Page 83 of With a Vengeance

Reggie strokes his chin, deep in thought. “Satisfying. Knowing you’re helping the greater good. You ever think of doing something like that?”

“Every day for the past year.”

“I meant after this. What do you plan on doing once this is all over?”

Anna had asked Seamus the very same thing a little over an hour ago. Her answer now is the same as his then. “No clue.”

“Well, in my humble opinion, I think you’d make one hell of an FBI agent.”

“Are there women agents?”

“Not yet,” Reggie slyly replies.

“I do enjoy a challenge.” Anna kneels and reaches for the mop. “Permission to throw these guys back in the slammer?”

“Permission granted,” Reggie says, allowing the faintest of smiles. “I’ll start searching the galley.”

He disappears into the next car while Anna continues gathering the cleaning supplies. She stuffs them all back into the closet and closes the door. On her way to the door at the back of the car, Anna looks to the windows. Outside, the blizzard still rages all around them. A full whiteout. She stands still a moment, trying to gauge if the Phoenix has slowed at all in the storm. Anna’s train legs tell her no. It’s still going full speed.

With a relieved sigh, she moves to join Reggie in the galley. It’s dim inside, the only light coming from above the stovetop. In that wan glow, Anna spots something lying in a heap in the middle of the floor. As her eyes adjust to the gloom, she realizes what it is.

Not something.

Someone.

Anna moves closer to see Reggie on the floor, surrounded by a widening circle of blood. She drops to his side as he stares up at her through pupils dilated by pain.

He’s still alive, thank God.

For now.

The amount of blood on the floor isn’t a good sign. Neither is the knife sitting a few feet away, blood dripping from the blade.

“The bastard stabbed me,” Reggie says, sucking in air through his teeth.

Anna doesn’t ask him who. She fears that if she speaks, Reggiewill be able to tell how scared she is right now. How utterly terrified.

Because her worst fear has come to fruition.

Judd Dodge has struck again.

And this time he’s no longer targeting the guilty.

Thirty-Seven

Anna looks aroundthe galley, knowing there must be a first-aid kit somewhere. She spots one on the wall and lunges for it. The kit cracks open in her hands and its contents rain onto the floor. She falls to her knees, sorting through tubes of burn ointment, a bottle of mercurochrome, and small tins of rattling pills until she finds what she needs. Gauze pads. Adhesive tape. Scissors to cut them.

Before Anna can use them, she needs to check the wound. She lifts Reggie’s shirt, noting but not dwelling on the two-inch slice in the fabric. It’s the similarly sized gash in the bottom left side of his stomach that commands her attention. While not particularly wide, it looks alarmingly deep. Blood continues to gush through the puckered flesh.

She unwraps a gauze pad and presses it over the wound. Blood instantly soaks through it, bubbling out the other side. Anna covers it with more gauze and tapes everything into place.

A temporary fix.

Reggie clearly needs stitches. If Anna can’t find some way to close his wound, it’s likely he’ll bleed out in the next hour or two.

She stands and starts searching every drawer, tossing asidetheir contents, frantically looking for needle and thread. There’s nothing. With time of the essence, Anna decides it’s more likely to find what she needs in a different part of the train. But she can’t leave Reggie by himself. Not when Judd is possibly still nearby.

“Can you stand?” she says.

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