, his corpse remains upright, as if it has been waiting for them. There’s an air of calm patience to the way his head tilts against the back of the chair and how his hands lightly grip the armrests.

The relaxed state of Herb’s body stands in stark counterpoint to the look of utter horror on his face. A terror that transfers from him to Anna. Deep down, she knew Herb was dead before the door had been smashed open. Only it’s worse than she ever could have imagined. Because Herb wasn’t murdered in the same hands-free way that Judd was. Nor was his death as clean as Edith’s. This was a different kind of end. A violent one.

Beneath his chin, a gash runs across his neck. It’s slightly curved, like a second mouth that’s spitting blood. Herb’s eyes are wide with fear and his mouth remains open, as if emitting a silent scream.

And Anna, woozy from the horror of it all, can’t keep from screaming along with it.

3 a.m.

Five Hours toChicago

Thirty-Two

Noise floods Anna’sskull as she stares at the corpse of Herb Pulaski. Not her screaming, which ends as abruptly as it began, but a loud clanging that reminds her of when she was a girl visiting her father’s manufacturing plant. All that pounding and thundering as men shaped stainless steel into what would eventually become a train. She covers her ears, just as she did as a child, but it does nothing to mute the sound jackhammering inside her skull.

Trapped in the noise, Anna can’t tear her gaze from Herb and the blood and the slit across his throat, that sick smile. She’s grateful when Reggie edges into the room, steps gingerly over the blood, and grabs the sheet from the bed to drape over the corpse.

Having Herb out of sight dulls the clanging in Anna’s head enough for a dreadful thought to emerge.

He was right.

Someone is indeed moving up the train, killing them room by room.

Herb knew this and had warned her, but Anna didn’t truly believe him. Instead, she thought a promise to keep him safe was all that was needed. Now he’s dead in the most horrific of ways.

And just like with the previous two victims, Anna can’t be satisfied with this particular brand of justice. Their suffering is at an end, over too quickly, which might be the point of all three murders.

The killer didn’t do this to silence Judd, Edith, and Herb.

They did it to deny Anna the satisfaction of bringing them to justice.

She looks to Sally and Lapsford, who along with Dante approach the door to Room A, willing themselves to peek inside, regretting it once they do. Sally and Lapsford look especially stricken. It’s clear they realize their number is dwindling. Normally, Anna would have taken satisfaction from that. She wanted them afraid, the anxiety ratcheting higher as they got inexorably closer to Chicago.

But not like this.

She wanted them to be afraid by her actions, on her terms. This is something else entirely, and she feels a quiver of fear herself when she considers that one of them is most likely responsible for this change of events.

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