Senn’s hands rested loosely on his knees. No pen. No notebook. Nothing to suggest urgency.

  Iris had spent enough time in municipal buildings to recognize the type. The people who made decisions rarely looked busy. It was everyone around them who rushed.

  She wondered how long he could sit like this. Ten minutes? Twenty? An hour?

  She had the uneasy sense that something had already changed. Not in the room, exactly, but in him. A tightening at the edges. The patience was still there, but it had sharpened, as if the waiting were no longer for her to speak but for something else to arrive.

  Senn reached into his pocket and withdrew a small plastic bag. Inside it lay a square of white cloth, neatly folded.

  Her stomach dropped before her mind caught up.

  The handkerchief. Hers.

  She knew it before she saw the monogram, before she registered the bag or the evidence tag. She recognized it by its weight, the way the linen fell. Three generations of Quinn women had carried the same square of fabric. Her grandmother first, then her mother, then Iris, handed it at eighteen with instructions that pretended to be casual—try not to lose it.

  And she hadn’t. Through everything—two apartments, three breakups, decades of packing the same small life into the same small boxes—she had kept it. Because that was what you did with things that mattered.

  “This was found,” Senn said, “in the corridor outside Ms. Halberstam’s compartment. Early this morning.”

  The floor tilted. Or she did.

  Outside Ms. Halberstam’s compartment. Not the library car. Not somewhere innocent, somewhere explainable.

  “I—” She stared at the bag. “That’s mine. But I wasn’t—I didn’t go to her compartment. I went to the library. Only the library.”

  “You are certain.”

  Was she?

  She forced herself to think properly, the way she reconstructed a patron’s steps when they swore they’d returned a book that was still showing as checked out. Walk me through it. Where did you go? What did you do?

  She’d been in the corridor. Dark, quiet. Her hand on the wall for balance. Someone had spilled champagne on the brass rail, sticky and half-dried. She’d touched it without thinking, wiped her hand on the handkerchief, then stuffed it back toward her pocket.

  Toward her pocket.

  She hadn’t checked. She’d just assumed it had made it there.

  “I must have dropped it,” she said slowly. “I didn’t realize. There was champagne on the wall—from the night before, I think. I wiped my hand, and I thought I put it back, but I must have…”

  She trailed off, her mother’s voice rising up from half a lifetime ago. Try not to lose it.

  She would have suspected herself. She absolutely would have.

  Senn set the bag out of sight, which somehow made it worse. “Thank you, Ms. Quinn. That will be all for now.”

  For now. Not you’re free to go. Not we have no further questions. Just for now, like a bookmark slipped between pages. Like he was keeping his place.

  She stood too quickly, banged her knee against his, muttered an apology. The compartment was too small for graceful exits, too small for anything but this. She needed to be somewhere else—anywhere else—somewhere she could fall apart without an audience.

  At the door, she turned back. She wasn’t sure why.

  “Inspector.” She waited until he looked at her. “I didn’t do this.”

  It was the kind of thing that meant less every time you said it.

  He didn’t reassure her. Just that steady, unreadable gaze.

  She stepped into the corridor and pulled the door shut behind her.

  The air was cooler here. She pressed her palms flat against the paneled wall and made herself breathe, told her legs to hold and kept walking even when they didn’t quite want to.

  She passed Richard’s compartment, the door closed, his voice audible through it—low, steady, managing something. Richard always seemed to be managing something.

  A porter stood at the far end of the car, motionless, hands clasped behind his back. He nodded as she passed. She nodded back. Neither of them smiled. Smiling belonged to a different trip. A different train entirely.

  It was an accident, she told herself.

  But knowing wasn’t the same as proving. She’d read enough mysteries to understand that. The innocent suspect, unable to account for her movements. The personal item found at the scene. In stories like this, no one ever stepped in to save them.

  Further down the corridor, Edmund was being escorted toward her by one of the officers, already talking, hands in motion.

  His eyes locked on hers as he passed—accusatory, afraid. Iris thought about what she’d told Senn. The pounding on Victoria’s door. The slap, or what had sounded like one. The whisper that crossed a line.

  Maybe Edmund had reason to be afraid.

  She hadn’t meant to implicate anyone. She’d just answered the questions. But that was the thing about telling the truth—it didn’t care whose side it was on.

  She pulled her robe tighter and walked back toward her compartment.

  She caught her reflection in the glass: bathrobe, hair doing something she didn’t want to think about. This was who she’d brought to the Orient Express. This was who was standing in the middle of a murder investigation.

  Fifty years of staying out of the way. Of being helpful and invisible and easy to overlook.

  Senn hadn’t overlooked her.

  She thought about the handkerchief, sealed now in an evidence bag.

  In stories like this, this was the moment when the amateur detective squared her shoulders and thought, I’ll show them all.

  Iris looked down at her bare feet on the carpet. Her weird, crooked toe.

  She didn’t feel like a detective. She felt like a fifty-year-old woman who’d made a terrible mistake—either by coming here, or by not coming sooner. She still wasn’t sure which.

  But she knew how to follow a thread that didn’t feel right.

  She knew how to sit with a question until it gave up its answer. She’d been doing it for twenty-three years, in a building full of books, for people who didn’t know what they were looking for until she helped them find it.

  Somewhere down the car, a door closed. Not slammed—just closed, firmly. A voice murmured, then another. The low sound of movement carried through the corridor in a way it hadn’t before. Procedures beginning. People being spoken to.

  The image of herself from the glass lingered, inconvenient and unhelpful.

  Shoulders unsquared.

  That was fine.

  She’d work with what she had.

  Only then did she realize the book was still in her hand.

  The Christie. Bent now, slightly, from being held too long. Her thumb pressed into the cover where Poirot’s face should have been.

  She hadn’t noticed carrying it out. Hadn’t noticed carrying it at all. As if it had become part of her, the way things sometimes did when you needed them more than you meant to admit.

  Murder on the Orient Express.

  She closed it, finally, and tucked it under her arm. Not a shield. Not a joke. Just a fact.

  8

  Senn had left them waiting together. Like items in a lost and found, set out to see who would be claimed.

  Iris sat with tea she'd forgotten to drink, trying not to think about her handkerchief in an evidence bag. She wasn't succeeding.

  Edmund's chair was empty. He'd been taken first—passed her in the corridor on his way in, already talking, already explaining. She wondered how that was going for him. Probably not well. Senn didn't seem like someone who was impressed by talking.

  Around her, the room sorted itself.

  Margaret had claimed the largest sofa. Iris wasn't sure how; there hadn't been a visible negotiation when they'd all filed in. But somehow Margaret had ended up exactly where she wanted to be, and the rest of the room had organized itself around her.

  Howard stood at the window, his back to his wife.

  Theo had found the far corner. Hands in his pockets, watching the glass like it might tell him something. When Iris glanced his way, he looked back—held it for a moment, as if deciding whether to speak. Then didn't. Just returned to the window.

  Mrs. Winslow was working her way through the biscuits. Third one since Iris sat down.

  She didn't know any of these people. She'd watched them at dinner, listened through walls at three in the morning, cataloged their clothes and their arguments and their tells. But she didn't have what she relied on most—context. Here, she had two days and a lot of guessing.

  Richard sat near the window with a cup of tea he wasn't drinking. Danny was beside him, close enough that their shoulders almost touched. As Iris watched, Danny said something quiet—too low to hear—and Richard shook his head. Danny's hand moved to Richard's arm. Brief. Automatic. The kind of touch that came from years of habit.

  Danny caught her looking. She glanced away, embarrassed. Not because she'd seen anything private. Just because she'd been caught staring. Again.

  The door opened.

  Edmund stood in the doorway. His face was red and blotchy, eyes wet. He scanned the room for a friendly face.

  He didn’t find one.

  "I didn't do it," he said.

  The words hung there. Iris knew exactly how they sounded. She’d said them herself—not an hour ago—and they hadn’t sounded any better then.

  Edmund collapsed into his empty chair. His knee started bouncing immediately, cups rattling on the nearby table. He reached for his wine glass, found it empty, and just held it anyway.

  The silence stretched.

  "Well," Margaret said. "That was quick."

  "Margaret." Howard admonished, not bothering to turn from the window.

  "What? It was."

  Iris thought about what she'd heard through the walls. The pounding. The desperation. You PROMISED. And then the slap, or what sounded like one. At the time, it had just been noise keeping her awake. Now it sounded different. Now everything from that night sounded different.

  Edmund had been pathetic. Desperate. Relentless. None of those words meant murderer. But none of them ruled it out.

  Senn appeared in the doorway. That same quiet presence.

  "Mrs. Ashford-Pemberton."

  Margaret stood. Smoothed her skirt. Lifted her chin like she was preparing for a photograph.

  "Of course."

  She walked out like she was doing them a favor. Howard watched her go. His hand found his wedding ring again.

  The door closed.

  The room rearranged itself around Margaret's absence. Which was to say: it relaxed, just slightly. Iris hadn't realized how much tension Margaret generated until she wasn't generating it anymore.

  "What did he ask you?" Howard was looking at Edmund but not really seeing him. "The inspector?”

  "Everything." Edmund's voice came out rough, scraped. "Where I was. What I heard. What I said to her.”

  "And what did you say to her?"

  Edmund’s knee stopped bouncing. He didn’t answer.

  "And the slap," Theo said from his corner. Quiet, but everyone heard. "At dinner. In front of everyone."

  Edmund turned. "What about it?"

  "She hit you. Then you spent all night outside her door."

  "I was trying to apologize⁠—"

  "For hours."

  "I loved her." Edmund's voice cracked. "I just wanted to talk."

  "She didn't want to talk."

  "But I needed⁠—"

  "Right." Theo shrugged. "You needed."

  The room went still.

  Edmund's face flushed.

  For a moment, Iris thought he might stand up, might cross the car. His hands were clenched on the armrests, knuckles white.

  Then he deflated. Sank back into the chair. Started bouncing his knee again.

  "I didn't kill her," he said. But quieter now. Like even he wasn't sure it mattered.

  Mrs. Winslow reached for another biscuit. Took a bite. Chewed thoughtfully.

  Iris counted. That was number five. Or six. She was losing track.

  Silence settled over the car again.

  Elena moved through the room with the tea service. Her hands were steady, her face composed. She refilled Mrs. Winslow's cup, straightened a spoon, adjusted a napkin. All the small tasks that made order look possible. People thanked her without really seeing her.

  Margaret returned with the air of a woman who'd just set the record straight—and expected a thank-you note.

  "Howard. You're next."

  Howard turned from the window. He didn't look at Margaret as he passed.

  The door closed behind him.

  Margaret settled back onto her sofa. Surveyed the room. Found Elena.

  "He asked about the accusation," she said. Not to anyone in particular. Just to the air. "The theft."

  Elena's hands didn't stop moving. But something shifted in her shoulders. A tightening, small but visible. The kind of tension you learned to hide and couldn't quite manage.

  "What theft?" Mrs. Winslow leaned forward, biscuit forgotten.

  "A diamond bracelet. Victoria accused our attendant of stealing it."

  The room's attention swung to Elena. Iris felt it happen—the gravitational pull of having somewhere else to look. Someone else to suspect. Not one of us. One of them. She'd seen it before, this particular kind of gravity. The way suspicion flowed downhill, always finding the person with the least power to refuse it.

  "There was no theft." Elena's voice was quiet but steady. She didn't elaborate. Didn't defend herself. Just set down the teapot and moved to the next table.

  Iris watched Elena's face. That careful composure. It was the dignity of people who understood the game was rigged. The stillness you practiced because showing anger only made things worse.

  But was it just composure? Or was there something underneath?

  "The attendant does have access to all the compartments," Margaret said, examining her nails. "Keys to every door. In and out at all hours. No one would think twice."

  "Margaret." Richard's voice, quiet but firm. "That's enough."

  "I'm simply stating facts."

  "You're making accusations."

  "I'm making observations." Margaret smiled. "There's a difference…And of course," Margaret continued, turning toward Iris, "there's the matter of the book."

  The room's attention shifted again. Landed on Iris. Stayed there.

  "The book?" Mrs. Winslow looked confused.

  "Murder on the Orient Express. Ms. Quinn was carrying it this morning. Before anyone knew Victoria was dead." Margaret raised an eyebrow. "Rather prophetic, wouldn't you say?"

  Iris felt her face warm. "It was on display. In the library car."

  "Still. Quite a coincidence."

  "It's a book about a train. We're on a train. The library had a copy. I picked it up."

  "A book about a murder on a train," Margaret corrected. "And now there's been a murder on this train. One might almost think you knew something."

  "One might almost think I can read a title," Iris said, surprising herself with the sharpness. "The book is eighty years old. It's a classic. I've recommended it to hundreds of people. If that makes me a suspect, you'd better arrest half the English-speaking world."

  Margaret's eyes narrowed. She wasn't used to resistance, Iris realized. Wasn't used to people pushing back. Probably no one ever had.

  "I'm simply asking questions."

  "You're simply implying things. There's a difference."

  They stared at each other. Iris's heart was pounding. She didn't do this, didn't confront people, didn't make scenes, but she couldn't seem to stop.

  "Ladies." Richard, again. The peacemaker. "We're all under a great deal of stress. Let's not turn on one another."

  Margaret looked away first. Made a show of adjusting her pearls, as if she'd lost interest rather than lost ground.

  Iris's hands were shaking. She put them in her lap where no one could see. Decades of professional politeness, and she'd just picked a fight with a woman who remembered every slight and forgot nothing.

  Well done, Iris.

  The rotation continued. Howard returned, gray-faced. Theo was called next.

  He came back fifteen minutes later. No expression. He went straight to his corner.

  His eyes found Elena across the room. Brief. She didn't look back. But something about the way she didn't look back struck Iris as deliberate.

  Mrs. Winslow was called next. She stood with a sigh and brushed biscuit crumbs from her lap.

  "Herbert always said I talked too much," she announced to no one in particular. "I suppose we'll find out if he was right."

  She shuffled out. The door closed.

  Danny brought Richard a fresh cup of tea. Set it down without being asked, the way you did for someone whose habits you knew by heart. Richard looked at it, looked at Danny, and something passed between them. Gratitude, maybe. Or reassurance. The kind of silent conversation you only had after years of practice.

  Richard took the tea without protest. No deflection, no joke about not needing to be fussed over. He just accepted it. Let himself be looked after.

  That was the part she'd never figured out. Not the loving…the letting yourself be loved back.

  Somewhere on this train, a killer was sitting with their own cup of tea, and here she was, taking inventory of her own failures.

  Get it together, Iris.

  Mrs. Winslow returned, looking flushed and talkative. She settled back into her seat and reached for another biscuit.

  But Iris was starting to think the eating wasn't as absent-minded as it looked. Every time someone had said something interesting this morning, Mrs. Winslow's hand had paused halfway to her mouth. Every time the conversation moved on, she took another bite.

  She was listening. Carefully. Behind all the chatter about Herbert, she was paying close attention.

  Danny was called next. He squeezed Richard's shoulder as if to say, I’ll be right back.

  Richard watched him go. His hand drifted toward his chest, then stopped. Dropped back to his lap. He caught Iris looking and gave a small, rueful smile.