Midnight Train to Paris (16 page)

A brawny man, dressed head to toe in
black, storms into the sleeping compartment and takes my sister before she can
finish telling me her news.

That she is pregnant. And that she
ended the senator’s career.

Next, Isla is out in the cold, shivering
and surrounded by a flurry of snow pouring down through the trees from the
black winter sky above. The man shoves her from behind, pressing a gun into her
side. I feel her fear, her pain, her grief, as if it is all my own. This
unbreakable bond we have always shared grows stronger than ever as I travel
along beside her, willing her to see me, to know that I am here, that I am
coming for her.

Every intense emotion that runs through Isla makes an imprint
on my heart. She is doing her best to suppress the terror, telling herself
she’s been through worse. That she will survive. An overwhelming surge of hope
and courage fills her up. She does not cry. She will do anything to keep her
baby safe. To make it to Christophe, the only man she has ever truly loved.

The wind and the flittering
snowflakes disappear abruptly, and now we are inside a tiny, cold room. The
lights are off, but I make out the outline of my sister tied up to a chair, a
thick piece of duct tape covering her mouth.

The creepy vibe in this space
strikes me as familiar, and as I gaze around at Isla’s surroundings—at the
shiny new crib in the corner, at the teeny baby clothes adorning the closet—I
remember the nursery, the cabin, and my voyage with Samuel.

This
is why I felt Isla so strongly in that room.

Because seventy-five years in the
future, she is being held here against her will. Forced to sit alone in the
nursery that will house
her
child if
she isn’t saved first.

“Jillian!”

Isla’s
panicked voice cuts through my thoughts. I will myself closer to her until I am
inches from her face. One lone teardrop rolls down her cheek as she draws in a
labored breath through her nose.

“I’m here, Isla. I’m here.” I tell
her, even though there are no real words exiting my mouth. Her panicked violet
eyes flicker wildly, her brows raising.

And finally, there it is—
recognition
. The invisible connection
we’ve always shared. Somehow, in this frozen, eerie baby nursery in the middle
of the Alps, my sister knows I have traveled to her. She sees me.

“I’m coming for you, Isla. Just hang
on,” I tell her, willing myself not to break. To stay strong. “I’m going to
save you and your baby. No matter what they do to you, do not give up hope, do
you hear me?”

She nods her head violently.

I want to hug her, to untie her, to
rip the goddamned piece of tape off her mouth, but I have no physical
abilities, no physical form. Still, she sees me, the tears now pouring down her
face.

In an instant, I feel something
tugging at me, pulling me away from her.

No.
Please, give me more time with her.

But
whatever force has landed me here is sucking me back.

“Promise me, Isla. Promise me you
won’t give up.”

One more intense gaze from those
panicked violet eyes of hers—the eyes we will forever share—tells me she hears
me.

“I promise, Jilly. I promise.”

The creepy lullaby swirls through
the air, pulling me away from my sister, into a hole of frozen blackness. Sleep
comforts me, makes me forget what just happened, making me feel indifferent
about where I am going.

But Isla’s voice shatters the
darkness, breaking the silence that is about to swallow me into its endless
depths.

“Wake up, Jillian! They’re coming
for you.”

The
piercing sound of shattering glass snaps me awake. My eyes pop open as a
panicked breath fills my lungs.

Samuel is inches from my face, his
finger on my lips. “Stay quiet and don’t move,” he whispers before rushing away
from my side.

A heavy fatigue plagues me as I
realize I am lying on the floor of the old cabin nursery. Before I can analyze
the mysterious voyage I have just taken to Isla and back, the sound of knuckles
on flesh startles me to a sitting position.

Isla’s warning rushes back to me.

They’re here. They’ve come back for
us.

Shooting to my feet, I scan the
nursery, cursing that sickeningly sweet lullaby that continues to rattle out of
the baby mobile which lies in a broken heap inside the crib.

A crashing sound coming from the
front of the cabin makes me jump. I grab a rickety wooden chair from the corner
of the room and hold it in front of me, creeping slowly out into the
pitch-black hallway.

I stop just around the corner from
the doorway leading into the living room, where I hear Samuel fighting with
some unidentified man—a man who I am certain was sent back through the
mountains to kill us.

Finally, I build up the courage to
peek around the corner.

In front of the dying fire, Samuel
is struggling to seize a shiny blade from the intruder’s hands. I recognize the
man immediately as the abductor who knocked Frances out and hauled her out of
the shack over his shoulder.

Samuel’s fist flies back to sock his
strong-jawed nemesis in the face, but the man is quicker, blocking Samuel’s
punch, then attempting to stab Samuel in the side. Samuel jumps, missing the
knife by only an inch.

A sudden wave of dizziness threatens
to knock me to my knees. I ignore the blood pounding through my ears as I grip
the sides of the chair and wait for my moment.

Samuel’s back muscles tighten as he
blocks another stabbing attempt. Then with a beastly force, Samuel grabs the
man’s wrist and wrenches the blade from his hands.

I hold my breath, waiting for Samuel
to stab the man and end this battle, but instead, the man’s fist meets Samuel’s
abs and he doubles over, stumbling, dropping the knife to the ground.

I feel my feet moving before I am
even aware of what I’m about to do. A fierce instinct rushes through me as I
swing the chair up over my head and bring it down with a heavy crash over the
back of our enemy’s thick head just as he is reaching for the knife.

He lets out a strangled cry as his
hefty legs fold, and he crumbles to his knees. Samuel delivers a swift kick to
the man’s face, and I follow up with another bash to the back of his head,
giving Samuel just enough time to pluck the knife up off the rug.

The last embers of the fire sizzle
beside us as Samuel pins the man to the floor, wrapping his bicep tightly
around the man’s neck and pressing the point of the blade just underneath his
chin.

Samuel nods for me to back away, and
for once I follow his instructions. But I don’t let go of the wooden chair in
my hands. I grip it so tightly that a splinter of wood slices into my palm.

“Who ordered the abduction?” Samuel
growls in French into the man’s ear.

The man only grunts in response, so
Samuel wrenches his neck back to an impossible angle, then presses the pointy
blade deeper into his chin, breaking the skin.

“Tell me who is behind this, or I’ll
kill you right now. I had no problem killing your friend back at the shack,”
Samuel says, showing not a spec of fear while I stand trembling uncontrollably.

The man struggles underneath
Samuel’s firm hold, but he still won’t talk. This time Samuel pushes the blade
deeper, and the man cries out as his blood trickles onto the rug.

Finally, our enemy’s strangled voice
travels through the dark cabin.

“I don’t know her name,” he says. “I
swear, I don’t know her name!”

I think of the pink nursery, of the
girly decorations and hand-knitted baby clothes. I see Isla’s pleading violet
eyes trapped seventy-five years in the future, in the updated version of this
same nursery, and Samuel’s words from earlier rush back to me.

“
This
room is
not
the work of a man.”

And as Samuel twists the blade
deeper into the perpetrator’s neck, grilling him for more information, I realize
that all along, we’ve been severely underestimating the power of the Morel
women
.

December 25,
1937

The French
Alps

The
last embers of the fire flicker out just as a haze of early morning sunlight
streams through the cabin windows, reflecting off the shiny blade Samuel still
holds in his hand. That blade is the
only
thing keeping our tight-lipped attacker in his place. Well—that and Samuel’s
unparalleled brute strength. I am certainly not helping at this point, as my
own putrid fear has me trembling off in the corner, gripping a splintery wooden
chair as my only weapon.

“Où sont Rosie et Frances?” Where
are Rosie and Frances?
Samuel asks for the tenth time as he keeps the burly
man pinned to the floor, twisting his neck and arms backward at painful angles.

The man refuses to respond, once
again prompting Samuel to nick the skin on his neck, even deeper this time. The
trickle of blood dripping onto the dull brown rug turns into a small stream.

The man’s bearded face contorts into
an ugly grimace, but he keeps his lips sealed.

“Tell me where they are!” Samuel’s
voice booms through the cabin.

As his face pales to a sickening
shade of gray, the man finally caves. “Farther up in the mountains, there’s a
castle. The girls are there.” He sucks in an arduous breath. “But it won’t be
long.”

Samuel flicks me a knowing gaze
before digging his knee into the man’s back and tightening his hold. “It won’t
be long until what?”

“Until they’re dead,” the man
replies, gasping for air. “Like
she
was
supposed to be.” He rolls his haunting black eyes up toward me, but he can’t
keep them there for long because Samuel slams the man’s forehead into the
ground, this time pointing the knife into the back of his neck.

The attacker gains a second wind,
writhing beneath Samuel and bucking him off his back. Soon the two men are
rolling around on the rug, ensnared in another violent battle for the knife that
Samuel is holding onto with a death grip.

Panic soars through me as I comb the
room, searching for the guns Samuel brought with us to the cabin. Just as I
spot a shiny black pistol lying on a side table near the fireplace, the men
roll right into one of the legs, knocking the gun to the floor.

The man reaches for the pistol, but
Samuel is quicker. He thrusts the knife into the man’s side as I lunge forward
and grab the gun.

“We’re going to ask you one more time,” I say in French,
forcing my hands to stay steady as I aim the gun at the man who is now doubled
over on the floor, clutching his bleeding side.

“Who do you work for?” I command.

He lifts a fiery gaze to mine. “You
better enjoy your last Christmas. You and your boyfriend will be dead before
sunrise tomorrow.”

This time Samuel sends the knife
deep into the man’s chest, showing no mercy.

The
incessant snowfall that lasted through the night has finally let up as Samuel
and I are preparing to set off on our voyage to find Rosie and Frances. A
bright beam of sunlight peeks through one of the dusty cabin windows, giving us
a clearer picture of the dead man sprawled before us on the living room rug.

Staring at this lifeless, bloody
mass, I feel no remorse as the brutal fight Samuel endured to save both of our
lives replays through my fatigued head. I am certain that if Samuel hadn’t
finished the job,
our
bodies would be
the ones slumped in a pile on the cabin floor. Which would mean that Rosie and
Frances would have no chance of survival…and neither would Isla.

Samuel knew that wasn’t an option,
so he did what he had to do.

Dressed in the heavy wool sweaters,
winter coats, and oversized snow boots we’ve just discovered in one of the
bedroom closets, we give our attacker one last glance before Samuel takes my
hand. “We don’t have much time before they’ll send someone else after us. Are
you ready?”

“As ready as I’m going to be,” I say,
as we turn together and head for the front door.

Besides the guns we are each
carrying—one from 1937 and one from 2012—we are armed only with a hand-drawn
map to the supposed castle where the other two girls are being held, and with
the knowledge that it was a
woman
—a
woman who wants Rosie’s baby and who is expecting that baby to be a girl—who
ordered the abduction.

The grueling finale to our night did
not give us a single moment’s rest, and so here we are, beaten, bruised, and
exhausted, wading through a foot of freshly fallen snow on this freezing
Christmas morning seventy-five years in the past.

Even though the winter air is still
bitterly cold, I notice that the strong winds that howled through these
mountains the night before have died out along with the snowfall. Save for the
sound of our boots crunching over snow and broken branches, the forest is
eerily silent.

Samuel pulls the crumpled map out of
his coat pocket as we attempt to orient ourselves amid the sparkling
winter wonderland that surrounds us.
His fingertips are already turning pink from the cold, the cuts and bruises
splashed across his knuckles looking painfully raw.

“Are you sure you don’t want to wear
the gloves?” I ask as he studies the map.

“I’ll be okay,” he replies. We only managed to find one pair
during our frantic closet ransacking efforts, and Samuel insisted that I wear
them.

Samuel surprises me with a tender kiss
on my good cheek. “After the night we’ve both had, cold hands are the least of
my worries. Let’s find these women.”

Samuel holds the thin piece of paper
up between us, flipping it around a few times. There are two crisscrossed lines
on the bottom of the map, and above them a confusing maze of swirling lines
that connect several small X marks to one larger X that appears to sit between two poorly sketched mountains.

“How are we supposed to decipher this mess?” I ask.

Samuel points to the crisscrossed lines,
then traces his finger up to one of the smaller X marks on the right. “The
lines are the train tracks, so that would put us here. And this,” he says, pausing
and pointing to the larger X, “must be the castle both of the men mentioned.”

“How can you be sure?”

Samuel studies the map for a few
more seconds before lifting his confident gaze to mine. “You’re going to have
to trust me on this, Jill. Can you do that?”

I nod as he takes my hand. “Lead the
way.”

As each strenuous step through the
piles of snowfall takes us—
hopefully
—closer
to the girls we are trying to save, I realize that I do trust Samuel, more than
I’ve ever trusted anyone. But no matter how much I believe in this man who has
saved my life not once, but
twice
over the course of the past twelve hours, I can’t shake the last words of our
most recent attacker.

“You better enjoy your
last Christmas. You and your boyfriend will be dead before sunrise tomorrow.”

A violent shiver runs up the back of
my neck as I push his threat out of my mind and focus on the winding path
ahead.

After a few minutes of walking in
silence, Samuel glances down at the map once more. “If the man who stormed the
cabin was able to take Frances and Rosie to the castle and make it back to us not
long after—and in the dark no less, then the castle can’t be too far from
here.”

“How do we know the men were even
telling the truth about the castle?” I ask as I step over a fallen branch and
sink my clumsy boot into another mound of snow.

“We don’t. But the fact that both of
the men told us the same thing while I was threatening their lives at least
makes our search a little more worthwhile. I’m not surprised they wouldn’t give
up any names though.”

“They did both mention a woman,” I
point out. “The first guy back in the shack said something about things
happening tonight when
she
arrives,
and our most recent friend said he didn’t know
her
name. Plus after seeing that baby nursery with Madeleine’s name
already on the wall, we know there has to be a woman involved.”

Samuel checks our surroundings
before leading me in between two towering, snow-covered pines. “If Henri
Morel’s wife found out that he was having an affair with the British woman from
the train, Frances Chapman, that would give the wife motivation to harm Frances.”

“It wouldn’t be the first time a
woman lost her mind out of jealousy,” I say, thinking of my own mother, of what
she did to Russell Hughes and of what she was willing to do to Isla…all due
to her
own
wretched jealousy. “Henri
Morel’s wife is named Agnès. I saw her painting hanging on the wall in the
Morel Château, next to paintings of the other Morel women, Frédéric’s mother,
Hélène, included.”

“What about Madeleine Morel?” Samuel
asks. “Did she have a place on the wall?”

I shake my head. “I did a little
snooping around and found Madeleine’s painting, along with Isla’s and another
one that was destroyed—which I now know was Rosie—hidden in a storage closet at
the end of the hallway.”

Samuel nods, the lines around his
green eyes creasing as he mulls all of this over.

“What do you know about the Morel
women?” I ask.

“My team was mostly focused on
digging up dirt about Isla’s fiancé, but they did find a few details about his
mother, Hélène. She grew up in one of the worst suburbs of Paris as the only child
of a single mother. They didn’t have much money, but of course that all changed
when she married Laurent Morel, one of the richest men in France. She and
Laurent had a baby girl before they had Frédéric. But…” Samuel trails off, a
look of clarity streaking through his eyes.

“What is it?” I ask.

“The baby died only three days after
Hélène gave birth.”

A sickening feeling seizes my gut as
I see Isla tied up in the 2012 version of that disturbing cabin nursery. Could
Hélène want Isla’s baby?

“Jill, what is it?” Samuel asks,
stopping to look into my eyes. “You’re fading again, just like you did earlier
in the nursery after that baby mobile started spinning. What happened to you
back there? And what’s happening now?”

“This is going to sound crazy…” I trail
off, wondering how I’m going to explain the bizarre filmstrip of scenes from my
sister’s life that played before me, that I was somehow present for…although
not in a
physical
sense.

Samuel gestures to the snow-laden
trees surrounding us. “Jill, we stepped on a train and traveled back in time to
1937 to solve an abduction that is almost identical to your sister’s. Nothing
you could possibly say would sound crazier than what is already happening.”

“Good point,” I admit as we continue
on our hike.

“So tell me what is going on,”
Samuel prods.

“The minute I stepped foot in that nursery back in the cabin,
I felt Isla. I’ve always been able to feel her like this, to know when
something is wrong, when she’s in danger. It’s this intense connection we have—the
same connection that led me home that day when our mother…” Just as I am
wishing away the horrifying memories, Samuel wraps his arm around my shoulders.