Borderline (The Arcadia Project, #1)(52)

“I’m sorry, I can’t let you on board.”

“Could you at least check around, see if you see him? It’s important.”

“What’s his name?”

I pulled the photo from my pocket and showed her.

One of her brows lifted. “He’s an actor, right? You looking for an autograph?”

“No! There’s kind of a family emergency.”

She looked at me skeptically. “If he were on the train,” she said, “I’d have noticed him.”

“Can you please just check? And if you find him, tell him Aaron put David in the hospital.” Even if that didn’t make sense, it seemed a fair bet he’d want to know what the hell had gotten lost in translation.

She gave me a once-over, and her face softened. “Okay, hon. Calm down, and I’ll try and find him for you.”

From 2:51 to 2:56, I repeatedly wiped clammy palms on my jeans and rehearsed a dozen different things to say. I tried to figure out how to work “don’t touch me” into my greeting without seeming unfriendly. But then the conductor came back out, shouting at people to hurry and board. She spotted me and gave a sad little shrug.

“I don’t think your man is on this train,” she said.

I swallowed a bitter lump of disappointment. How was it that nobody ever managed to see him at any of the places he was expected to be? Was he going to a lot of trouble to lead people astray? Or was he somehow here all along, invisible, pressing his hands against a barrier that only his drawings could cross?

I thanked the lady and made my way carefully back down the stairs to the Corridor of Broken Dreams. Now that my adrenaline was easing off, I could feel every ache and pain in my patchwork body.

Teo came jogging up, looking out of breath and displeased. “I take it we missed him,” he said.

“I got there in time to ask a conductor to search the train, but she said he wasn’t on it. I have no way of knowing for sure if that’s true.”

“No biggie,” said Teo. “If he came through here, I’m sure someone noticed him. And if he got on that train, we can still beat him to the next stop.”

“Right,” I said, feeling both relieved and foolish.

It didn’t take long flashing Rivenholt’s picture around before we found an old man with a charming Slavic accent who remembered him. “I think this is the man who is arrested here in the terminal,” he said.

“Arrested?” said Teo.

A sudden dread seized me, and I tore open my bag, rifling through it. The e-mail I’d printed out, the one telling Berenbaum what train Rivenholt was boarding, was gone.

“Work emergency, huh?” I muttered bitterly as Teo continued questioning the old man. I pulled out my phone and the napkin from the coffee shop and dialed Clay’s number. No one answered. He could forget about a date.

The old man stroked a thumb thoughtfully over his moustache as he regarded Teo. “The blond man is standing over there, looking around,” he was saying. “Then the policeman, darker, comes to him and shows a badge,” he was saying. “They have serious conversation which I do not hear. Then they walk together to track two. As they pass me, I try to tell them that train has left already, but I get a little afraid. Policeman has his hand on the back of the other’s neck, tight, like holding a dog.”

Before I could even respond, Teo had bolted toward the stairway in question. I thanked the old guy, slipped him a twenty, and went after Teo with a sigh.

When I finally limped my way to the top of the platform, I found Teo standing with his hands buried in his hair, looking down at the deserted train tracks. His sunglasses served to partially hide his expression, but the way he’d squished his mouth into a tiny line strongly suggested he was freaking out. I moved closer to his side and looked down.

“What is that?” I said, looking at the dark splash marks and streaks on the tracks.

“Blood,” said Teo. “Fey blood.”

I did a double take. The stains and the track were both too dark for me to be sure, and any telltale scent was covered by other metallic odors.

“That’s bad, right?”

“You have no idea.”

“Because no one will tell me. Are you sure it’s blood?”

“Put on your glasses.”

Feeling a qualm, I did as he asked—and made a strangled sound. The faint stains shimmered with golden light. It was brightest on the track where the liquid looked to have pooled; then the stains made a wide, smeary trail from the tracks to the platform.

“Oh, shit,” I said. I remembered the coldly simmering anger in Brian Clay’s eyes and shuddered.

Teo nodded grimly. “The cop must have held him down on the tracks and—I don’t know, shot him? Bashed his head in? Then I guess dragged him over there—” Teo looked blankly at where the blood trail disappeared. “Picked him up, maybe?”

“How did no one see this?” I hated how high-pitched my voice suddenly sounded. “I get that the platform was empty, but Clay had to take him somewhere after he— How is this place not swarming with cops and EMTs right now?”

“I don’t know,” said Teo, hands in his hair again. “I don’t know. This is f*cked.”

While Teo panicked, I kept my glasses on and tried to see if there was more blood anywhere. I noticed a few drips near the top of the stairs.