Chương 4
Sometimes the thing was June.
“Your mother asked me to make sure you were told the truth about important things,” Nora said quietly.
June looked at her.
“You’re doing bad.”
“Yes.”
That almost made June smile.
Almost.
Leah had been listening from near the door.
“Mrs. Mercer,” she said, “why was the grave opened?”
Celeste folded her arms.
“I’m not answering questions from private train security.”
“You don’t have to.”
“Good.”
“But there will be law enforcement at the next staffed stop.”
Celeste’s gaze shifted to Grant.
“Call them off.”
“I can’t.”
“You own the train.”
“I own a minority interest in the company operating the charter.”
“Grant.”
“No.”
She moved toward him.
Her voice dropped.
“This is family.”
He looked at June.
“I think that argument has done enough damage.”
Celeste stepped back as though he had struck her.
June watched both of them.
There were things moving underneath their words. Old things. Heavy things.
“Why did you give it to Oliver?” June asked.
Celeste did not answer.
“Why?”
“He found it.”
Oliver’s voice came from the doorway.
Everyone turned.
Maya stood behind him with one hand near his shoulder but not touching him.
Oliver had changed out of the cake-covered jacket. He now wore only his white shirt, black bow tie hanging loose around his collar, and dark trousers with a damp stain where someone had tried to clean off frosting.
Leah said, “Oliver, I asked you to stay with your father.”
“He’s calling his lawyer.”
Celeste closed her eyes.
Oliver looked at June.
“I found the necklace in her bag.”
Celeste said, “Stop talking.”
He flinched.
Maya spoke quietly.
“Mrs. Mercer, please don’t direct him while he’s giving information.”
Celeste stared at her.
Maya’s fingers tightened around the silver tray she had inexplicably brought with her from the dining car.
For a second June thought she might drop it.
She did not.
Oliver said, “Mom told me not to touch it.”
“Then why did you have it?” June asked.
“Because later she gave it to me.”
Celeste turned away.
Oliver’s voice became smaller.
“She said you weren’t supposed to see it. She said if you asked, I should say it came from an antique shop.”
June looked at Celeste.
“Why?”
Oliver answered instead.
“She said you’d freak out.”
“I did not freak out.”
“You kicked a cake at me.”
“You were holding my dead mom’s necklace over my head.”
Oliver considered that.
“Yeah.”
Theo would have laughed. Oliver did not.
“I didn’t know it was from a grave.”
June believed him.
That annoyed her.
She wanted not to.
“Why were you holding it over my head?”
Oliver stared at the carpet.
“Because you said my jacket looked like a curtain.”
June blinked.
Nora closed her eyes.
Grant made a noise that sounded suspiciously like a cough covering a laugh.
Celeste glared at him.
June said, “It does.”
Oliver looked up.
“It’s velvet.”
“So are curtains.”
Maya looked at the ceiling.
For several seconds, the adults allowed the ridiculousness of children to exist beside everything terrible.
Then Oliver said, “I’m sorry.”
June did not answer.
He nodded as though he had expected that.
Leah escorted him back to the compartment.
When the door closed, June turned the locket over.
“There’s something inside it.”
Celeste moved.
Only half a step.
Nora noticed.
So did June.
“What’s inside?”
“Nothing.”
June pressed the latch.
The locket opened.
Inside was a tiny photograph of Eleanor at maybe twenty-five, standing somewhere sunny with her dark hair across her face. June had seen the picture before.
Nora leaned closer.
“Wait.”
Beneath the photograph, the backing sat unevenly.
June worked a fingernail beneath the edge.
“Don’t,” Celeste said.
June looked up.
Celeste had gone pale.
Grant whispered, “Celeste.”
June peeled the photograph free.
Behind it was a strip of paper folded twice.
Not a key.
Not money.
Just paper.
June unfolded it carefully.
Three lines had been written in Eleanor’s narrow handwriting.
MORROW & FINCH
VAULT 312
ASK NORA
Nobody spoke.
June looked at Nora.
“What is Morrow and Finch?”
Nora had stopped breathing.
Grant said, “Nora?”
“I don’t know.”
Celeste laughed.
It came out too quickly.
“Of course you do.”
“I don’t.”
“You expect us to believe Eleanor put your name inside a locket and you have no idea why?”
Nora ignored her.
She took the paper only after June held it out.
“I’ve never seen this.”
June believed her less easily than she had believed Oliver.
“What’s a vault?”
“A private document repository, maybe. Morrow and Finch sounds like a firm.”
Grant pulled out his phone.
Nora snapped, “Don’t search it.”
He looked at her.
“Why?”
“Because if Celeste went into a grave to get this, I want a clean record of what happens next.”
Celeste said, “Listen to yourself.”
Nora folded the paper along the existing creases and handed it back to June.
“You keep that.”
Grant frowned. “She’s nine.”
“She is also the owner of the object we just found it in.”
Celeste moved toward the table.
“I want my attorney.”
Leah opened the door.
“You can call from your compartment.”
Celeste looked at June one more time.
For the first time since entering the dining car, she did not look angry.
She looked scared.
That scared June more.
The train stopped forty minutes later.
Not at a station.
It stopped somewhere in the mountains where the windows showed only snow, black trees, and the weak orange lights of a maintenance siding.
The sudden absence of rail noise woke something primitive in June.
She had not realized how completely the clacking wheels had filled the night until they were gone.
Now she could hear the train itself: metal contracting, heaters humming, someone coughing in the corridor, the faint tick of sleet against glass.
Daniel explained that drifting snow had blocked a switch ahead. A maintenance crew was clearing it. The train would be delayed at least an hour.
May you like
Nobody complained about the delay.
The videos from the dining car had already begun circulating.
