Midnight Train to Paris (13 page)

Even with my cloudy, pounding head, I distinctly remember the Morel women’s paintings adorning the walls upstairs in their massive vacation château back in Évian-les-Bains. And at the top of the Morel family line were Henri and his wife, Agnès.

“Were you close with Henri?” I ask Frances.

Frances hesitates, but finally I hear her murmur in a bitter tone, “Quite close…well, until tonight that is.”

Suddenly Rosie’s soft whimper turns into a full-on cry. “I never should have left Alexandre…not like this anyway. Not without properly telling him to his face that I’ve fallen in love with someone else. That’s why he did this to us. I’m so sorry.”

“If Alexandre is behind this, then where is the little bastard?” Frances hisses. “And will you keep it down? Do you want them to come back in here?”

“I’m sure Alexandre is rich enough to hire men to do his dirty work for him,” I say. “But the question is, what did the Morel family want with you, Frances? It can’t be a coincidence that you and Rosie both took the same train tonight after attending the Morel Holiday Gala and that you were both kidnapped.”

“What about you, Jillian?” Frances snaps back, her voice strained as she struggles to loosen the ropes that bound her to the chair. “If this really is the handiwork of the great and powerful Morels, why would they take you?”

“That’s what I’m trying to figure out,” I say. “All I can come up with is that I was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“What about your husband, Samuel?” Rosie whispers. “Did they take him too?”

I think of the determination in Samuel’s green eyes, of the way he kissed me before he left the sleeping compartment, and my entire body aches for him.

“No, they didn’t take him. He’ll be coming for us, though. I know he will. That’s why I need you both to stay strong and try as best you can to loosen the ropes.”

Despite the pain that continues to course through me, I follow my own advice, thrashing and rubbing at the ropes, but I am bound so tightly, it feels hopeless. My fatigued body is begging me to fall into a deep sleep where this intense fear and this soaring pain cannot touch me, but the minute I think of Isla, I know that is not an option.

“Frances, what happened with you and Henri tonight?” I whisper through the icy room. “Would he have any reason to want to harm you or Rosie?”

This time, I hear Frances sniffling. “What does it matter at this point who’s behind this? There are three armed men out there who’ve tied us up in the middle of some godforsaken shack in the mountains. They’re either going to kill us here or take us somewhere else and kill us.” A soft whimper breaks through her cries. “It’s hopeless.”

A newfound strength sweeps through my beaten-down body as I scratch my wrists against the chair with as much fervor as I can muster. “It’s not hopeless,” I grit through my chattering teeth. “Samuel will come for us. I know it. Now try to loosen the rope. Both of you!”

Both of their chairs begin to squeak as they attempt to wriggle free of the tight ropes. “Good,” I say. “The rope that’s around your wrists, scrape it against the back of the chair.”

“It’s too tight,” Rosie says. I can tell she is trying to be strong, but the terror in her voice is overwhelming.

“Keep trying,” I order.

The men are still quarreling on the other side of the door, but I know it won’t be long before they burst in here.

“Frances, were you having an affair with Henri?” I ask.

A few tense seconds pass before her voice breaks. “He ended it tonight—told me to leave the party and never to come back. He was the one who gave me the ticket for the Orient Express back to London. After five years, that’s all I get. A train ticket. Not even a kiss goodbye.”

“Wait,
Henri
was the one to give you the ticket?” I say.

“That’s what I just said, isn’t it?” Frances snaps.

“Rosie, when did you buy your train ticket?”

She hesitates, then finally replies softly, “I didn’t buy the ticket.”

“Then who did?” I ask. “Was it one of the Morels?”

“No, it was Jacques—the man I was telling you about on the train. Before…before Frances admitted she’d seen me tonight at the gala.”

Chills roll down my spine at the mention of my grandfather’s name. “When did Jacques give you the ticket, Rosie?”

“A few weeks ago. He sent it in a letter.”

I think back to the letter I read in the snowy Lausanne train station at Madeleine’s request. It was dated December 1, 1937. Jacques had said he couldn’t wait to see Rosie at the train station in Paris on Christmas morning…that he couldn’t wait to call her his own.

But when this tragic situation played out the first time around, he never did get to see her again…
or
call her his own.

“Did anyone else know you were planning to leave Alexandre tonight?” I ask.

“No, I haven’t told a soul,” Rosie says.

“Where did you keep the ticket?” I realize that despite the fact that my brain feels like mush right now, the questions are still shooting from my tongue instinctively…just as they’ve done for all of my years of reporting.

“I kept it hidden in a shoe box full of Jacques’s letters,” Rosie says. “My parents and I have been staying at the Morel Château in Évian-les-Bains for the entire month of December. Alexandre must’ve gone through my suitcase and found it. He must’ve known all along that I was planning to leave him—
and
his massive diamond ring—behind for Jacques.”

Frances’s harsh whisper shoots through the dark room. “If it was all Alexandre, then why would Henri purposefully send me away on the exact same train as you?”

I think of Laurent and Frédéric Morel, the wealthy, successful father-son combo who—back in 2012—were downstairs fighting before Frédéric stormed the upstairs bedroom where I was snooping and attacked me. Perhaps the desire to get rid
of any woman who might destroy their precious reputation is something that is laced into the Morels’ blood, in their genes.

“Maybe Alexandre and Henri are in on this together,” I surmise, thinking that it must be the same with Frédéric and Laurent. Of course in the future version of this crime, there is the unmistakable involvement of the sick, demented Senator Williams to consider as well.

“Rosie, on the train, you said something about how Alexandre would be worried about saving his reputation. If he knew you were leaving him for another man and that you were pregnant with that man’s child, do you truly believe Alexandre would go so far as to have you abducted from a train? And from what you know of his father, Henri, do you think he could be behind this as well?”

I hear Rosie suck in a labored breath. “How…how did you know I’m pregnant?”

Damn.

“That explains a lot,” Frances says. “The Morel men could never stand to be disgraced in such a way. Though of course they have no problem keeping mistresses for years, then kicking them straight to the curb without a second thought…sodding hypocrites.”

“How did you know about the baby?” Rosie repeats.

I realize that Rosie probably has no idea she’s carrying twins. Or that those twins will be taken from her. Will they do the same to Isla? Take her baby…then make her disappear?

“I saw you patting your stomach on the train, and you refused the champagne, so I made a guess,” I respond. “Am I correct?”

Rosie answers me with a muffled cry that breaks into a strangled sob.

Nice job, Jillian.

Young Rosie’s sobs only intensify when the creaky door wrenches open and three male silhouettes barge into the tiny room.

None of us have managed to break free from the ropes, and with no sign of Samuel, we are, once again, at the mercy of these nameless captors.

The men—who tower over us like giants—are quick but brutal in their efforts to remove Frances from her chair. I watch helplessly as she kicks and writhes in their strong grip, but one solid smack to the head makes her body go limp, her cries drowning in the darkness.

Rosie whimpers by my side, but when two of the men reach for her, her sobs dry up almost on contact. And to my surprise she doesn’t fight back.

But then I remember the baby, or—as only
I
know—the
babies.
She is cooperating to protect her child. Her motherly instinct has already kicked in.

As they force her to her feet, she doesn’t make a sound. And with the sack over her head, I can’t help but imagine her as Isla—cold, shaking, and pregnant. Isla is feisty, but like Rosie she’s smart. She would do whatever she had to do to protect her unborn child, even if it meant stifling the paralyzing horror that has surely overcome her.

One of the captors throws a ragdoll Frances over his shoulder while the other shoves a gun into Rosie’s side, before both women are taken through the doorway and out of my line of sight.

As for me, I am left alone with the man who tried to shoot me in the woods earlier. The same man who I kicked in the groin—
twice
.

And by the way he paces before me—the pounding of his boots on the floor like a hammer to my temples—I am certain he is
not
happy.

His first slap comes hard and fast across my left cheek. I barely have time to register the intense sting before he smacks me a second time, and quickly after, a third.

My head wobbles, my neck too weak to hold its weight. Vaguely, in the distance, I hear the sound of a door slamming, but the next hit rattles my already throbbing head so hard, I lose track of all sounds.

I squeeze my eyes closed, bracing for another blow, but I am not prepared for the violent punch of knuckles that slams into my cheekbone. I feel the raw, cold skin on my face breaking open, the ripping pain making me wish that my body would shut down, go numb. How much more of this can I handle before I pass out?

Warm blood oozes down the cracked skin on my cheek and settles on my lips, but I don’t have the energy to spit it out as it trickles into my mouth.

Quick, arduous breaths pass through my lips as I wait for the next hit, but it doesn’t come. I want to lift my head up to see what he’s doing, but my neck won’t cooperate.

I feel myself drifting in and out of consciousness, but suddenly the sound of Isla’s teenage scream rushes into my head.

And there I am again. Back to the place, the scene, the moment I loathe most in my miserable childhood. Crisp as day I see the image that has haunted me for years—the image that comes to me in nightmares, the same one that always accompanies Isla’s terrified young scream.

Isla is only thirteen years old—a startlingly beautiful young woman—and she is huddled, naked and trembling, on the floor of her childhood bedroom. The dead man’s blood is splattered all over her pale, beautiful skin, and his lifeless heap of a body is hunched over her.

The bullet wound to the side of his head drips sickening scarlet blood all over my sister.

The smoking gun in my mother’s hands is pointed right at Isla’s bare chest.

Those wicked hands already stole our childhood. I will not let them steal my sister.

“Jillian!”

The memory of Isla’s pleading cry shoots adrenaline through my veins, and just as my eyes open back up inside the snowy shack, I find that the barrel of the gun is still there, but this time, it is aimed at me.

With every ounce of strength left in this broken body of mine, I scrape my wrists one last time against the chair, and suddenly, I feel the ropes loosening, one of my hands slipping free.

Instinctually, I swing my arm, knocking the gun out of the man’s hands. Just as it rattles to the floor, I tug at the ropes around my chest. But before I can break free, the man lunges for the gun, and a shot fires through the night.

I flinch, waiting for the sudden flash of pain that I know is surely coming. But besides the aftereffects of the beating he’s just given me, I feel nothing.

When I summon up the courage to open my eyes, the man lies writhing on the floor, howling in pain as blood oozes from his knee. And Samuel—
my
Samuel—is standing over him, gun in hand, pinning his neck and shoulders to the ground.

“Where have the others gone?” Samuel growls in French.

When the man grimaces in response, Samuel’s fist swings around in a fast punch to the man’s jaw.

“Where have they gone?” Samuel yells into his face, slamming his head against the hard wooden floor of the shack.

My hands shake as I begin to untie the ropes around my body. Out of the corner of my eye, I see the man reaching toward Samuel, trying to fight him, but this former CIA field agent and trained hunter is much, much quicker. Samuel twists the man’s neck into a tight chokehold, cutting off his air supply.

“If you want to live, tell me where the others are going, and who you work for,” Samuel says through gritted teeth.

Samuel loosens his hold around the man’s neck only slightly, but when he still refuses to respond, Samuel tightens his grip once more.

Just as I have almost completely freed myself from the chair, the man’s desperate, strangled pleas howl through the night.

Samuel loosens his grip again, letting him speak.

“The castle—,” he sputters in French as he sucks in a panicked breath, “—they’re taking them to the castle in the mountains.”

“Whose castle?” Samuel demands. “And how do we get there?”

“It’s happening tomorrow night. When she arrives,” he spits. “I have a map. In my coat pocket.”

Samuel looks up at me and nods toward the gun on the floor. With shaky legs, I stand from the chair, reach down, and wrap my hands around the man’s old-fashioned gun. I point the barrel straight at his head, willing my hands to stay steady as Samuel uses one arm to keep the man in a loosened chokehold, while his other hand shoots down to the man’s coat pocket.

But just as Samuel’s hand dips and rustles through the captor’s coat, the man’s huge body jerks abruptly, bucking Samuel off of him in one violent thrust. His other beastly hand swipes at the gun I am holding, and just as he steals it from my grip, another deafening shot fires, knocking me backward onto the ground.

One look at my abductor, at his limp body and the blood pooling on the ground beneath him, and I realize with staggering relief that neither Samuel nor I have been shot.

Samuel holds his gun over the man’s body, waiting silently, as if he’s taunting him to take one final breath. But there isn’t an ounce of life left in that man’s body.

Instead it is me who takes a huge gulp of air into my lungs.

Samuel killed him. I can breathe.

Samuel runs to my side, kneels down before me, and with his thumb, he tips my chin up ever so slightly. Our gazes meet in the cool glow of light shimmering through the window just above his head.

I barely feel the tears rushing down my face as Samuel wraps me up in his strong arms.

“I’m here, Jill,” he whispers in my ear. “I’m here.”

Samuel holds me until I calm down; then he inspects the cuts and bruises on my face.

“I saw a cabin in the mountains nearby,” he says. “I’m going to look for that map—hopefully it actually exists—and then I’m going to take you to the cabin to get you cleaned up and warm.”

“But we have to follow them,” I say, wincing as Samuel uses his sleeve to wipe at one of the cuts on my cheek.

“They’re long gone by now, and you’re in no state to trek very far through this blizzard, in the middle of the night no less.”

“But—”

My protest is silenced by Samuel’s lips on mine.

Nothing in my life has ever felt so good, so safe, as the warmth of this kiss.

Our lips brush together a few more times before he pulls away, his heavy breath warming the chilly draft that blows around us. “I know you like to take things into your own hands, Jillian Chambord, but just this once, I need you to trust me, okay?”

Still reveling in the electricity of his bold kiss, I nod. “Okay.”

Samuel works swiftly, searching the dead man’s coat pockets once again for the map that will lead us to this supposed castle where Rosie, Frances—and possibly in the future,
Isla
—have been taken.

On the cold, bloody floor of this mountain shack, I am trembling now—the panic, the pain, and the relief all settling into this frozen body of mine at once. But it is the relief that seizes me most as I watch Samuel take charge of the situation. I realize that while
I
did not hold true to my promise to stick to our plan, Samuel did.

He came for me. He saved me.

It is in this moment, as Samuel removes a folded piece of paper from the man’s pocket, then lifts his concerned gaze to mine once more, that I am faced with the raw, startling truth.

A truth that I have locked away for years.

And a truth that I am certain I will never again be able to ignore.

I have never stopped loving Samuel.

The bitter winds snap at the raw, bruised skin on my face, but even with the worsening conditions in these snow-filled mountains, I feel a new sense of purpose and safety with Samuel by my side.

He wraps his arm tightly around my waist as we shuffle down the snowy hill, back in the direction of the train tracks.

“Are you sure the train is gone?” I ask, but my voice is immediately swallowed up by a violent gust that causes the heavy sheets of snowfall to swirl around us in a frenzy.

“I heard the whistle blow earlier as I was searching for you. I’m sure they wanted to get out of this storm while they still could.”

I don’t ask any more questions for the duration of our trek. I trust that Samuel knows where he’s going, even though the snow-covered branches jutting out all around us, and the black sky hovering above the trees, make every turn look exactly like the last.

Finally, just when my feet are turning numb and my strength is once again wearing thin, Samuel points up ahead. “There it is. There’s the cabin I saw earlier. Come on.”

White puffs of air hover over our lips as our breathing quickens along with our pace.

The idea of warmth fuels me more than anything in this moment. I can’t bear to think about what might be happening to Rosie and Frances right now, or to Isla and Francesca in the future. I can only hope that the map Samuel stole from my abductor’s coat pocket will take us to them first thing in the morning, as soon as we have the sun to light our journey.

There are no lights on inside the tiny wood cabin, so Samuel takes the liberty of kicking open the rickety front door when he discovers it’s locked. He does a quick sweep of the interior to confirm there’s no one inside, before ushering me in out of the cold.

It takes my eyes a few long moments to adjust to the pitch-blackness, but in that time Samuel has already discovered a thick wool blanket, which he is wrapping around my shoulders. He shows me to a couch, then immediately begins throwing logs in the fireplace.

He strikes a match and lights the fire, the sight of the flames giving me hope that soon I will feel warm again. I have never been so cold in all my life.

I wrap the blanket tighter around my shivering body and scoot down on the soft brown rug next to the fire.

“I’m going to go see what I can find in the bathroom for first aid so we can clean up the cuts on your face,” Samuel says.

I realize as he rushes through the cabin that I’ve never had someone take care of me in this way, not even as a child. It feels odd not to be the one taking charge.

But even more so, it is an immense relief.

Just as the fire is bringing feeling back into my fingertips, Samuel returns with a bottle of hydrogen peroxide and a warm cloth. He kneels down beside me, pours a dab onto the towel, and then tilts my face toward his.

“This isn’t going to feel good, but we can’t risk these cuts getting infected.”

My teeth are still chattering violently, so I give him a silent nod to go ahead. As he dabs at the wounds on my face, I focus on the concern in his striking green eyes; on his nose, which has turned pink from the cold; and on his rugged five o’clock shadow, which has grown thicker over the course of this insane day. The sting of the peroxide brings immediate tears to my eyes, but I blink them away, reminding myself that I am safe now. And that I need to be strong for Rosie. For Isla.

When Samuel finishes his delicate treatment of my face, he eyes my trembling body, then runs a hand from my knee down to the hem of my pants. “You’re soaked. We need to get you out of these clothes so you don’t get hypothermia.”

Even amid the grave situation we have found ourselves in, I can’t help but let the slightest of grins slide onto my lips. “
Only
so I don’t get hypothermia?”

Samuel has already removed one of my pointy Oxford shoes when he lifts his disarming gaze to me. “You think I have another agenda?”

I shrug my shoulders, then give him my other foot. “Well, whatever your agenda may be, just be happy you’re getting these old-fashioned shoes off my feet. The last guy who messed with me got two swift kicks to the groin with those pointy toes.”

The flicker of orange flames crackling in the fireplace reveals a curious gleam in Samuel’s eyes. “I imagine he wasn’t too happy with you after that…which explains the cuts and bruises on your face.”

“I wasn’t going down without a fight,” I say.

“I wouldn’t expect any less,” Samuel says as he pulls the soaking wet stockings off my feet. “I’m just glad you’re okay…and alive.” The seriousness lining his tone makes me remember how close I was to death. If it weren’t for him, I wouldn’t be sitting here right now.

I reach for his hand, gripping it in my own. “Thank you, Samuel. Thank you for coming for me.”

He smiles softly, the tenderness in his expression saying more than any words could ever say.

My freezing body is finally starting to absorb the warmth of the flames that lick the hearth beside us, but Samuel is right, I need to get the rest of these wet clothes off me—and fast.

I recline my head back against the couch as Samuel leans over me and unbuttons my pants. “Just tell me if I’m hurting you, okay?”

“I’ll be all right,” I assure him. “Just get these off, please.”

He lifts a mischievous brow before wrapping his hands around the waist of my pants and pulling them down over my hips. His hands feel warm and smooth as they run down the frozen skin on my calves, removing each pant leg with care.