A Lonesome Place for Dying by Nolan Chase

Author:Nolan Chase
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: CROOKED LANE BOOKS

24

At a quarter past six, the southbound passenger train made a stop in Blaine for the first time in over forty years. Passengers waited as Ethan, Mal Keogh, and Brenda Lee Page boarded and swept up the aisles of the compartments, through the bistro car, the quiet car, the bicycle storage and baggage bins, and finally the off-limits areas for the crew.

The stop was a courtesy, arranged by the rail line. The officers weren’t looking for evidence so much as an understanding of how someone could disappear.

Most passenger cars connected with the entrances flush against each other, creating a tunnel passengers could move through. Locked doors prevented movement through the front cars, where there were exposed couplings, areas where a person could jump. Mal did just that, landing with a chuff on the gravel.

The stabbing was hard to visualize. Ethan leaned forward and had Brenda Lee approach him from behind. She delivered two stab wounds to his side with an invisible knife. He fell forward, hand on the door so he wouldn’t drop completely.

A train moving at high speed, an injured person trying to escape. Maybe Laura Dill had leaped, not realizing she had already been stabbed. But if so, where was the blood? Had she lugged her backpack with her to wherever she’d jumped from? Why had no one seen her?

The train cars varied in age, some a quarter century old. If Laura hadn’t opened the washroom door too wide, she could have moved from the passenger car to the nearest exposed coupling, and with the door unlocked, have leaped from there. Theoretically, at least.

A harried official watched the officers role play victim and attacker with impatience. As soon as they climbed down, the official radioed to the engineer. The train started moving.

“Thoughts?” Ethan asked as they walked back to the station.

“I suppose it’s possible the victim made her way off the train without leaving a trace,” Brenda Lee said.

Mal was shaking his head before she’d finished. “She’d have left some trace behind—footage, prints, blood spatter, something.”

“I’m aware of Locard’s Principle, Mal. I’m saying it is possible that it happened.”

Ethan instinctively looked over at the hotel, wondering if the man in white was awake yet, watching them from the window of his room. “For the sake of argument, say it did. What happened to the backpack?”

“Either she carried it with her or her assailant did,” Brenda Lee said.

“This assailant, who I guess must also be invisible, mind you, straps on Laura’s pack and chases her down narrow train corridors while wielding a knife? You believe that?”

“I didn’t say invisible. You have a better theory?”

Rain dampened their foreheads and shoulders. Mal and Brenda Lee had begun walking ahead, spurred by their argument, outpacing him. Ethan followed, enjoying the sensation of the cold water on his face.

“While you were looking at the doors, I was checking out windows,” Mal said. “Each car has however many passenger windows, some that even open. Washroom, too. There are also access panels in the ceiling and floor.

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