Chapter 15: Crowe Names the Ledger's Location

The key was brass. Small, plainly cut, the kind a locksmith makes in thirty seconds from a blank. Crowe set it on the table without ceremony, without preamble, without the eleven-second pause Blackwell had used on him two days earlier in the parlor car. He simply placed it at the center of the table — between the notebook and the cold tea and the labeled sample tray — and sat down, and folded his hands, and waited.

The dining car was otherwise empty. The hour was two minutes past midnight. The overhead lights had been dimmed to their lowest setting for the benefit of passengers attempting sleep in the cars beyond, which meant the three of them sat in something closer to candlelight — amber, slightly unsteady where the train's heating system moved the air.

Blackwell looked at the key.