The Train (13 page)

    Hannah tried to speak and couldn't. She was seeing Jean Marie plummeting to the dry, hard baked desert floor from the roof of the train. Nausea threatened to overwhelm her.

    Lolly's voice was light, teasing. "Feeling sick, Hannah? Your lovely trip hasn't been so lovely, has it?"

    Fighting to stay calm, Hannah said, "Lolly, what are you doing here? You should be home or in a hospital. That noose around your neck…"

    Lolly threw her head back and laughed. Sunshine streaming in through the unshaded window sent a gold, metallic shimmer into her pale blue eyes. "Oh, Hannah, don't be silly. I did that myself! When we went through the tunnel. Dale and Eugene never saw a thing. Too dark. They're not all that bright, anyway. If they heard anything, they never guessed it was me knotting that scarf around my poor little neck."

    Hannah's jaw dropped. She stared, speechless.

    "I'm good at knots. I worked on a boat one summer, to earn money." Her voice deepened, took on a note of harshness. "I didn't spend my summers vegging out around a pool, like you guys."

    Hannah's face was a study in bewilderment. "You strangled yourself? Why? What for? I don't get it."

    Lolly smiled again. "You will. Oh, you will get it, Hannah. Everything you deserve. Soon. But it wouldn't be any fun killing you without telling you why."

    Killing? Hannah slid down onto one of the seats, her eyes on Lolly's face. "Lolly, what…"

    "What, indeed?" Lolly laughed again, deeper andharsher this time. An ugly sound. Looking at Hannah's hands she said, "You really did a number on your fingernails trying to get out of that coffin, didn't you?" And then she added with a sly grin, "You're not as lightweight as you look, Hannah. I had one heck of a time getting you into that baggage car."

    When Hannah spoke, her voice came out thin and high-pitched. "You?"

    Lolly nodded. "You bet! Too bad I missed any vital organs on your friend Lewis." Lolly shook her head regretfully. "I couldn't believe it when I saw him moving around the train a few hours later. I guess I'll just have to practice, practice, practice."

    When Hannah didn't speak - because she couldn't - Lolly slapped her knee with her hand and laughed heartily. "Hannah, I wish you could have seen your face when you climbed onto that bunk. Or tried to. It was hilarious. Wish I'd had a video camera."

    "You… you were there? When I saw… Frog?"

    "Oh, Hannah, you're so dense! That wasn't him. How could it be? He's dead, thanks to you and your stupid, rotten friends! That was me in your bunk."

    "But - how…?"

    "I wasn't in Drama Club for nothing. I wanted to act but that idiot Gruber wouldn't even give me the chance. Said I'd be perfect for makeup and hair." Lolly sneered in disgust. "Meaning I'd never appear on a stage while she was in charge. But…" the pale eyes glittered in triumph, "it came in handy after all, didn't it, Hannah? Doing the makeup, I mean. Didn't I look great as Roger - or Frog as you all called him? Come on," she said coaxingly, "admit it. I did a super job, right?"

    Hannah wanted to stand up. She wanted to stand up and run from this calm, smiling, crazy person who had shut her in a coin and tried to kill Lewis and…

    "Mack?" she asked. "You locked Mack in that shed back in Denver?"

    "Oh, big deal. I wanted to do something a lot worse, but I never got the chance. I was going to set it on fire. I thought it would be appropriate if Mack died the same way Roger did. But," Lolly sighed heavily, "too many people were passing back and forth at the entrance to the alley. I knew someone would save him.

    "Speaking of your buddies, Hannah," Lolly continued, as friendly as if they were discussing a favorite class in school, "Kerry was supposed to find me in that upper berth, not you. I saw you guys tossing a coin in the train station - everyone was doing the same thing to decide who got the top bunk - and I could tell by the look on her face that she lost. Making myself look all burned and gross was aimed at her, not you." Her eyes narrowed. "The little witch. Roger told me how she treated him." Her voice softened, became dreamy, "He told me everything…"

    "You were hiding in that upper berth all that time?"

    "No, dummy! There's a ceiling panel right above it."But why?" Hannah whispered, "why are you doing this?"

    Lolly snorted, her eyes cold. "Are you kidding? Roger is dead, Hannah. Dead! Gone forever! I loved him. And you were all so rotten to him. He didn't deserve that, Hannah. He was new and scared and. he'd been dumped by his parents. He didn't deserve to be treated like pond scum."

    Hannah hung her head. "We didn't know…" she murmured.

    In one huge stride, Lolly was in front of her, bringing her arm up to whack Hannah on the side of the head with all her might. It lifted Hannah up and toppled her sideways. Her right ear and cheek cracked sharply against the wooden arm of the seat.

    "Don't say you didn't know!" Lolly hissed, bending over Hannah. "You should have known! What kind of people are you?"

    Then the anger seemed, suddenly, to drain out of her and she straightened up, saying sadly, "It doesn't matter. Roger is gone and I don't have anything without him. Dale and Eugene are losers." Then her face darkened and her eyes turned cold and hard as marbles. "But Roger died mad at me, Hannah, and that's your fault!"

    "No, it's not!" Hannah said angrily. No one had ever hit her before in her life, and Lolly had hit her twice, on the back of the head that night, and now on her face. "Why did you kill Jean Marie?"

    "Because Roger loved her." Lolly's pale eyes, no longer glittering with triumph, rested on Hannah's face. They were full of a terrible pain. "He really loved her. He only dated me because I was willing and Jean Marie wasn't." Lolly half-turned toward the window and looking out, said dully, "I hated Jean Marie more than I've ever hated anyone."

    She isn't looking at me, Hannah thought, every nerve in her body on the alert. She's forgotten I'm here. She's off somewhere else, thinking about Jean Marie. I won't get another chance like this.

    Moving like someone shot from a cannon, Hannah flew to her feet and threw herself at the door, unlatching it in one swift, sure motion. She was out in the hall and running before Lolly had even turned around.

    

    

    

    Hannah had fled the length of two cars when she pulled a door open and ran headlong into Mack. Kerry and Lewis were right behind him.

    "Whoa!" Mack cried, reaching out to enfold her. "We were just coming to get you. You okay? I thought that detective would never let us leave." Then he drew her away from him and looked down into her face. "Hannah? What's wrong?"

    "Lolly," Hannah gasped. She turned and pointed backward. "Lolly - back there… she - it's… it's Lolly - "

    "Lolly?" Kerry echoed. "Hannah, Lolly got off the train. Remember?" Then, "Hannah, have you been napping? Did you have another nightmare?"

    "No!" Hannah shouted. "It's Lolly! She killed Jean Marie! She told me. Come on!" And without waiting for an answer, she turned and began running back to the compartment.

    Her friends followed, shaking their heads. Kerry muttered under her breath.

    They ran into the conductor on their way andHannah insisted he come, too. "You have to arrest her," she babbled, her eyes feverish with intent. "You can do that, can't you? It's your train! She's a murderer, you have to arrest her. Get Mr. Tench, hung!"

    Before the bewildered conductor could make sense of all that, Mr. Tench called out to them from the doorway. He had been looking for Hannah to ask her the questions she'd skipped out on earlier.

    "Hurry up," she cried urgently as they reached the compartment. "She's in here!"

    She didn't wait for him to join them. Taking a deep breath, she slammed her palm down hard on the door latch and pushed the door open. "She's in here!" she cried, "Lolly's in here. You'll see that I wasn't dreaming."

    But as the door swung open, a gust of hot, breathless desert air rushed toward them. It came from a huge, jagged hole in the window. The paisly curtains danced around it. The steady ga-clink, gadink, ga-clink of the wheels surged upward into the small space.

    In one mass movement, they all piled inside, the conductor exclaiming in dismay over the ruined window. Hannah's eyes darted about the room, looking for signs of Lolly.

    The room was empty.

    "Hannah?" Kerry whispered, pointing. "Look at the mirror."

    They all looked.

    Slashed across the small rectangle of glass over the sink, written in bright pink, which Hannah recognized as her own Pink Powderpuff lipstick, were the words:

    

    
I'LL BE WITH ROGER, NOW.

    
I'M NOT SORRY FOR ANYTHING

    
L.

    

    "Oh no!" the conductor breathed. "She threw herself out the window!"

    A stunned silence filled the room, mixing with the hot air blasting in through the jagged hole. Slowly, carefully, they all moved as close to it as they dared. One by one, they looked out, expecting to see below them a dry desert floor. Instead, they found themselves gazing down upon a massive crevasse in the earth running for miles alongside the tracks. It was dry and hard and rocky on both sides and appeared to be bottomless.

    "Lolly jumped into that?" Lewis whispered. "That - that canyon? She must have broken every bone in her body!"

    A wisp of torn denim clung to one of the spikes of broken glass. The detective lifted it carefully, held it in his hand.

    "She was wearing a denim jacket," Hannah told him.

    Kerry's eyes fastened on the conductor. "Aren't you going to stop the train?"

    He shook his head. "No point, Miss. We'd never find her down there. I'll put in a call to the localSearch and Rescue back there and give them the location. They'll find her." Then he sighed heavily and left. The detective went with him, promising Hannah he'd be back soon so she could fill him in on everything Lolly had told her.

    "You won't be doing any harm by telling me," he pointed out gently, "now that she's dead."

    "No," Hannah said softly when the two men had gone, "I don't believe it. She's playing another trick on us. She's hiding. And I know exactly where to look!"

    Her friends stared at her as if they weren't sure they'd heard her correctly and hoped they hadn't.

    "She told me," she explained, "she told me where she'd been hiding all that time." She ran to the upper berth, yanked it down from the wall. "In here." But there was no Lolly looking like Lolly and no Lolly madeup to look like Frog. Nothing.

    An embarrassed silence filled the room. "Hannah - " Mack began, but she interrupted him.

    "No, no, look… okay, so she's not in there. There are other places - she hid all over the train. Please, we have to find her. If we don't, she'll come back and hurt more people. Me - or Mack - she was so angry - "

    "I'll help you look," Mack said gently, taking her arm. "Lewis? Kerry?"

    Hannah saw the look he gave them, knew it meant, humor her, she's upset. She didn't care. As long as they helped her look for Lolly, it didn't matter why.

    The search took all afternoon. Every time one of them wanted to give up, Hannah insisted they continue, her voice cracking with anxiety, her eyes burning with determination. "We'll find her, I know we will! We have to keep looking."

    While they searched, she told them everything that Lolly had said. Kerry was skeptical at first, but Hannah's voice had a ring of truth to it and eventually, it all made sense.

    "Did you find out where she put Frog while you were in the coffin?" Lewis asked.

    . Hannah shook her head. "No. There wasn't time. But when we find her, I'm going to make her tell me."

    But they didn't find Lolly.

    When Lewis and Kerry stopped to eat something, Hannah refused to join them. "I haven't checked the ceiling in Kitty Winn's compartment yet. You go ahead." They eyed her nervously, but they left.

    Mack stayed with her the whole time. He seemed to sense that this was something she had to do, and for that she was grateful.

    They found nothing, no sign of Lolly beyond two wrinkled candy wrappers in one of the crawl spaces and a blue comb with two broken teeth in another.

    At four o'clock, Lewis and Kerry caught up with them to warn Hannah that they had less than an hour before arriving in California. "We're supposed to get our things together," she said carefully.

    "We're going to be leaving the train, Hannah, and all of this terrible stuff will be over."

    "Yeah," Lewis added, his gray eyes sympathetic as he looked at Hannah, "and Lolly's gone, Hannah. We proved that, right? Are you still going to fly back home right away?"

    Hannah nodded wearily. She was so tired her body felt like rubber. Her head ached. "I just want to go home," she said quietly. "I'm sorry I made you waste your afternoon. You were right. I just didn't want to believe she'd jumped. I should have known. She sounded so sad, so hopeless and she missed Frog so much…"

    Giving up the futile search, they rested in their compartments during the last hour of the trip.

    It was a strange group of teenagers that left the train. People waiting in the train station stared at them: twenty-eight teenagers not making a sound other than soft murmurs. A sight not seen every day.

    Hannah, climbing slowly down the metal steps, turned her head to give the train one last, bleak look. She had endured the most horrifying moments of her life, shut up in a dark and airless box, on that train. Lewis had been stabbed. Jean Marie… Jean Marie was dead. And Lolly had committed suicide.