Forty-Eight

The man who I’d known as Emilio Ramos and Aimee’s dad stood there. He looked more startled to see me than me to see him. He also looked different. It took me a moment to realize it was his hair color. It had been dark before. It was blond now, at least the parts of it sticking out of his ski cap. The brassy color did not complement his olive skin tone.

He snatched Mr. Bunny out of my hand. His mouth opened and then closed, drawing attention to the complete hairlessness of his face. The rest of him looked haggard, but he had made time to shave? I couldn’t read his expression, but I didn’t feel like I was in danger. And then he was gone.

He’d come for Aimee’s bunny. That meant he was with her, and he was probably taking care of her. He knew where she was. I took off after the man, watching his shadow slip down the stairs. I might have caught him if the train hadn’t picked that moment to lurch forward with such force that I was thrown from my feet, cracking my head against the stairwell and creating blue color blitzes in front of my eyes. What was going on? I stayed still for a moment, tasting my pain, before I pulled myself to my feet. I limped gingerly down the stairs, holding my head with my hands, wondering if I was imagining the cheering and the fact that it felt like the train was actually moving.

Another lurch confirmed it: the train was in motion. Fortunately I grabbed a railing this time and didn’t fall. By the time I reached the lower landing, there was no sign of the man with Aimee’s bunny. I stuck my head inside the nearest cabin.

“Did you see a man just come down here?”

The pair of men inside smiled back at me. “Ja.”

“Do you speak English?”

“Nein,” they said apologetically.

I went to the next cabin and got the same answer, though in English. Everyone was too busy chattering about the train moving to have noticed anything else. The air held the feeling of a giant festival, a mix of celebration and anticipation. I could go forward, or I could go backward, or I could stay in place and search the car I was presently in. Each option had pros and cons.

The train gave another careening pitch. We all grabbed something solid near us. The train was either being pushed or pulled, and it wasn’t smooth sailing. Given what I knew about driving a car out of a snowbank, I figured that once we got free of the snow that had been hardpacked around the track, we’d cruise smoothly. Until then, we were in for a bumpy ride.

And I needed to find Aimee before we reached our next stop. Reed and whoever he was working with would be desperately trying to locate her before she disappeared for good, or worse, went to the police with what she knew. I wondered why she hadn’t talked to them back at Glendive. But of course she was so young and as she said, she hadn’t known whom to trust. Well, I needed to figure out who was on my team, and quick, because I couldn’t search this whole train alone. Mrs. Berns, Jed, Chad, and Terry could all be trusted. With five of us looking, it would go faster.

Mrs. Berns still wasn’t back, Chad’s cabin was empty, and Jed and his girlfriend weren’t in their seats. That meant I didn’t find the first of my posse until the viewing car. Terry, a little red seeping through the bandage on his neck, was nursing a gin and tonic as people were partying around him, jumping on furniture, beating their chests like Tarzan, and generally acting in a way that I hoped embarrassed them tomorrow.

“Terry! Have you seen Mrs. Berns or Jed?”

He shook his head and quietly sipped his drink. A bra flew through the air like a slingshot, followed by a matching set of panties.

“I need your help. Okay? I think that girl, Aimee, is still on the train. I think she’s in danger, and I think whoever wants her is the person who attacked you. Terry? Are you listening? I think I know where the girl is.”

And I really thought I did. I had pieced together all my sightings of her, and they all happened in the back half of the train. She, and the man she was with, also managed to disappear like smoke when they were on the lower level. The lower level train cars all housed cupboards lining their walls, similar to the ones in the storage car, and I had a hunch they all led back to that car, meeting up with those master cupboards to form a train-length ventilation system.

But Terry was not interested. He was the picture of calmness, a bulky ship standing firm in the storm. “Good luck with that.”

“Please! Just come look with me. If she’s there, great. If she’s not, what have you wasted?”

“My time, if I’m lucky. More likely, my skin.” He pointed at the patch of red staining his bandage and growing like a flower. “You see this? It was fine until the train started swaying like a drunk. That’s my throat. Someone tried to slice my throat.”

“Yeah, I get it. And that someone is still on this train. Do you want them to get Aimee?”

He shrugged.

It was all I could do not to yank at his hair. How could he not care? That more than anything told me he wasn’t a DEA agent. He really was just a punk private investigator, maybe a cop in the previous life, for sure a pot-thieving scaredy pants now. So I’d meet him at his level.

“Think of all the publicity we’d get if we cracked this case.”

He sat up a little straighter. A woman wove through the car with a crying baby, the smell of old diaper wafting behind them.

“That’d drive up some good business,” I continued. “Besides, I know for a fact there’s weed hidden in that back car.”

He looked at me dead on now. “How do you know that?”

“You’ll have to come and see. Come on. Please?”

My pleading was drowned out by an uproarious cheer as our train stopped the careening and began chug-chugging forward like it’d never stopped. Beads of sweat broke out on my face. It was now or never. I pulled Terry’s hand, ignoring his protests.

I led him through the crowd. After we made it through two cars, he stopped protesting, and I stepped back so he could lead the way. We were in Roomette Car 10 when the announcement came on, James Christmas sounding perkier than he had the entire ride.

“As you are likely aware, the snowcutter successfully reached us. They have cleared the entire track from our location to Coeur d’Alene. We should reach that stop in approximately forty-five minutes.” The cheers were truly deafening this time. All around us,
people hugged and high-fived. Terry burrowed forward, head down, shielding his neck.

Chad was nowhere to be seen. Same with Mrs. Berns and Ms. Wrenshall. We passed Doghn’s cabin. His door was closed. I wasn’t certain whose team he was on, so I didn’t slow, even though Terry stopped to toss me a questioning glance.

We were in the second-to-last car, the storage car where I was certain Aimee and the man were hiding, when Terry next spoke.

“You don’t think Doghn can help us?”

I appreciated him waiting until we were past Doghn’s car to ask. “I’m not sure about him. Same with Reed, that first porter you interviewed. There’s something off about both of them.”

Terry chuckled. “You’re certainly suspicious enough to be a PI. I don’t know about Reed, but I can tell you Doghn is not a bad guy. A little puffy, for sure, but he’s decent.”

Terry might think differently if I told him about the wrist twisting and Doghn’s false info about Sofia. But really, what did I care what Terry thought of Doghn? I needed Terry’s help finding Aimee, and then I’d never have to see either of these other PIs again.

“I think they’re in one of these,” I said, pitching my voice low. I pointed at the cupboards lining the walls, behind the racks of luggage. If Aimee and the guy she was with knew I was close, they’d run and hide again.

Terry wordlessly tucked in closer, understanding my need for caution. We opened the first cupboard together. I was validated to find that it was three feet deep and as high as the train car. Definitely enough room for people to hide in, though this one was full to the top with luggage. I stood on tippy-toes so I was taller than the luggage, stuck my head into the cupboard, and peered to the right. A glimmer of light leaked through, suggesting that a person could in fact travel from one length of the car to the other, unseen, inside these cupboards.

We moved to the next, pushing aside luggage to access it. This one was less full than the previous, but there were still no signs of anyone hiding.

“You know,” Terry said, “it’s amazing what someone will do to get away from the mob.”

I nodded. It was true. Why hadn’t Aimee and her mom just gone into the witness relocation program? I suppose if you trust no one, you trust no one. My hand was reaching toward the third cupboard when a thought niggled at me.

Trust no one.

It made sense if the mob was chasing you. So why were the words suddenly resonating, even as I slid the panel open, revealing the contents of the cupboard? This one also contained luggage, but it was pushed to the side.

A woman and a child were huddling in the middle.