Waiting in her compartment, Anna battles doubt until Seamus arrives to say the train has been cleared and the six targets are gathered in the first-class lounge. As they walk, Seamus notes a “wrinkle,” which proves to be Dante Wentworth at the piano when Anna peers through the lounge door, not Kenneth Wentworth as planned. Anna is rattled by seeing all five expected figures—Sally Lawrence, Edith Gerhardt, Judd Dodge, Herb Pulaski, and Lt. Col. Jack Lapsford—and by a rush of complicated memories about each of them from her childhood and family Christmas parties.

Her recollections sharpen her sense of betrayal, especially regarding Sally (once a beloved mentor-like secretary) and Edith (a caregiver who called her Schatzi). She also remembers Judd’s charming tricks, Herb’s envious hostility, and Lapsford’s officious presence at a dinner that preceded the catastrophe. Most of all, she steels herself against her deepest hatred for Kenneth Wentworth, architect of her family’s ruin—only to face his son Dante instead, a personal heartache rather than a principal culprit.

Anna enters the lounge, quelling violent impulses and forcing out her prepared speech. She declares she has gathered them to obtain justice and holds irrefutable proof linking them to her family’s destruction. When her resolve wavers, she recalls Aunt Retta’s harsh training after the tragedy—slaps meant to teach unflinching control—lessons that enable her to proceed.

She recounts June 17, 1942: a brand-new Matheson-built troop train left Philadelphia for Fort Benning carrying more than 200 soldiers, including her brother, Thomas Adam Matheson. The locomotive’s engine, designed and built to fail with weak materials, exploded near Raleigh, North Carolina, killing 37 men, Tommy among them. Anna relives the platform goodbye and the aftermath of the explosion.

She describes the immediate blame laid on her father, Arthur Matheson: federal and military interrogations, a raid uncovering incriminating documents, and his arrest. Arthur swore his innocence to Anna but was denied bail and murdered in prison—stabbed 37 times, one for each victim—before trial.

Anna then details the Senate hearings that destroyed Arthur’s reputation: Jack Lapsford testified that Arthur had approached him about troop trains; Judd Dodge claimed he warned Arthur the design would fail; Herb Pulaski swore Arthur ordered corner-cutting; Sally Lawrence provided notes and memos bearing Arthur’s signature; and Edith Gerhardt suggested Arthur admired the Third Reich and hired her for being German. Public opinion turned completely; the company was sold to Kenneth Wentworth, and Anna’s mother succumbed to alcohol and pills.

She recalls her mother’s brief, bright attempt to reconnect—a picnic above the Delaware—ending in suicide as her mother drove off a cliff. Back in the present, Dante breaks the silence with, “What does any of this have to do with us?” revealing his ignorance. Anna remembers how, for years, she assumed people had simply believed the accusations, until a year earlier, when her dying Aunt Retta told her, with sudden clarity and force, that Arthur was innocent and that she had proof.