Himalayan Hazard

Chapter Eleven

Grizabella yowled again.

“What’s wrong?” Mom and Dad cried in unison.

“It’s okay,” I assured them. “Well, I mean, it’s not exactly okay. She just realized she doesn’t know where she’ll go now that her owner’s passed.”

“Oh, poor sweet thing.” Mom crossed the room along the edge and then petted the mourning Himalayan. “A nice, gorgeous girl like you will find a new home in no time.”

Grizabella stopped shrieking but moved away from Mom’s attempts to pet her. “I don’t want a new home. I want my life with Mistress.”

My heart broke for the newly orphaned feline. Since discovering Rhonda’s body, we’d only worked toward solving her murder. None of us had taken any time to see how Grizabella was coping.

“Anyone could see how much Rhonda loved you. Heck, she even made a fan account for you on Instagram, and it has more than two-thousand followers.”

“Yes, but those are fans,” the cat responded with disdain. “I don’t know a single one of them personally.”

“Angela will figure something out,” Octo-Cat promised, purring to show her it would all be okay. “She always does.”

The doorknob rattled and then someone pounded against the door, bringing the tender exchange to an immediate halt.

“Hey,” Dan yelled in his squeaky, pubescent voice. “Why is this thing locked?”

The frantic pounding started again, and Dad ran over to let him in. “Sorry about that!”

“We didn’t want anyone stumbling in by accident,” I explained, leaving out the part about taking the extra measure to protect my secret. “What’s up? What did your bosses say?”

Dan looked back toward the door as if it had personally slighted him, then turned back toward us with lantern held high. “The police are on their way, but it could be a while given our remote location. Figures, right?”

“Yeah,” I said amicably as my eyes struggled to adjust to the brightness of his lantern-style flashlight again. “Anything else? Do they know what stopped the train?”

He shook his head sadly and in obvious fear. “Only that it’s been tampered with somehow. Whoever it was knew what he was doing, ensuring it would be next to impossible to get moving again without an expert mechanic familiar with this kind of train.”

Crud.

Dan’s expression lightened and he rocked his lantern playfully. “I do have good news, though.”

Octo-Cat climbed onto my lap, and I drew strength from his calming presence. Seriously, this case was so different than usual. We hadn’t fought one bit. Perhaps we were evolving.

“Well, out with it already,” Mom demanded. She only liked dramatic pauses when she was the one making them.

“The lights will be much easier to fix,” Dan said, properly chastised. “Someone cut a few wires, but we’ve already found a passenger who says he knows how to fix it. He’s working on it now.”

“That is good news,” Mom agreed, then flashed her phone at me. “And a lucky break for those who weren’t responsible enough to charge up before the journey.”

I groaned and pinched the bridge of my nose. A migraine wasn’t exactly what I needed right now. “So at least our circumstances aren’t getting worse,” I reminded everyone.

“You girls stay in here,” Dad instructed, moving toward the door. “Dan, bring that big light of yours and come with me.”

I chased after him, refusing to be left behind. “Excuse me. None of that macho nonsense. Wherever you’re going, I’m coming, too. So spill.”

Dad sighed and placed his hand against the wall in defeat. “Why do you always have to assume it’s something like that? I chose Dan because he has the best light and we’re going to need it.”

Yeah, there was no way I would be sitting out the next leg of our investigation. I turned to the young red-headed worker and held my hands out in supplication. “Dan, may I please borrow your light?”

He reluctantly handed it over, and I turned back to Dad with a giant smile of triumph. “You were saying?”

He chuckled at let out a low whistle. “You are just like your mother sometimes. C’mon, we’re going to go nose around outside and see what we can find.”

“Will you stay with my wife?” Dad asked Dan, and they shared a manly nod.

“I’m coming, too!” Octo-Cat called, jumping off the bed and joining us at the door.

“And I’m staying,” Grizabella said, crossing her paws in front of her.

“Let’s go, Dad,” I said, lifting the lantern high as I followed him to the end of the car. We found an exit toward the outside there, but it appeared to be jammed up tight. In the next car over, we found the door already slightly ajar, having swung back into the car a couple inches.

“Hopefully, somebody just needed a cigarette break really, really bad,” Dad told me with a shrug and then pulled the door open the rest of the way so we could exit into the tunnel.

Very little space lay to either side of the train. Dad and I could walk side by side, but not comfortably. The stone walls pressed in close as we studied the gravel beside the tracks. Add in the intense darkness and it was almost like we’d been buried alive. Creepy.

Dad stopped walking and put out an arm to stop me, too. With his other hand, he pointed a few feet ahead. “Blood.”

Sure enough, dark red droplets stained the light scattering of stones and pebbles. Even creepier.

“Did you see any earlier?” Dad asked, sweeping his phone light back toward the exit we used.

I shook my head soundlessly, then continued forward to see if the blood might form a trail.

“Stay by me,” Dad called out, a quiver moving through his strong voice. “We don’t know how close the murderer still is. For all we know, he could be right here hiding in the tunnel just a few feet away. And I’m not risking losing you.”

I gulped and returned to his side.

Dad hooked his arm over my shoulders and pulled me close. “We do this together. Understand? You have my back, and I’ll have yours.”

“Awww. That’s great for you guys. I’ll go check things out on my own, though,” Octo-Cat said, trotting off in the direction I’d just abandoned.

It worried me, him going off on his own, but what reason would a murderer have to hurt a random cat? There’s no way the culprit could know that Octo-Cat was investigating this crime.

Dad and I moved slowly, using my light to illuminate our path and his to search the gravel. “I’m not seeing any more blood,” he said. “Are you?”

I’d never been so disappointed not to find evidence of a violent crime. At least if we had a proper trail to follow, we’d know that the killer had left the train—and we may even be able to follow the drops to find him.

“No,” I answered with a racking sigh. “Someone was definitely out here, and given how close the exit and the blood are to Rhonda’s room, I’m guessing it was our killer. But I don’t think he was injured. It’s probably a bit of Rhonda’s blood that dripped off his hands or something.”

“But if he had the blood on his hands, wouldn’t it be on the door?” Dad pointed out, continuing to move the tiny point of light from his phone around the path. “And also, why are we assuming the killer is a he?”

“Touché,” I said. “It could definitely be a woman. Good thought, though. Let’s go check out that door.”

We closed the rest of the distance back to our entry and exit point, and I was just about to step through into the train when an anguished cry rang out from deeper in the tunnel.

A cat’s cry.

“Octo-Cat!” I shouted and took off running. There was no way I was leaving him to face whatever danger lurked nearby on his own. I just hoped Dad could keep up.