Murder on the Disoriented Express (4 page)

“Well, he wouldn’t be the first mobster to lie to us,” says Ciere.

Pruitt doesn’t flinch or look away. “You can hold on to the briefcase until we reach our room. Then I’ll take it, we’ll leave a few thousand with you, while I plant the rest in Rover’s room.” He spreads his hands. “That good enough for you two?”

Alan speaks up for the first time. He’s seen that furious look on Ciere’s face before and it never bodes well. “That’s fine,” he says. Because what choice do they have?

Ciere adjusts her position, so that even when the three of them walk ahead, Pruitt remains fully in her sight, unable to get behind her.

Alan’s eidetic memory conjures an image of Ciere just hours earlier, allowing Guntram to trail her into the train station, smiling all the while.

“Good job acting casual,” murmurs Alan.

“Do we want to act casual?” Ciere says, tone sharp. “I mean, are we going to let Guntram get away with lying to us? Are we…” She glances at Pruitt and freezes.

Alan collides with her, his shoulder knocking her hard, and all the breath seems to leave her. But it’s not the impact that stuns her. It’s the sight before her.

Pruitt is halfway through the car. He has paused mid-step, his gaze locked on the woman in front of him.

The Alberani agent, Rover, is walking through the sliding doors.

For a moment, Alan thinks it will be all right. Guntram has done a good job of keeping their identities and faces a secret. Rover doesn’t know who they are—who any of them are—

But Rover’s mouth drops open. She stares at Pruitt, gapes like she’s seen someone long dead. Her throat convulses in a swallow and her mouth snaps shut. She gathers herself, fingers twitching as if longing to reach for a weapon.

“The Alkanovs have no business here,” she says in a low, controlled voice.

Alan can’t see Pruitt’s face, but the man’s shoulders are rigid and he shifts to the balls of his feet. “I’m not with the Alkanovs. I’ve got a new boss now,” says Pruitt, and he does something Alan has never heard before.

He laughs.

And charges her.

Rover takes a step back. Not to retreat, like Alan thinks at first; her fist comes up. And she slams that fist through the small glass panel holding the panic button.

Alan only has time to hear Ciere whisper, “Oh, hell,” before the alarms begin shrieking.

The effect is nearly instantaneous.

The two doors begin to slide closed, cutting the car off from its neighbors. In a moment there will be no place to run or hide.

And they would be trapped, if Ciere weren’t already moving.

Alan wonders if it’s instinct or muscle memory—if the need to run is deeply embedded in her bones. She darts around him before he’s realized what’s happening. Her grip is crushingly tight on his wrist and she all but yanks him toward the doors.

He follows, finding his step a moment after she does. The doors are already halfway shut, air hissing as their locks slide into place. There will be no getting them open again once they close.

Ciere flies through, her slim figure slipping easily between door and frame. Alan surges forward, and there’s just enough time to wonder how much pressure is behind those doors before they close on the heel of his jeans. He stumbles and falls to his knees, his wrist slipping out of Ciere’s grasp.

She turns immediately, seeing his plight. He opens his mouth to tell her to run, but she kneels beside him. She yanks at his jeans and the fabric tears, letting Alan stagger forward. Now that the doors are closed, the ringing of alarms is quieted. Of course they wouldn’t want the alarms to panic the other passengers.

Ciere drags him against a wall and he falls against it. She drops the briefcase at his feet, pressing it to the wall. Hastily, she runs her hands through her hair, bites down on her lower lip, and without any warning at all, puts her arms around Alan’s neck.

“Don’t push me away,” she warns.

Alan doesn’t. His heart beats so hard, it feels like it might catch fire. He forces his mind to think, to move beyond this moment and its heady sense of falling. His neck feels too warm beneath her fingers and he can feel her breath somewhere near his collarbone.

He should pull away, but he doesn’t. He doesn’t want to admit to himself why he feels comfortable with her or why he hasn’t run. He will, eventually. He’ll have to leave her behind, for the good of his family and their legacy. But for now, he doesn’t pull away. He allows himself this sensation, the closeness.

Alan thinks he deserves a moment of selfishness.

“Pruitt’s trapped in there,” he feels obligated to say. Because he might be selfish, but he isn’t utterly heartless.

Ciere shrugs. They’re so close, he feels it more than sees it. He meets her eyes, and sees they’re shining. “What?” he says.

“Oh, come on,” she says, “tell me you don’t love a good adrenaline high once in a while.”

“I have managed to survive just fine without them,” he manages to say, and that’s when security rushes inside.

Ciere and Alan spring apart. Alan sees the scene like the security officers must—two teenagers, alone in a small corridor. Presumably, the only place they could find privacy. It’s not a bad little ruse, and he’s impressed with Ciere for thinking of it so quickly. “What?” says Ciere, and her voice sounds small and frightened.

“Don’t move,” says one woman.

Ciere stammers out a jumbled reply, but none of the officers wait to hear it. They slide a card through the door’s scanner and it opens just far enough to let them through.

“He’ll be caught,” says Alan, under his breath.

“Somehow I think Guntram will get him out.” Ciere slides a hand around his waist. “Come on, look like we just evaded my parents or something.”

“Or something,” Alan agrees, pressing his leg against the briefcase. “And as for why we have a broken briefcase…?”

Ciere looks hurriedly down, and her fingers twitch. The briefcase vanishes.

A door to one of the rooms opens on their left. Inside is an older woman, with snowy hair and a tentative expression. “What’s going on?” she says, her gaze alighting on Alan and Ciere.

“We don’t know,” says Ciere. “It’s—it’s some kind of disturbance. We heard alarms.”

Another door opens. And another and another.

Voices pick up; it seems as if the entire car has come alive with chatter. “We should get out of here,” murmurs Ciere. “We were pretty far back from Pruitt—Rover probably doesn’t think we were with him, but still…”

The doors
whoosh
open. It’s so sudden that Alan starts. He peers through the doors, expecting to see Pruitt being led away. Several of the other gawkers surge forward, trying to see the commotion.

But there’s nothing. Just the narrow-faced woman and a rush of wind through the car. At once, Alan smells fresh grass and the train fumes.

“A bird,” Rover is saying. “Flew into the window. It—it shattered. I panicked—I hit the button. I’m sorry.”

Alan wonders if or when they’ll see that there’s little glass on the floor. That whatever impacted the window came from inside.

“Why is she protecting him?” he whispers into Ciere’s ear. Her short hair brushes his cheek.

Her gaze is fixed on the security guards, the way a rodent might watch a predator. “She can’t report a crime,” she murmurs. “She’d have to record fingerprints and turn her over her ID tags. It’d bring too much attention to her. She already has a record. And…” Her mouth goes tight. “If I know mobsters, she’ll want to deal with Pruitt herself—not let some security guard do it.”

“Come on,” says Alan, and pushes through the crowd. There’s no reason to stick around. “Let’s get back to our room.” He reaches down, finds the invisible briefcase by touch, and shoves it under one arm.

Ciere follows, and they navigate their way through the gawkers, and past a family complaining about how they can’t get to their room.

Once they’re safely away from the crowd, Alan lets himself look back.

“He jumped,” says Ciere faintly. “Pruitt broke the window and jumped.” She shakes her head in disbelief. “That’s…that’s…”

“Entirely doable if you’re practiced and you catch the train at the right moment,” Alan says.

She gives him a look.

“It’s a long story,” he says. “Let’s just say I know it’s possible. And I’m guessing Pruitt decided it was better to have a broken leg than be caught by security. And Rover will lie, because she doesn’t want them looking too closely at her connections. Which reminds me—she mentioned a name. The Alkanovs.”

Ciere dodges around a family before she says, “Small-time crime family in the Midwest. One of the first families that the Syndicate broke, actually. Pruitt must have worked for them before the Syndicate.” She snorts derisively. “After all, one criminal faction is the same as the next.”

Alan uses his key to get into thirty-two. Thanks to this job, they haven’t spent much time here and their tiny room looks unlived in. There’s none of the usual detritus that seems to follow humankind around—no empty water bottles, candy wrappers or even a coat tossed on the back of a chair. If it wasn’t for the three backpacks tucked beneath the table, Alan thought the room might have looked unoccupied. “We should probably grab Pruitt’s bag when we arrive in Florida, shouldn’t we?” Ciere remarks grudgingly. “Pass it along when we see him next time.”

Alan hesitates. He isn’t sure what to do. Pruitt isn’t on the train anymore; the safest thing to do would be to remain unseen and alone in this room until their arrival. All at once, his energy begins to ebb away. He feels adrift with exhaustion, ready to collapse for at least a couple of hours.

“You want to play cards or something?” asks Ciere, tossing the briefcase into their small closet.

“Actually, I was thinking of taking a nap.” Alan glances up, at the bed folded above the window.

Ciere laughs. “You old man. It’s just like working with Kit again.” She stands on the table, reaching up to yank the bed open. As she snaps it into place, something falls. A metal object clatters across the table and skids to the floor.

Alan stares at it.

“What was that?” says Ciere, peering downward. She jumps down to get a better look.

She makes a strangled sound when she finally sees what fell from the bed.

A bloody knife. The same knife they last saw in Pruitt’s hands.

Alan gapes at it. Because that knife, that knife with Shaw’s blood, should not be here. It’s supposed to be in Rover’s room.

“Pruitt didn’t have time to plant it,” says Ciere. She reaches to take it, and he’s ready to cry out, to tell her not to, but then he sees her hands. She’s still wearing those flesh-colored gloves. She gingerly picks up the weapon by the hilt.

“We can’t leave that here,” replies Alan. “When they find Shaw, there is going to be a massive search.”

Ciere catches on. “If anyone finds this here, it looks like we did it.” Her whole body goes rigid. “Maybe a trash can. Maybe in a public car—”

“Or maybe,” says Alan, the words coming to him slowly, “we finish the job Pruitt started.”

It’s rare to see Ciere caught off guard. “You—you want to?” She gestures at the knife.

How can he explain himself? There’s no way to utter the words without sounding incredibly callous. “Shaw is already dead,” he says. “We can’t change that. We can only change what that means for us.”

Alan braces himself for her disgust. But rather than appalled, Ciere’s expression turns sour. “You’re making sense. I hate that you’re making sense.”

“Also,” says Alan, “you’re forgetting Guntram. He’ll expect results. Do we really want to go back to the Syndicate and tell them that not only did our job fail, but the Alberani agent is walking free and could possibly identify Pruitt to her bosses?”

Ciere slowly sinks into one of the chairs. She leans her elbows against the table, as if it’s all that keeps her upright. “Have I mentioned lately how much I hate being teammates with murderers? I thought when I was going to work for Guntram, I’d be stealing stuff or helping run cons. Not…this.” She presses a hand to her forehead, and suddenly she looks older than seventeen. “I hate that this is what we’ve been turned into.”

Alan bites down on his reply: that being here, with these people isn’t what made him like this. He’s always been like this.

Ciere gingerly sets the knife on the table. “How the hell are we supposed to get this into Rover’s room? We don’t know what room she’s in, if she’s even in there—”

Alan understands her fear. They’re alone on this train. With a briefcase full of cash, a murder weapon, a dead body, and one very pissed-off mobster.

“I have an idea,” says Alan slowly.

She waits.

“You’re not going to like it,” he adds.

A corpse isn’t like an unconscious person. There’s blood and…other things. Alan tries—and fails—not to think about it. When Ciere unlocks Shaw’s room, the unmistakable scent of death wafts into the hall.

Alan pulls the door shut quickly behind him.

For a moment, they just stare at Shaw. He hasn’t moved. Of course, he wouldn’t.

“I am
not
touching that,” says Ciere.

Alan has no issue with touching a dead body. It’s dead, after all. It’s not like they’re bothering the guy. But there’s one caveat.

Alan holds up one of his bare hands.  “You’re the one wearing gloves,” he says. “And we can’t leave prints.”

Ciere frowns down at her hands. “How about you wear them?”

Alan takes gentle hold of Ciere’s wrist. He places his palm against hers, pressing lightly. Her fingers are small and thin, perfect for picking a lock or reaching into someone’s pocket. Ciere stares at the tips of his fingers—which end about an inch after hers. “Maybe they’ll still stretch,” she says doubtfully, and peels off one glove.

Whatever elastic properties the gloves had, they’re gone now. Alan tries pulling on the glove, but it won’t go past his knuckles. “Stupid body-heat-activated latex,” mutters Ciere. “Next time, I’m buying leather.”

Alan shoots Ciere an apologetic look, but before he can say anything, she kneels beside Shaw. Using her one covered hand, she tugs a pocket open and rummages inside.

“I hate the Syndicate,” she says faintly. “I hate them so much.”