Chapter Text
The train is alive and breathing, its dark smoke billowing up into the blue sky like an enormous moving chimney, painting the horizon with plumes of black clouds.
Next to me, Lori stirs impatiently. “We’re headed straight there,” she says, pointing at the map in front of her with one of her manicured fingers. “I hope you’re right about this, Francine.”
“All the clues point us there,” I offer, feigning confidence. This is the most unsure I’ve felt on a case in a long while, though telling that to Lori would go over just as well as correcting her—for likely the tenth time—about my name. Meaning she’d only hear what she wants to hear, throw out everything else, and then complain about it for the next several days.
She’s been restless ever since we left Copper Gorge, now sitting atop her perch in the caboose, twirling a tendril of short, cropped blonde hair around her index finger. Even though she looks relatively poised, she studies me with an arched brow, lips thinned.
Noticing her skepticism, I add, “It’s our best shot.”
She gives me a curt nod to signal that it’s time to see myself out. As I make my way to the door opposite from Lori, it dawns on me that it’s been hours since my last meal, and even longer since I’ve eaten something that hasn’t been quickly microwaved or coated in grease.
Sliding the door open, I feel offput by the darkness outside. When we pulled away from the station at Copper Gorge, the sun was hanging like a framed portrait in the sky, surrounded by puffs of clouds. Now, it sinks low behind the mountains as if caught in quicksand, taking all the light with it.
The noise of the engine drowns out my thoughts as I stare out into the impossible expanse of desert. It is truly a dry wasteland out here, the cracked ground only bearing the occasional cactus or overturned stone. And despite the setting sun, it’s still warm enough that the wind doesn’t burn my cheeks as the train blazes down the tracks in the direction of Jake’s mind—or, rather, where I think Jake’s mine is.
Passing between cars seems like second nature to me now, and my mind is elsewhere as I jump between Jake’s car and the caboose, daydreaming about the confines of my room in the sleeping car. I’d like nothing more than to sleep and wait until our arrival, but as if on cue, my stomach grumbles, sending me down the long, wallpapered hallway and into the dining car to assess the food situation. We restocked what we could in Copper Gorge, but they didn’t have much for a grocery store, so I try not to get my hopes up.
Hopefully Joe hasn’t eaten the last cup of microwaved mac and cheese.
There is a blast of cold wind overhead from the air conditioner unit as I enter the dining car, the only sound coming from Charleena’s incessant typing from her post at the bar. Normally soothing, the noise does nothing but intensify the budding headache taking root behind my temples. As I make my way toward the cabinets, pawing around for something to eat, Charleena doesn’t even budge an inch, too transfixed on her manuscript in front of her.
Several minutes tick by without any luck, and I eventually admit defeat, plagued with the feeling of nausea from the motion of the train and the pulsing in my head.
Back in the main room, I sink down into a stiff, green armchair in the corner, using my index finger and my thumb to massage my temples.
“Looks like someone needs a nap.”
My eyes open to slits, sensitive to the truly hideous light that hangs over the dining room table, casting the entire room in a mustard yellow color.
Joe Hardy is staring at me intently, eyebrows raised. His mouth twitches in the corners in a weak attempt at his signature smirk.
“Are you okay?” he asks.
“I’m fine,” I say, but I sound even less convincing than I had while talking to Lori earlier about the location of Jake’s mine. “I’m just tired,” I amend, waving the air dismissively. “Nothing to worry about.”
“I’m not worried,” Joe says, blinking twice. “I just think you need a nap.”
“No time,” I say, letting my head fall back to rest against the back of the chair. My drooping eyes betray me. “We’re going to be there in a few hours.”
Joe sets down whatever paper he’d been studying. “That’s the perfect timeframe for a nap,” he pushes, wiggling his eyebrows. He lets a brief chuckle escape before he continues, “Besides, we don’t want you to be a Negative Nancy when we get there, do we?”
I can’t help but smile, but it’s quickly erased from my face when another voice—this one sharper, deeper—cuts into the room.
“And how long, exactly, have you been waiting for an opportunity to say that?”
My eyes open wider as Frank makes his way through the doorway and into the room proper, settling himself back into the chair next to Joe without so much as sparing a glance in my general direction.
Joe, keen on ignoring his older brother’s sarcasm, grins wider. “I knew that joke would come in handy the day I met Nancy. And today it has totally paid off.”
Frank huffs, rolling his eyes. “Has it, though?”
Joe shoots Frank a loaded glance, but Frank is too enmeshed in the stack of documents in front of him to notice.
“I thought it was funny,” I say.
Joe winks at me, muttering something that sounds like like asshole under his breath as he returns to his unorganized, chaotic mess of papers in front of him, the exact negative of Frank’s pristine, neat workspace.
I settle back into the chair, feeling a chill run down my spine that I try my hardest to blame on the shoddy air conditioning and not on the person sitting a few feet away from me.
Frank hadn’t even flinched at the sound of my voice; he didn’t even seem to notice that I was in the room at all. And even though I’m not surprised, the knowledge does nothing but plunge the knife deeper into the gaping wound in my chest.
It must be nice to be able to pretend I don’t exist, like I’m just a figment of his imagination instead of a living, breathing, walking nightmare. If we were still on speaking terms—speaking about anything else than the current case, as it were—I’d ask Frank how he managed to do it so maybe I could start doing the same.
But I lost the right to ask Frank Hardy much of anything a long time ago.
I squeeze my eyes shut to block out the fragments of old memories from whirring around my head and try my best to doze off to sleep, but it proves to be impossible. No matter how hard I try, I can’t stop noticing him. Even with my eyes closed, my senses are working on overdrive, straining to hear the gentle sound of his breathing, hoping to get a whiff of his cologne, yearning to be close to his warm body. It’s as if I’m being pulled to him by a gravitational force of his own making.
I stand up abruptly, squinting as my eyes readjust to the fluorescent lighting. Joe peeks up from an old document—what looks to be a dated census—and watches me leave.
“I’ll be in my room,” I say to no one in particular, my body already on autopilot and aiming for the door. “Let me know if you need anything.”
Standing up from my chair and crossing the room takes less than thirty seconds, but it feels like much longer. Joe, obviously uncomfortable with the looming silence, says over his shoulder, “Sounds good, Nan.”
My hands, slick and clammy from sweat, shake as I try to pry open the neighboring door to the sleeping car. My head pounds with silent fury, my thoughts centrally fixated on the one person I’m not supposed to be thinking about anymore.
I push the thoughts of Frank down, down, down.
I push the memories, the feelings, the anxiety down, down, down.
I push it all down into a locked chest at the bottom of my heart, the place I avoid with good reason.
But there’s a part of me—a tiny, shredded part of me—that calls into the void, the abyss, its voice so small and fractured I can hardly hear it. And it says what it always says, to drudge up the locked chest and explore the contents.
And I do what I always do: smother the tiny, vulnerable voice with a fire blanket and beg it to be quiet for another day.
* * *
Fifteen minutes later, the train comes to a surprising halt.
Bundled underneath the sheets of my twin bed, I’m lurched from my sleeping position and thrown into the harsh edges of the cabinet unit bolted to the wall. My elbow sings with pain as it makes contact with one of the metal hinges, but I’m too disoriented to check my body for cuts and bruises. I only know there’s damage because I can feel a sliver of warm liquid slide down my forearm a minute later.
Outside, Tino’s booming voice and the sound of multiple pairs of footsteps shakes the rest of the grogginess from my body.
“Everyone back up,” Tino is ordering, his bravado as thick as cement. “Let the real detective do his work.”
I’m too tired to roll my eyes. Leaning forward, I turn the handle of my door and push it open into the hallway, peering through the threshold at the scene in front of me.
A hand catches my door before it can slam into the wall to the left. Then there’s a face that catches my peripheral vision, and as I look up, my mouth goes dry.
Frank’s dark eyes meet mine and he scowls, the lines on his cheeks bracketing pursed lips. “Watch it,” he says in a voice that’s not his—not the one I remember, at least.
“Sorry,” I say, my throat working. “What’s going on?”
He takes in my appearance—the imprint on my cheek from sleeping on my side, the nest of knots in my hair, the blood running down my arm—and releases his grip on my door, coming around the side until his full frame is in view. He nods in the direction of the emergency brake at the end of the hall. “Someone pulled the brake.”
“Again?”
A muscle ticks in his jaw. “Again.”
Before either of us can say anything else, the argument that has been festering at the other end of the sleeping car erupts fully, the sound of Joe and Tino’s voices raising to an unbearable volume.
My ears are straining to hear as I get back up on my feet, stepping out into the hallway to join the others. I’m so used to Frank moving in the opposite direction whenever I’m nearby that our sudden closeness almost startles me. But he’s too focused on Joe to move away from me, watching the tension unfold like a dinner napkin in front of us.
I don’t know whether to be terrified or grateful, but there’s no time for me to consider it further.
Tino points a finger in Joe’s direction, practically snarling. “Interfering with a criminal investigation is a federal offense,” he threatens, standing between Joe and the emergency brake. Behind him, John Grey works to procure fingerprints with some ink and a long piece of tape. It’s old-school, but it works.
Joe bares his teeth. The sight of him so angry is jarring. “Second-class misdemeanor,” he throws back to Tino, who has his arms folded tight across his broad chest.
Tino laughs darkly, a predator ensnaring his prey in a trap. “A felony, actually, under the right circumstances,” he says with a smile, though there’s nothing friendly about it. “Don’t tempt me, kid.”
Joe, to his credit, doesn’t balk. “Don’t call me a kid, old man.”
“You think I’m scared of you?” Tino asks, standing between the three of us and the emergency brake. I hardly notice as Lori slips into the hallway, standing to John’s left to get a better few of the arguing.
“I didn’t even know you could think,” Joe practically spits, taking a calculated step toward Tino. They are both around the same height, though Tino’s dark attire and slicked-back hair makes him look far more intimidating than Joe’s blonde curls.
“You watch your fucking mouth, smartass,” Tino growls, “or else.”
“Or else what?” Joe asks, sounding incredulous. “You’ll try to drown me in bottles of hair gel?”
Beside me, Frank finally makes his move, the muscles of his body shifting underneath his shirt with each advance. My throat tightens at the sight of him and the scent he leaves in his wake. Sandalwood and cinnamon.
Tino makes a noise in the back of his throat, but before he can lob another insult in Joe’s direction, Frank intersects the two of them, using his body as a natural barrier before things turn physical.
I approach cautiously from behind, putting my hand on Joe’s shoulder to break the tension. He sighs, the boyish features of his face softening as he lets me pass so I can talk to John.
“Any luck with the prints?” I ask, grateful for the change in conversation. Behind me, Tino hasn’t moved an inch, still glaring at Joe.
John shakes his head. “No, nothing new,” he says, returning the tape back to his satchel. “Just a partial. Looks like it matches the last one we found.”
He doesn’t say it, but the implication is clear. The only print we found on the emergency brake was Tino’s shortly before he confessed to pulling it.
The man in question, still stewing, loosens his arms and shoves his hands into the pockets of dark jeans. “I didn’t do it this time,” he says to no one in particular, shifting to lean against the adjacent wall. “Honest.”
“Surprised you even know what the hell ‘honest’ even means,” Joe sneers. It looks like he’s going to keep talking, but all Frank has to do is turn his body less than forty-five degrees in his little brother’s direction and Joe clamps his mouth shut.
I get it. I’ve been on the receiving end of many glares from Frank over the years and they are as breathtaking as they are terrifying. He’s always had the unnatural ability to convey so much emotion, so much direction, through his eyes alone, not needing the extra emphasis from spoken word to make his point known.
My vision is suddenly hazy with the memory of the last time I got a glare like that—the last time Frank Hardy looked at me with eyes so full of disappointment they could’ve filled an entire swimming pool.
I blink rapidly, banishing the image from my mind.
Mercifully, it’s Lori who breaks the silence. “Tino was with me,” she says in her usual singsong voice, its playful lilt feeling out-of-place where so much animosity was just spread. “He’s telling the truth.”
Frank nods once at Lori, acknowledging Tino’s alibi, right as John stands erect and begins to shuffle towards Camille’s car.
“I need my equipment,” he says over his shoulder, not bothering to give us any additional context.
It’s only then I realize Charleena is lurking in the hallway, her feet pointed toward the dining car despite her lingering eyes on the newfound crime scene. “Ridiculous,” she mutters, turning fully and heading back to her computer. “I have a deadline to meet.”
John reenters the sleeping car, holding a square device no bigger than a GPS and a gigantic microphone. Feeling all eyes on him, he says, “I need to know if Camille’s energy is here. If she’s… if she’s the one who caused this.”
Despite the irritated exhale from Tino, everyone else moves back a step to let John complete his work. Using the handheld device, he begins to sweep the room in large, slow circles, starting in one corner and moving out from the radius until he’s by the emergency brake. Every so often, he twists his wrist to check the reading on the device, his brows deeply furrowed.
When he’s finished, he takes off his headphones and faces everyone fully. “She’s here,” he says simply, leaving little room for argument. “We should go.”
“Go?” Tino asks, his face full of skepticism. John’s microphone must have picked up the interference caused by Tino’s voice because he winces as Tino continues. “This is a crime scene, not a séance. I need everyone to clear the hell out of here. Now.”
Joe laughs, the sound hollow and angry rather than lighthearted. “Are you going to separate all of us and then do formal interrogations?” he asks, not bothering to wait for an answer. “I’ll start, actually. What were you and Lori doing before the brake was pulled?”
Tino glares at Joe, the annoyance evident on his tired face. “Oh, I’m sure you’ll learn about it when you’re older,” he quips, breaking his gaze to admire where Frank is still standing between them. “Unless big brother decides to give you a lesson on the birds and the bees.”
“Tino, stop,” Lori whines, her hands bunching up into fists. She addresses Joe directly. “It’s none of your business. Let the detective do his job and don’t bother him again.”
Joe’s mouth hangs open. Ever the extrovert, it’s almost comical to see him rendered speechless.
Thankfully, Frank intervenes on his behalf. “Of course,” he says to Lori.
Is that… empathy in his voice?
“The scene is yours, Detective Balducci,” Frank says to Tino, who looks unbearably smug. “Let us know if we can help in any way.”
Then, as if Joe weren’t surprised already, Frank practically peels him away from the rest of us without allowing for another word, the two of them heading back toward the dining car. Before the door locks shut behind them, I hear Joe’s voice begin to shake as he rattles off his list of grievances about the entire encounter.
When I turn back around, Lori and John are both gone, having left in the same direction. Now alone, Tino fixates his beady dark eyes right on me, as if waiting for my next move.
I offer him a polite smile, giving his stature a wide berth as I move farther down on the train, the opposite direction of Frank and Joe. Frank’s mediation had been purposeful, of course, to allow me some additional time to explore the one car that will be empty while Tino remains here.
Jake’s car.
The farther back I go, the colder it becomes, for whatever reason, the air reeking of Tino’s overbearing cologne as if it’s seeped into the floorboards underneath my feet. Beyond the smell, there are other signs that Tino has taken to sleeping here instead of his room in the sleeping car.
The couch, once pressed flush against the wall, has moved a few inches closer to the center of the room, leaving scrapes in wooden flooring as Tino undoubtedly shifted in his sleep. Pencil shavings, granola wrappers, and tiny bottles of booze decorate the ornate shelving units and most of the furniture. To my left, a pair of jeans are left discarded in a heap by the desk, as if he'd taken them off in a hurry.
Considering Tino’s insinuation about the birds and the bees, I reckon Lori had something to do with that, though I have absolutely no desire to ask for confirmation.
I begin to scour the room for anything of interest, though I’ve already examined most of it, and the things that remain tell me way more about Tino Balducci than they do about Jake Hurley. I pick up one of the empty bottles of booze.
It’s a little plastic one, like the ones they sell right at the register in the liquor store. The label has been ripped, but even I can tell from the burn in my nose that it’s Jameson. I hadn’t exactly pegged Tino as a whiskey drinker, but, then again, I don’t know what I expected in its place, either. He certainly doesn’t look like someone who would casually sip a glass of cabernet.
Ignoring the urge to clean the place, I instead wander over to the back of the room where Tino usually sits behind Jake’s desk, carefully avoiding the jacket that’s hanging limp on the back of the chair. From a quick glance, it looks like genuine leather, and judging by the craftsmanship, probably cost Tino an arm and a leg—if he bought it himself, that is.
My hands, still unsteady from earlier, work to unbind Tino’s thick, dark notebook that he keeps in the corner. His enormous pride will keep him in the sleeping car for a few extra minutes, searching for clues that aren’t there, but I still have to work fast to see if he’s been hiding anything from me or the others.
The journal is unremarkable yet unabashedly Tino: contact information for some wealthy businessmen and hedge fund managers in Chicago; the occasional rambling, tasteless humor; numbers that seem to be correlated with horse races; tidbits of information about the case, all of which were given to him by me.
The only thing of interest turns out to be a business card with Lori Girard’s phone number scribbled on the back, punctuated by a fading pink lipstick stain in the corner that leaves little to the imagination. Despite my initial reaction, there’s something about it that feels weirdly sentimental. Tino likely kept it as a reminder of the day he and Lori first met. And even though it’s Tino—Tino Balducci, an egotistical cop with a god complex and a vice for good whiskey—my heart seems to warm a little, as if shaking off a layer of snow that’s settled deep in the confines of my chest.
I replace the business card back inside the journal, turning my attention to the desk itself. There are various drawers with iron knobs on both sides, so I begin to explore, making sure I don’t disturb the woodwork or pull something out of place that can’t be easily repaired. Most of them are empty, save for the one closest to the top that’s filled with some of Tino’s other trinkets—and other tiny bottles of booze.
Seriously, how many tiny bottles of liquor did he stuff into a suitcase?
I’m about to give up when the largest drawer nearest to the floor catches my attention. It’s empty at first glance, but the bottom of the drawer sits way too far up for a drawer of this depth, and when I knock on the wood, it sounds hollow. I run my fingers along its edge, searching for a lever or a button that will release the fake bottom, when my fingers brush against cool metal. One yank later and the board flips up, a cloud of dust permeating the room with it.
Underneath, there’s a torn piece of paper wrapped around an old brass key secured in a makeshift bundle with a thin, fraying piece of twine. Judging by the musty smell and the imprint of dust left behind in their wake as I reach for the two items, they’ve been here for quite some time.
Most importantly, it means this is an entirely new discovery.
Unrolling the parchment, my neck prickles with gooseflesh as I begin reading.
Ask for Ace Mill in Copper Gorge
My stomach works itself into one thick knot as I try to process the sloppy handwriting. Copper Gorge—as in, the place we just left? The tiny town that had shrunk to pinpricks in my vision, a black dot in the horizon, as I had confidently told Lori and the engineer that we were ready to move on to somewhere in the middle of the desert?
Before my thoughts render me useless, I shove the key and the scrap of paper into my back pocket and work to rearrange things on Jake’s desk so Tino doesn’t grow suspicious.
My mind is a whirling tornado of doubt as I make my way back out into the hallway.
What will happen if we reach the mine and realize we needed another piece of the puzzle? How long will Lori fund this project in the name of fame and fortune?
And how long would she ask me to be a part of it?
Tino passes me in Camille’s car, mumbling something indiscernible under his breath. My heart is hammering in my chest, so loud and intense that I fear that he might notice and rip it out from my torso like in those old Indiana Jones movies.
Instead, he just gives me a onceover glance and asks, “Where have you been?”
I quell the fluttering nerves threatening to take flight in my stomach. “I was checking the coordinates to the mine,” I lie. “I just wanted to ensure I calculated everything correctly.”
Tino raises one of his thick eyebrows, his expression full of skepticism. In the weird lighting of the train car, it’s clear he’s had some work done to his face—Botox, maybe, or some sort of filler to erase the wrinkles on his forehead.
Before he can call me out on my lie, I add, “You should probably go talk to Lori.”
His throat works for a moment, as if he had not been expecting me to mention Lori so casually in front of him. “And why would I need to follow up with Miss Girard?”
Though the key and the note feel like they are burning a hole straight through my jeans, I take a deep breath, a thin bead of sweat tracing my spine. Tino is putting on an act, of course, calling Lori by her full name and pretending like he doesn’t care—but I can hardly be mad at him considering I’m doing the same thing. Putting on a show for anyone that will watch.
“I… I don’t know, really, I just—” I swallow hard, searching for the right words. “She looked sort of embarrassed earlier. I just think maybe you should go see if she’s okay.”
He gives me a stiff nod, rounds his shoulders back, and retreats off to the isolation of Jake’s car. Whether he’ll take my advice, I’m not sure. Truthfully, I have no idea if a conversation between the two of them would make things better or worse. I have no idea whether Lori was even upset with him to begin with.
That’s what really bothers me—the ugly realization that all of my personal shit has gotten in the way of me being able to do my job. To read people, to sense their emotions shift, to study their mannerisms and behaviors.
I’m so out of touch. I’ve felt that way ever since I stood on the train platform.
But what I do know is that Tino spending all of his free time in Jake’s car, constantly surrounded by the grief and loneliness, hasn’t done him any favors. Even if the suspicion of Camille Hurley’s lingering ghost is all nonsense, every inch of this train seems to be impacted by Jake’s hopelessness. It seems his heartbreak became a living and breathing thing, taking up shelter and making the train its permanent residence.
And like a monster, it ate Jake Hurley alive. Death by loneliness. A man that literally died from a broken heart.
Maybe that’s why this trip has been so difficult for me; why I seem to loathe the sound of my own voice, feel like an imposter has invaded my body and taken over. Maybe this train just has an aura of sadness; a crown of melancholy that demands to be worn.
I barely have time to gather my thoughts before Joe nearly slams into me, his eyes wide and full of excitement. “Did you find anything?” he asks.
“Yes,” I say softly, peering around his shoulders to ensure he wasn’t followed. “But let’s… talk about this somewhere else.”
Joe makes his way back toward the dining car, intent on me following. “Charleena took a break from all the typing to go do some research,” he explains. “The dining car is totally empty. Just us.”
And Frank.
Joe rounds the enormous table in the center of the room, plopping back down into his seat next to his brother and waiting for me to reveal what I had found. Frank, however, barely moves an inch. He’s busy reading something on the table, as if permanently frozen in place.
“Nancy found something,” Joe says, tapping his index finger in the center of the document to draw Frank’s attention to the two of us.
Frank’s dark eyes find me in the doorway and settle there, expectant and impatient.
“Thank you,” I say, nearly embarrassed at how small my voice sounds in comparison to Joe’s healthy timbre. No matter how hard I try, I can’t meet Frank’s gaze, so I just pretend like I’m speaking to the both of them. “The diversion paid off.”
“No problem,” Frank replies languidly, leaning back in his chair to behold the latest clue.
I place the key and the parchment down on the table and slide it over for the two of them to examine. Even with Charleena gone, I purposefully position myself between the doorway and the table so that if anyone comes through unexpectedly, they won’t see the key without having to walk around me fully.
Frank runs one of his fingers along the edge of the key and then sniffs, trying to determine the metal. “It’s brass,” he says. “Old.”
“I bet this is for the crypts,” Joe says. “You know, the ones in Copper Gorge? It looks nearly identical to the other ones I’ve seen, and they’re all equally as old and creepy-looking.”
Frank rolls his eyes, clearly spent with Joe’s less-than-stellar descriptions. He reads the note aloud, verbatim, and knits his eyebrows together. “Ace Mill?”
I shake my head. “Yeah, I… I don’t know what it means,” I say. “Have you come across that name before?”
Frank glances down at the stack of papers and old journals he’s spent the last few days combing over. “No,” he admits. “I’m certain I know every single resident in a thirty-mile radius of Copper Gorge, but not anyone named Ace Mill.”
“It’s got to be connected to Jake, though,” Joe offers. “His best friend, maybe, or someone in his family. Someone he trusted, at least.”
“Or someone else hid the key in the desk,” I amend. “Someone other than Jake, that is.”
“If someone like that existed, we would’ve heard about him by now,” Frank says with a shake of his head. “At the very least, I would’ve heard about him, even if it was just in passing while I was flipping burgers for the elderly.”
Joe snickers, but I feel increasingly worse the more we try—and fail—to fit everything together.
“It has to be important if he went to all the trouble of hiding it,” I say, musing aloud. “And if it is important… what are we supposed to do? Turn around and go back?”
“No way,” Joe says, making a definitive hand motion. “We’re so close to figuring it out. Even if there’s something we’ve missed, we can troubleshoot it. Break a door down, or something, if we need to.”
Frank barks out a laugh, the most unfamiliar sound I’ve heard all day. “Break down a door? Are you insane?”
Joe rises to stand, placing both hands in front of him on the table so he can lean closer to me. “I am not insane,” he says, shooting Frank an exasperated glare, “and we don’t need to turn around unless we’ve exhausted all our other options. That’s all I’m saying.”
Frank straightens a stack of papers to his left and sighs. “You say a lot of things, Joe,” he says, offering no further commentary as he stands to his full height and begins to move toward the door. “See you in the morning.”
I shouldn’t be analyzing a sentence that short—only five words—but I am. It’s not see you both in the morning but see you in the morning. Who had he been talking to? And why am I simultaneously praying it hadn’t been me while also wrestling with my jealousy if it hadn’t?
Pausing to stretch, I turn back toward Joe and offer him a weak smile, the best I can do under the circumstances and lack of sleep. “We’ll figure it out,” I say, though it’s mostly for me. “Goodnight, Joe.”
Even though I’m more than wishing for a good night’s sleep, I can’t help but tense as I see Frank reach the door to the sleeping car in front of me. We’re headed in the same direction, though I’m careful to leave a wide berth between us—a healthy distance, just as he would prefer.
Except he doesn’t move through the threshold right away, and it dawns on me a minute later that he’s holding the door for me. Waiting for me. On purpose.
He says nothing as I creep by him, readying myself for the leap between the two cars. My throat is so tight I can’t even utter a thank you for his polite—and, quite honestly, unexpected—gesture.
My room is three doors down from his, so he keeps on walking after I’ve stopped. I fumble with the handle, trying to keep myself composed, and I’m about halfway into my room when I hear his low voice from the hallway.
“Nice job,” he says, then I hear the door to his room click shut.