Everyone on This Train Is a Suspect

“What about Coober Pedy?” Lisa asked. “That’s supposed to be next on the itinerary.”

“It’s a small town, but it’s at least a thousand people, right?” I added.

“We’re not stopping at Coober Pedy,” Aaron said, “we’re stopping at Manguri, which is the closest point on the train line to Coober Pedy. Manguri is not a full station: it’s a platform in the middle of the desert designed for freight to pass us, which we have no choice except to head to unless we want to be barreled into from behind. There’s forty kilometers of mine shafts between us and the town. Trust me: the best plan is to pull over at Manguri, let the freight pass us, and then we’ll go directly to Adelaide. I’m hoping to get there about twelve hours before our original arrival time.”

Wolfgang was already marching off. “Well, I’m hoping not to die,” he called over his shoulder. “I’ll take my meals in my room, please.”

Aaron put his hands out flat, as if to exaggerate that he had nothing better for us. Cynthia arrived with a chair and sat it down in the corridor. It was clear this was on instruction: she was a guard.

Adrenaline faded and the time started to sink in; it was almost dawn. It felt strange to say good night, so oddly formal but also not quite enough for the situation. Phrases like “sleep well” hummed with the hidden meaning of “stay safe.” “See you tomorrow” became a dark question. But we said our pleasantries anyway, slowly splitting off to our rooms. Lisa was the last one left as I reached my door. Her room was closer to the bar, which means she’d deliberately followed me past her room and down to mine.

“What do you think?” she asked. “Love or money?”

“It can’t just be money. Everyone with the financial motive to kill McTavish doesn’t have the motive to kill Wyatt.” I was thinking of Jasper specifically; my late-night rumination that he might have wanted to remove the competition seemed misguided now. To kill McTavish to secure a book deal had made enough sense to make him a suspect in my mind last night, but it gave him possibly the least motive to kill Wyatt, who he’d just struck a deal with. “How did you know this would happen?”

Lisa furrowed her brow. “I didn’t say that.”

“You said that something would happen and I’d think you were the murderer. Perhaps you expected the body to be found later in the morning. Maybe Jasper blew it by discovering it early. Is that what you meant?”

She looked both ways. The darkened corridor was empty, the shadows of trackside foliage whipping across her face in a flickering roulette wheel. She leaned in, lowered her voice. “Is that really the type of question you want to be asking when we’re all alone?”

“You’ve got to sell it a little more if you want to sound threatening. Put some shoulders into it,” I said. “Besides, you followed me here. I’ve been thinking about what it means to write all this down. You want to make sure you’re in this book, to be a large enough character to have your story written. That’s why you’re going out of your way to cause a scene. I don’t think you’re a killer, but there’s something you want me to say for you.”

Her cheek twitched.

“You can’t defame the dead,” I went on. “If that’s what this is about.” When she remained silent, I probed, “I didn’t know Wyatt published you.”

“Wyatt published my debut. The book about the car thief. It’s not like I’m hiding it. Anyone can look that up. I changed houses for this one. Purely a business decision”—she held a finger up—“before you get ahead of yourself.”

“I wasn’t.”

“I believe that even less than Aaron’s reason keeping us on this death trap.” She leaned in closer still. “Here’s that legal expertise you wanted from me. I’ve worked with law enforcement enough to know how they work. They could easily bus us into Coober Pedy. It’s small but there’s a hotel, a tiny airport. But you introduce more links in the chain—a bus to town, for example—and the weaker it gets. Right now we’re sealed up tight. No one on. No one off.”

It dawned on me. “They wouldn’t.”

“They would. They don’t want this killer to get away, and so they’ve locked us in with them. All the way home.”

Chapter 27

Don’t walk backward in Coober Pedy, so the saying goes.