“It’s going to go dark like that again?”
Johnson, though, seemed bored with answering all these questions, and was now plucking at the handcuff around his wrist.
Adele could feel the train slowing nearly completely now. If they passed through another one of these makeshift weather-protection tunnels, time would be up. Already, the killer, if he was bold, could try to escape by hopping off the slowly moving train and disappearing into the city.
Now was the time for boldness in return.
With John at her side, she shoved into the first-class compartment, shaking off the sudden shock of the darkened train car.
The whistle of scraping wheels against the track was soon replaced by the quiet mutter of voices in the first-class compartment. People sat in the chairs facing the windows, while others sat in the cushioned seats, sipping from wineglasses or poking at snacks brought to them on the trolley.
“What are we looking for?” John pressed, his voice low.
Adele answered honestly. “I don’t know yet. Just keep your eyes peeled.”
They stood at the front of the first-class car, and Adele could feel the eyes of the passengers fixed on her. She glanced around, surveying the passengers. For a moment, her gaze landed on the old man by the window. The one who had often smiled when she’d come through. He had a strange way about him. His eyes would always track her, when he didn’t think she was watching. She began to move toward him, but then heard a sudden spark of laughter. Her eyes darted toward where Richard and Bella, the two friends of the third victim, were chuckling to each other and muttering beneath their voices as they pointed toward some other woman sitting in the back of the car. For two friends who had lost a loved one, they sure didn’t seem too broken up about it. Adele now took a step toward them.
And just then, she heard a grumble from the back of the compartment. The woman who’d been the subject of Richard and Bella’s derision was arguing with the valet, trying to exchange a pack of opened peanuts, it seemed, for pretzels.
The valet looked flustered, and was shaking his head.
The woman with the peanuts flung them at the valet, and a few of the nuts bounced off his red uniform.
For a moment, the valet’s countenance darkened. Gone was the bumbling, stuttering young man. Gone was the timid, frightful staff member, wanting nothing more than to be left alone. For a moment, Adele glimpsed a snarl twist the valet’s lips. The young man didn’t look so young anymore. Maybe she’d been wrong about twenty. Maybe mid-twenties. He had a boyish face, but there was nothing innocent about the look of sheer loathing twisting his features now as he regarded the woman who’d thrown the peanuts. One hand was trembling as it reached toward the pretzels the woman had demanded. But it wasn’t trembling from fear or embarrassment. His knuckles were pale, with the white fury of sheer rage. Adele stared, rooted to the floor, feeling John brush past her as he moved slowly along the first-class cabin, glancing at the passengers on either side. But Adele only had eyes for the valet.
He’d said he’d heard a noise. He’d said it had been a crash. The old man had corrected him.
At the time, Adele had wondered if perhaps she’d missed a clue. But now, what if he’d been simply trying to throw her off? To confuse the investigation? But why would he want to do that?
She stared at him, watching as he shoved the pretzels into the hand of the peanut-flinging woman.
Then, slowly, as if sensing the attention, the valet’s eyes shifted away from the woman in the back of the first-class car. He looked slowly up, his head rotating, tilting, and his eyes suddenly settled on Adele’s. For a moment, they stared across the cabin. None of the other first-class residents seemed to notice. Not even John seemed to spot the interchange. Adele could feel her breath coming slow. She was staring into the eyes of someone she didn’t recognize. She’d had a conversation with the valet. Had interviewed him. But something else was now staring back at her. Something she didn’t fully recognize. The sheer hatred, the loathing that had flashed across his face for that brief glimpse, wasn’t so brief after all. She could see it now, etched deep, carved into the core of his eyes. Not a light, not a glow, but a stony, frigid fixture. A hatred so bone deep that it cut through anything else that might have been displayed in the windows to the soul.
And she was staring right at it. The valet didn’t look away at first. And then, as if suddenly breaking from a reverie, he seemed to realize who was looking back at him. He glanced down and rearranged some of the peanuts, shifting his head a bit and glancing sheepishly side to side. But the effect of the mirage was failing now. He was trying to play dumb. Trying to play timid. But the church mouse had already revealed itself to be a wolf. She wouldn’t fall for it again.
And so she didn’t look away. She knew.
And as she stared at him and began to pick up her pace, marching across the first-class compartment, he knew too. She could see the recognition dawning in his eyes. Could see the realization of the futility of pretense. He stopped rearranging the glistening packets of peanuts, and instead stared right back at her. One of his hands crept into his pocket, and Adele’s own went to her hip.
“Sharp?” John said, suddenly, as if noting something in her posture.
“It’s him,” Adele said, breathlessly.
And then they entered another tunnel. The train was scraping along in the station. And suddenly, everything went dark. Mr. Johnson, the reserve conductor, had warned there would be another one of these weather tunnels. But now, in the pitch-black, Adele lost sight of the valet. She cursed, feeling the cold of her weapon in her hand as she pulled it out. But there was nothing to aim at. It had been daytime, with sunlight through the windows, which meant no other sources of light were illuminating the inside of the now darkened train.
“Adele?” said the disembodied voice of John in her ear.
“The valet,” she hissed. “It’s the valet.”
And then, she heard movement. The sound of a rolling cart. It seemed to be picking up speed. She could barely pick it out over the squeal of the train against the tracks. She could barely pick it out over the sound of her own haggard breathing. But there it was, a whirring sound, a blurring motion she could barely glimpse, reflected, for the briefest instant, off the glow of someone’s phone in the middle aisle.
“Your reading lights,” Adele shouted, suddenly. “Turn your reading lights on, now!”
The train was moving at a molasses pace, prolonging the time spent in the weather tunnel just outside the station.
For a moment no one responded, and now she could hear the thumping of footsteps, the whirring of the cart as it came forward, careening down the aisle.
And then the old man with the smiling face responded first. He reached up and flicked on a light. Suddenly, the low glow of orange illuminated the faintest portion of the train car. Most of the first class was still bathed in dark, but the shadows were pushed back, and light intercepted the careening snack cart. A large metal box was zipping toward them, pushed by the valet. He had a ferocious glare affixed to his face. His teeth gritted together. One hand was pushing the cart, but the other had something he had pulled from his pocket. Adele glimpsed a flash of a needle. Another reading light turned on, and it illuminated the item in the man’s hand. A syringe. A third reading light turned on, now seemingly tracking the progress of the wheeling valet.