Everyone on This Train Is a Suspect

I hadn’t quite decided on the last mistake until I’d stood up to leave the bar and gone in the complete wrong direction, finding myself in the empty restaurant carriage. That was enough of an omen that I decided my feet knew more than my head and continued into the next batch of accommodation, across the rattling gap where the carriages latched together, and through a door marked Platinum. The first set of cabins was on the opposite side of the train to mine, so the passenger windows would get the sunrise. The second was marked Staff with a small sign, and suffered the inferior western view, like my own. I could hear a loud banging sound, which I assumed came from the tracks or the restaurant’s kitchen, accompanying my steps. I soon came to another set of double doors and crossed the gap into the final carriage of our section. But instead of another hallway, I found myself in front of a closed door with the sign Chairman’s Carriage. It was the end of the line.

I wasn’t surprised that McTavish had the stateliest cabin, as close to the penthouse suite as you could get on a train, I suppose.

But I was surprised that I wasn’t the only one there.

Royce had his back to me. He was leaning into the door with his shoulder and banging a raised fist repeatedly against the wood. He looked like an unfaithful husband begging to be let back inside the family home. The smell of stale breath and beer wafted over me as I stepped between the carriages. The clatter of the tracks was louder at these joining points, where the floor was only gently overlaid and not sealed. A blur of gray stony earth was visible through the gaps, lit up every few seconds by the sparks from the wheels on the tracks.

“Henry!” Royce yelled, not noticing me. Thump-thump-thump. “Henry!”

The thumping was the sound I’d heard through the last car. I put my hand on Royce’s shoulder, and something like an electric shock passed through him. He whipped around and scowled. His eyes were bloodshot. He had a red mark above one eye, where he’d been leaning on the door.

“Pissssss off,” he said, spending S’s like he’d robbed a bank of them.

He lumbered at me, and I took a step back in case he took a swing, but he just stood there, swaying. He looked dejected, pitiful. Was that how I seemed to Simone? Grasping at dignity? This pathetic vision knocked some sense into me. I vowed to be more professional tomorrow.

“I know how you feel, trust me,” I said. “I came here to do the same thing. But let’s not embarrass ourselves tonight. Why don’t we sleep on it, shower, and see how we feel in the morning.”

Royce scowled back at the door like it had insulted him. “They’re in there.”

“They?”

“I heard them talking. A woman’s voice. He owes me, and he’s in there with her.” Royce turned and yelled, “I heard you talking!”

I put a hand gingerly on his shoulder. “You don’t want to do anything you’ll regret in the morning.”

“Come out and talk to me!” He stepped back to the door but I moved in quickly, deftly hooking under his armpit and spinning him around. He blinked widely, unsure of why he was suddenly pointing in the wrong direction, but accepted his new path without complaint.

“Why her?” he drooled in my ear. “Why did he choose her?”

“It’s just a blurb, mate,” I said, talking to myself more than him.

Royce half-walked, and I half-dragged him, through the restaurant and the bar and into our set of cabins. My shoulder was wet by now and I assumed it was saliva, but then I realized he was crying into my neck.

He hiccupped. “It’s just a few words. He doesn’t even have to read the damn thing. Wyatt used to care. He said he’d help me when I needed it, and he never did. But sales . . .” He burped. “It’s not like it used to be.”

“Hey.” I felt a surprising amount of empathy for Royce in this moment. “You told me yourself you got through four rejections for your first book. You’ve gotten over bigger hurdles. Chin up.”

“I begged. This time, please. Don’t ask Henry to blurb it, make him. Wyatt said he’d do what he could. He knew it could change my life.” He arrived at a door. “This one.”

We stopped in front of his room, and he spent a moment patting his coat for a key before remembering the door didn’t have a lock and staggering in. My kindness for Royce stopped short of stripping him down and tucking him in, so I stood in the doorway while he faceplanted onto the bottom bunk.

“Tell me,” he said into his pillow, and it was more a groan than words. “It didn’t happen, did it? All that stuff up on the mountain? You faked it, right? For the publicity.”

“It happened. I don’t wish it on anyone.” Then, because I figured he wouldn’t remember it, “Not even you.”

Royce made a cat-meowing sound, then laughed, hiccupped and belched all at the same time. It was impressive auditorily, but also quite pungent. “So you’re just lucky then, huh? That you somehow fell into those murders.”

“Yeah, mate. Lucky.”

“Of course, there’s another option.”

“Oh yeah?”