"No!" Naomi says. "The man who did this said he’d be watching her."

  Ignoring her, he crouches to his feet to meet Candace’s zombie-like gaze. Poor girl has been through hell. When he saw the rope attached to one of her wrists, nausea pitted his gut. His mind jumped toward the worst.

  "Sweetie, I need you to be brave for me. Okay?"

  She nods.

  "Who did this to you?"

  "My brother. Jacob Parker."

  The very man Naomi called him about right before she left. "What exactly did he say about the bomb?"

  She lifts her head and makes a loud sniff before continuing. "Yeah, um, he said that he didn’t want to hurt me, but if I left the apartment he’d detonate the bomb." She glances at it, horror widening her eyes. "I didn’t realize he was serious. He said he’d always be watching me."

  "How?"

  "I dunno. He’s a f-freak!"

  Landry straightens, giving the place a cursory look. Junk lies in piles all over the floor: discarded coffee cups, scissors, newspaper, balls of dust, and empty packets of matches. Dumb train memorabilia is crammed in every corner in the form of toy trains, Legos, and models. Thomas & Friends. One of the stuffed animals could be a nanny cam hooked up to an app. Would he detonate the device the moment he saw a room full of cops stomping around his apartment?

  "Can you tell me more about your brother? Does anyone else live here?"

  "No, there’s no one."

  "Where does he work?"

  "I don’t know! Take me home, please!"

  A tear slips down her cheek, and Landry’s throat thickens. "I can’t right now. It’s not safe. Candace, any details you can remember will help—the color of his uniform, a special briefcase, anything."

  "Um—he wears a dark blue polo to his job."

  "Any symbols on his shirt? Take your time."

  The girl does, blinking away her confusion. "There were letters? Definitely an A. ACT or ACE."

  Landry turns the acronyms over in his head, his gaze sweeping past a poster of Thomas & Friends. He studies the goofy character with the white face and gloved hands.

  Altamont Commuter Train.

  Excitement burgeons in his chest. "Your brother works for the commuter train."

  "That makes sense," she says, nodding. "That’s where he kidnapped me."

  "Why did he do that?"

  "I don’t know."

  "Think, Candace. You must have some idea why he’s keeping you here."

  She rubs her wrists. "I’ve been asking myself that for weeks."

  "Walk me through what he was doing when you saw him on the train."

  "I—he was doing his job, I guess. I hadn’t seen Jacob in years, and I just wanted to say hi, but couldn’t do it. Too shy. So I waited until everyone disembarked. I followed him to the bathroom. When he got out, he saw me. His whole face went white. I thought he didn’t recognize me, but he pulled me in and put his arm around my neck. He cut off my air, and I blacked out. When I woke up in his apartment, I was all tied up."

  Landry can’t make sense of it. "Was he doing anything suspicious when you said hello?"

  "No, I don’t think so."

  A low, urgent voice speaks into his ear: There’s still a damn bomb in the living room.

  A thrill jolts into his chest, and he looks at the pressure cooker as though it’s a live snake. "Okay. I need to call a bomb retrieval unit. This might take time."

  "I want to go home!"

  The girl wails again, and Naomi rubs her shoulders, whispering words of comfort. "Just a little while longer."

  He thinks of the protocol in this situation and comes up with a blank. If this man is checking his phone to make sure his hostage is still secure, how will he react when she’s gone? What if the building isn’t evacuated? There could be another device to trigger the explosive somewhere on this floor. The area around Candace seems clear, but he doesn’t trust his eyes. This isn’t some pipe bomb fashioned by a couple of teenagers. Jacob knows what he’s doing.

  The call to the bomb squad takes a few seconds. His hand shakes when he ends the call to dial the Parkers’ number and tell them he found their daughter. Mrs. Parker’s screamed questions pierce his skull. Answers fall from his numbed lips. No, she isn’t safe. She's at your son’s apartment. The girl cries in the background, and then he passes the phone to her. Every sob racks through his chest as though he’s crying, too.

  He only has himself to blame.

  He should have put the fear of God into Naomi the second she shoved that foot under his nose like the complete maniac she is, but damn his soft heart. It’s not her fault she’s nuts. Right now, though, he regrets not throwing her in an interrogation room. Maybe if he'd scared her, she wouldn't have done this.

  Then what? He would’ve never found the girl without her.

  A swell of guilt rises when he glances at Candace again. He can't imagine the kind of hell she must've been subjected to. The poor girl doesn't have any socks, and her feet are filthy. Damn it, he was here. Weeks ago. Nothing suspicious jumped out at him. Parker's alibi checked out. He hadn’t seen his sister in years. They were estranged.

  Bastard lied to his face.

  There’s no doubt this is the lowest point of his career, but he can’t feel too bad. The girl is alive. The statistics on surviving a kidnapping past forty-eight hours are favored against her. She’s alive, and it’s a miracle, but is she whole?

  Candace jumps when the door opens, admitting a group of police officers fitted with body armor. They do a sweep of the apartment, and then they approach the girl. She raises her arms as they wrap her in the black suit that’s too big for her.

  "What about mine?" Naomi says.

  "Ma’am you need to leave."

  "The hell I do! I’m staying right here."

  "We’re evacuating the whole building. Let’s go!"

  She refuses. They threaten her with obstruction charges, and when that doesn’t work one officer seizes her waist and throws her over his shoulder in a fireman’s lift. An ear-splitting shriek reverberates through the apartment as she’s carried away.

  The girl cries when Naomi disappears from view. "Don’t leave me!"

  An officer approaches him. "Sir, you should go, too."

  "Hell, no. I’m staying with her."

  "This is a very volatile situation."

  "I realize that. I’m not leaving her."

  He accepts the body armor and stoops to Candace’s side while the team works. Distantly, he hears the sound of slamming doors, loud voices yelling evacuation orders. Candace shivers. Landry finds a ratty-looking blanket in Jacob’s bedroom and throws it on Candace’s bare legs.

  "I know this is scary, but these people are experts at what they do. You’ll be back home in no time."

  "Then why are we wearing armor?"

  He smiles at her, hoping he looks confident. "Just a precaution. Silly safety thing."

  "Thanks for staying with me." Candace’s watery gaze threatens to spill over.

  A shrill sound pierces the air, and both of them dive to the floor. Landry’s heart will burst from his chest. He squeezes his eyes shut, waiting for death, and slowly notices the buzzing in his back pocket.

  "It’s my phone."

  They both laugh as Landry pulls his blinking iPhone from his pocket. It almost slides out of his grip. This better not be Naomi.

  "Landry."

  "This is Dingham. What the hell are you doing still in the apartment? Why isn’t the girl evacuated?"

  "Because the suspect told her he’d blow the place if she left. I have no way of knowing if it’s safe for her to leave."

  "I need everything you know about him."

  "His name is Jacob Parker. He works on the ACT train. He’s probably on board right now."

  Sergeant Dingham lets out a rough blast of air. "I’ll contact the company and find out which line he was scheduled to work today. We need to call the FRA and order the train to a stop. You should evacuate, too."

  "There’s no way in hell I’m leaving her alone."

  "Fine," he says briskly, as though he expected Landry’s answer. "Keep the girl calm and get as much information about Parker as you can."

  "I will."

  The connection dies as a dull series of beeps indicates the sergeant hung up on him. He stares into the black glass reflecting his frown.

  "Officer? Are we going to die?" she says.

  He doesn’t know. "I won't let that happen."

  She looks unconvinced. "But if he sets off the bomb, we will. Won’t we?"

  Probably. "These things aren’t so easy to make. Maybe it’s a dud. Let’s hope for the best and try not to dwell on it, okay?"

  "Okay," she says. "I thought of something else about my brother."

  "What’s that?"

  "He’s always sharpening these knives. He keeps them rolled up in a blanket and takes them out every night in front of me."

  Sick bastard. "He might’ve been trying to scare you."

  "I asked him if he was going to use them on me. He said they weren’t for me."

  Landry says nothing, his jaw clenched tight.

  "I… Do you think he used them on people?"

  God, he hoped not, but clearly this man has no problem with extreme violence. He must’ve known the capability of a pressure-cooker bomb. He’s willing to use it against his own sister.

  What else is he capable of?

  Chapter 12

  11:32 AM – LA Express

  Jacob wants to kill God.

  It's blasphemous. Wrong. He hasn't stopped thinking about it. Is it even possible? Jacob spent countless hours researching and came to one conclusion: Everything ends. Even the immortal.

  And he knows that if the train reaches its final destination, God will stop tormenting Jacob forever.

  The voice of Him came to Jacob when he was five years old. A man with soothing tones whispered in his ear, claiming to be his dad. Substituting the friendly man for his father wasn't hard. His real dad was an incoherent drunk who'd spent most of Jacob's childhood drooling on the floor or incarcerated. When he died, Jacob felt relief.

  This new man cared about Jacob. They had long conversations. He was the helpful guide that walked Jacob through life. Sometimes he made suggestions: Maybe you should eat your vegetables. If Jacob didn’t take his father’s advice, no big deal. It was nice, like having a secret friend he could always depend on. Every so often, his father spoke firmly: That's a terrible idea, Jacob. We don’t need this.

  We. Suddenly they were a team.

  The voice only wanted one thing in return: tribute. Every time Jacob took his father's gospel, he was to give back a sacrifice. Snakes. Birds. Rodents.

  It terrified him at first. Jacob didn't enjoy seeking snakes in the woods to appease his father. Bashing their heads in with a rock disgusted him. He didn’t relish disemboweling them, either, but he did it because he had to. The voice soothed him. It's necessary, his dad used to say. Your actions are merely a cog in the machine. Free will is an illusion when your father is a god.

  He can't quite put his finger on exactly when the voice became a burden. The chatter in his head was too often, and loud. The older he grew, the more he refused his father's advice, which to him seemed reasonable—even natural. Father didn't like that at all. The more Jacob ignored him, the more belligerent he would get.

  Getting rid of him is not an option. Once, Jacob tried digging his father’s voice out with a screwdriver. He was desperate, homeless, and his dad kept screaming. It became too much, and Jacob dug through his backpack to find the only weapon in his possession. Then he burrowed the dull blade inside his ear until he thought he reached the source. At the hospital, they asked him why he did it. He said he was itchy. They saw the pockmarks on his face and believed him. Father promised to make his life a living hell if he told them the truth, so he shut his mouth and they let him return to the streets where he lived. Father bellowed into his ears for five weeks until Jacob mellowed his rage with another sacrifice: a human being.

  For his treachery, his father would no longer accept dogs and cats as tributes. Only human corpses would satisfy him.

  That was the last straw.

  He did not want to kill that old, homeless man. The violence repulsed him. After he was dead, Jacob fell ill. Vomit stained his clothes, and every time he saw his reflection he'd smash it in until his hand was numb.

  Only one escape from the constant and escalating demands was available to him. Trains. He always made camp near the tracks, the blaring horn loud enough to drown out his father. The protection lasted for a good long while, and then he began riding the trains. They shielded him. Somehow, the metal walls of the train prevented Father from tormenting him. For the first time in Jacob’s life, he was free.

  Through the help of a kind social worker, Henrietta, he left the streets. He lived in a halfway house for six months before qualifying for a government-assisted program. They gave him a small apartment. It stunk of weed and the carpets were a mess, but it was four walls and plaster. After half a lifetime of sleepless nights with his hand wrapped around a knife, having a home where it was dry and safe made him happy. No need to sleep with a weapon under his pillow. Sweet Henrietta helped him get a job with Amtrak. She bought him secondhand suits and ironed them for him. He stayed up the night studying for the interview, but the manager hired him for tax credits. After a few months, Amtrak stopped giving him work so he got another job on the Altamont Commuter Train. Full-time. Forty hours a week. Sometimes he broke the rules and picked up other people’s shifts without clearing it with management. It didn’t matter that they didn't pay him for overtime. The train was his home.

  It was perfect until his father showed up.

  Jacob saw him on the 5 AM commuter train to San José. Row eighteen. Seat A. He’d never viewed his father in the flesh, but he knew what he looked like from the hours of conversations they had. Father sat there as though he belonged; he even had the nerve to smile at Jacob. Several years apart from his father wasn’t enough to calm his rage, and the shock of seeing him in his sanctuary sent him into the blackest of despairs. He snapped.

  How dare he show up here, in the one safe place he had?

  The punishment for violating his home was death. One look into those watery blue eyes bolstered his resolve. It was easier than he thought. He slipped behind his seat and throttled the pale-eyed bastard. Then he stuffed him into a suitcase. After he had gotten rid of the corpse, Jacob believed that was the end of it.

  Then he showed up again. The second time sent him into a panic—how does he keep coming back? Why does he keep coming back?

  Jacob doesn’t bother asking them questions anymore since the last copycat pretended he didn’t recognize his son. No matter how many times Jacob kills him, he keeps returning to the one place he shouldn’t. Now his voice cracks on the PA system to give him more demands. It’s grating on him, and now his father has a cop on his side. He leaves breadcrumbs for the bitch because he can’t help rub it in her face. Dad’s little minion can suck it.

  They won’t destroy his last hope for himself. The train can’t stop.

  Clutching the black duffel bag, he kicks what’s left of his father under a vacant seat. There’ll be time to get rid of the head later, but he should check on things. On the pretense of checking the bend, he opens a door as he slides his iPhone out of his pocket. Then he checks the nanny cam app he set up in his apartment. The crappy Wi-Fi makes it difficult to keep tabs on his hostage. Sure enough, there’s a spinning wheel. Candace could’ve escaped, and he would be none the wiser.

  His father’s voice crackles on the PA system. "Don't kill Candace. She's my daughter."

  Jacob tucks the phone back into his pocket and closes the door. He stares at a speaker in defiance. "You made me do this."

  Killing his father is necessary—taking his sister hostage sickened him. The murder of children disgusts him. He tied ropes around her frail wrists, and a deep shame settled in his guts when he spent that afternoon and evening making the pressure-cooker bomb with the help of an online PDF. The ingredients were stocked at his local hardware store, and he paid in cash. When it was done, and he set up the nanny cam to spy on Candace, his shoulders sagged with relief.

  He didn’t want to hurt her, but he needed a hostage. And what better than his father’s daughter?

  A scream punctures his thoughts. It’s coming from the car to his right. His father must be dead. The body he took was a young man’s, but Jacob would recognize those eyes and hair anywhere. Bastard can’t hide from him.

  The third car's chatter dissolves into whispers. One woman speaks in worried tones to her husband, who waves off her concern. "Probably just some kid doing a sick prank."

  "Then why hasn’t anyone made an announcement?"

  She tries to catch Jacob’s eye, and he smiles at her. "Don’t worry, ma’am. Everything is going to be fine."

  The woman nods, looking unconvinced.

  Jacob means it. He has no interest in slaughter, only in stopping his father's chaos. They must choose what side they're on. Hopefully, they'll do the right thing. If not... Well, Jacob always found it best to lead people to their deaths in the darkness.

  Chapter 13

  12:40 PM – LA Express

  "It’s just a ticket, Detective."

  Vinny’s snark is back. It must be Jules’ lucky day.

  She gazes at him in disbelief. "It was hanging right above Brandon’s corpse. There’s a goddamn skull drawing on it. Look at it!"

  The conductor can’t seem to bear to do it. "I need to keep my eyes on the tracks."

  "That didn’t stop you when you waddled toward the bathroom to gawk at the body."

  "I don’t waddle—it wasn’t even there."

  "Vinny," she grinds out, forcing her tone into one of calm. "He’s not being subtle. There’s a skull on it, for crying out loud."

  "So what the hell do you want me to do?"

  "Just look at it!" You giant baby, she doesn’t add.

  A one-way ticket stamped with Brandon Hughes’ name flutters in her hands. The yellow cardboard-like material curls forward with her finger. She shoves it under his nose. Another grinning skull with clunky crossbones stares at them. If that doodle is supposed to spook her, the killer would do better with sprinkling more body parts on the train.