Edith Gerhardt left Room B in Car 13 and paused at the corridor window, seeing her own ashen reflection against the night outside. The sight recalled her grandmother’s stories of Grauer Geist—the Gray Ghost—whose presence foretold doom. Edith, dressed entirely in gray save for pink lipstick, wondered whether she was the doomed or the messenger, reflecting on being the last survivor of those she loved.

She proceeded through the train, uneasy about having accepted an anonymous invitation she had nearly discarded. The message on its back—“How much will you pay to keep your secret?”—compelled her to attend. Despite her wealth at age sixty-nine, Edith lived with strict frugality and viewed the imminent extortion as potentially expensive but necessary to protect her past.

Edith reviewed her history: born in Bonn, raised in Munich, widowed in Berlin, and emigrated to the United States in 1936. She had not fled Hitler out of fear but out of pragmatism after losing her family and foreseeing Germany’s ruin once America entered the war. She valued survival over sentiment and built a new life as a housekeeper for a rich Philadelphia family, bonding deeply with their children while remaining clear-eyed that circumstances could force a choice between her new country and her homeland.

That choice arrived in 1942. Edith made a decisive move then—choosing a side—and became rich as a result. She suspected the blackmail concerned one of two secrets from her life in Germany, and the memory of her consequential wartime decision kept her vigilant, scanning the windows for the Gray Ghost as an omen.

Reaching the first-class lounge, Edith found three others already present: a man in a green suit, another in black, and a woman in ivory. She announced herself—“Edith Gerhardt. I am expected.”—and realized she recognized them. They were Judd Dodge, Herb Pulaski, and Sally Lawrence, who recognized Edith in turn.

The encounter unsettled all four. For Edith, seeing them was like confronting another ghost—her own past—implicating shared history and suggesting that the invitation had gathered individuals bound by the same buried events and culpabilities now being exploited.