Alfie stood. He stepped out into the aisle. The rocking of the coach seemed not to affect him at all. Violet could see his mind working. Whatever he might be thinking, it had to be grim to earn the darkness in his gaze as he looked up and down the coach.
“If my brother got onto this train, he’d never have let them take him off without seeing me first. He never got on the train.”
“But the Tucker… it had to be yours.”
Alfie looked at her. “I’d guess you’re right, but that doesn’t mean Joe was the one driving. I stole that creepy son of a bitch’scar to make it to the train station in time. Who’s to say he didn’t return the favor?”
Violet knew what that might mean for Joe Hannigan, but Alfie didn’t need to hear it from her. Now she understood the darkness in his eyes.
Dark eyes.
The man in the dining car. Tall, powerful, cruel eyes. The way he’d looked at her—had it been because he recognized her? If he was the raven and he saw her pass by, he’d know…
“Malcolm’s alone,” she said.
Alfie spun to stare toward the front of the train. “Stay here,” he told her as he started forward.
Violet thought of Malcolm’s soft whispers, his hands on her, the future for which she’d prayed for so long.
“To hell with that,” she said, and followed.
11
Wind howling outside, Malcolm sat with his back to the wall, just beneath one of the windows in the baggage car. He had shifted a pair of old steamer trunks and several traveling cases to make the window more accessible and build a bit of privacy. It would get colder tonight, and he thought it might serve as a barricade against the draft.
For both of us, he thought.
He grinned, happier than he’d been since before Korea, but a moment later, the grin shattered. Malcolm let his head droop, palms on his forehead. “What the hell’s wrong with you?”
No matter how manipulative his mother had been, she’d also loved her children ferociously. When he had been small, she’d laughed and danced and filled him with a joy no amount of the tension of later years could ever completely erase. It felt deeply wrong to let himself be happy less than a day after she’d died.
But Violet loved him. They’d danced around it for so long, and now it had come true. The memory of how it felt to be inside her seared itself into his brain. His hands still prickled with the heat of touching her. He could taste her on his lips, smell her on his clothes and skin. Yes, they had slept for hours afterward, but the memory felt nothing like a dream. What they’d done felt more real than anything in his life. More real than the scars the war had left behind.
But still, the grin was morbid and laden with guilt.
Your brother’s wife, he thought. As a soldier, as a son, as abrother, he had made honor fundamental to the way he saw himself. Now this.
Violet owed her husband nothing. He’d cast her aside, treated her like some kind of house pet. But what of Malcolm himself? Didn’t he have a brother’s love for Elias, an obligation to protect him the way family should?
Perhaps. But how could he protect Elias when he himself was the threat?
Don’t be stupid.
Some claimed respect had to be earned, others that family deserved respect simply by their blood relation, but no matter how respect had been bestowed, surely it could be lost. Discarded, the same way Elias had discarded his wife. He might have been fine as a brother, but as a man, a son, and a husband, he left much to be desired. He hadn’t even rung back after Malcolm had telephoned to tell him Maggie was dying. Violet deserved better, and Malcolm promised himself she would have it.
“What a mess,” he whispered to himself.
Then he froze. Over the noise of the train and the rain, he heard a scraping sound. Malcolm turned to stare at the crate holding Maggie’s body. He tensed, listening for the bright, lonely notes of “I’ll Be Seeing You.” With Violet present, he had been reluctant to pay too much attention to the sounds that came from inside the crate. Locals around Elkhart had always called Maggie a witch. She’d known her way around an herb garden and wasn’t above telling men what she thought of them, so of course there had been rumors. There were times she had loudly declared her desire that certain people suffer calamity, and that sounded like a curse to people who believed in such things. She became a legend in the area. Children had hastened their steps as they passed the Wise home. “Maggie Wise will take your eyes,” they chanted as they jumped rope or teased one another.
At the age of six or seven, he’d come home from school and asked her if she was a witch. Sally Cohen had insisted it was true. Maggie had knelt by him, eyes laughing, and pushed back hishair. “People will always look for something or someone to be afraid of,” she’d said. “Let them believe what they want.”
But she’d never denied it.
Malcolm waited for the scraping to come again. Instead, a clanking made him jump. It came not from the crate but from the doorway. He hoisted himself up from behind the steamer trunks, heart lightening and stomach growling as he realized how long it had been since he’d eaten anything. But it wasn’t Violet, or the Hannigan brothers, coming into the baggage car.
The tall man bent to avoid bumping his head, and straightened as he entered the car. He wore a charcoal-black wool coat, gray hat with a black band, and a black wool scarf. Malcolm didn’t recognize the face, but the way he moved and the look in his narrow eyes gave him away even before he spoke.
“Told you to leave her behind,” the raven said. “Not my fault what happens next.”
