Midnight Train to Paris (8 page)

The Lausanne train station lights up the dark night sky, its glowing white clock reading 10:47
p.m.
Samuel’s train should be arriving any minute.

All of Samuel’s instructions went according to plan: the thirty-minute ferry ride, the car waiting for me right as I debarked, and a smooth, albeit snowy, ride to the Lausanne train station…the same station where Isla was last seen boarding a train only two nights ago.

I wait silently in the back of the heated car, and despite Georges’s massive winter coat that hangs on me, I am still shivering, my dazed head trying to make sense out of everything that has happened so far. The chauffeur’s mysterious words repeat again and again in my confused mind.

Did Georges mean to imply that the Morels aren’t necessarily behind Isla’s disappearance even though it seems blatantly obvious that they are? How does he know anything about them though? And he couldn’t possibly know about Senator Williams or his connection to Isla, could he?

Who
is
Georges the driver anyway? And what does he know about the Morels, about my sister, and about me?

Before I can get too lost in thought, my new driver—one of Samuel’s fellow investigators—rustles around in the front seat.

“Fuck,” he mutters under his breath, checking the rear view mirror.

“What is it? Is something wrong?” I ask.

“It looks like we have company.”

“What? But how is that possible?”

“No disrespect Miss Chambord, but you have no idea who you’re dealing with here. Stay low, and whatever happens, don’t get out of this car.” He pulls the car away from the curb and takes off down the road.

“But Samuel will be here any minute. We can’t leave him,” I say, scrunching down in the backseat.

“We have to move. We don’t have a choice. Whoever wants to find you is not going to play nice.” The investigator checks his rear-view mirror once more, then swerves around an empty traffic circle.

I search around me for a seat belt, but I’m too late. Someone smashes into us from behind, propelling our car forward over an icy patch of snow. We fishtail around until we’re facing the opposite direction.

Headlights blast straight for us. I don’t even have time to flinch. The second blow is so hard, my head whips back, bouncing violently against the headrest.

Just as I’m blinking my eyes open and registering the pain shooting through my neck, the driver reaches his hand into the back seat, slipping me a black nine-millimeter.

“Do you know how to use one of these?” he asks, pulling another pistol from inside his coat.

I rip off my over-sized gloves and wrap my hands around the gun. “Yes, I do,” I say. I’ve had to use one before, in the most unimaginable of circumstances, but I push those memories aside. I have no problem shooting a gun again if I have to. Especially if it means saving my own life so I can reach Isla
before
she loses hers.

“Good,” he says, rolling down his window. Without hesitation, he takes aim and shoots.

The deafening sound of shattering glass pierces my ear drums, and before I realize what has just happened, I see scarlet red drops splattering all over the driver’s pale hands, oozing down over the curve of the steering wheel, and rolling down his fallen head.

Samuel’s colleague—the man who was supposed to keep me safe until Samuel arrives—isn’t moving.

I resist the urge to scream and instead focus on the adrenaline soaring through my veins, drowning out the fear that threatens to paralyze me.

Samuel’s colleague has been shot in the head. He’s dead, and if I don’t get the hell away from this car, I will be too.

Gripping the gun tightly in my hands, I notice that for once, I’m not trembling. I crack open the car door, duck down as low as I can, and slip out into the snowy night. Skidding around to the back of the car, I peek up just slightly to see if I can make out the shooter. I don’t see anyone coming for me, which gives me hope that the shot Samuel’s colleague fired just before he was killed may have actually hit the bastard who was coming for me.

A bitter gust of wind slams into me as snow sparkles in the blinding headlight war ahead. The street is eerily silent, but I am poised, ready to shoot at the slightest noise.

Suddenly the sound of boots crunching over snow makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. I crouch against the back of the car, watching the white puffs of breath that form at my lips as I wait for the steps to get a little closer.

I peek around the car and spot a patch of crimson snow. But it’s not Samuel’s colleague’s blood that’s pooling on the ground. It belongs to the man who is stumbling along the side of the car, searching for me as blood drains from the wound in his chest.

I don’t recognize the man’s cold, hard face, his thin lips twisted in anguish. I imagine this killer, who is dressed in black from head to toe, is just a pawn in the Williams-Morel cover-up of whatever has happened to my sister. A hit man who has been hired to take me down and who will probably earn a nice sum of cash when he delivers.

But that isn’t going to happen.

I slide up from my crouched position behind the car, aim for his knee, and just as my perpetrator fumbles to lift his gun, I shoot.

He collapses into the bloodstained snow with a groan, and I take off toward the train station, envisioning Isla’s violet eyes as I run.

The inside of the Lausanne train station is mostly deserted on this harsh winter night. I imagine families curled up in front of crackling fireplaces, watching Christmas lights twinkle as they sip warm mugs of
chocolat chaud
, and prepare for Christmas Day festivities.

But this winter wonderland Swiss town is not so charming tonight as I shiver alone in a dark corner of the train station, staring at the arrivals and departures screen. I note that only two trains are passing through Lausanne in this last half an hour before the clock strikes midnight. One of them is a Venice Simplon-Orient-Express train—the same luxury train that Isla boarded from this exact train station only two nights ago. The other must be Samuel’s.

I head to the platform where both trains will be crossing through on opposite tracks, keeping one eye over my shoulder the whole time to make sure no one is following me.

Sirens shoot through the night just as I reach the platform. The Swiss police are about to discover the carnage waiting for them in the traffic circle just down the road from the station, but hopefully Samuel will arrive before they discover me too.

The pistol weighs heavily inside the large black coat I’m still wearing, and my frozen fingertips are ready to pull for it should the need arise.

I gaze through the blanket of snow that swirls above my head, dusting the round, glowing clock hanging above the platform. The ticking grates at my nerves, but I try to stay calm and be patient.

Round, fluffy snowflakes flitter down from the black sky, covering the tracks, inch by inch. The distant sound of a train whistle blowing sends hope into this frozen body of mine. But just as I’m peering down the tracks, glimpsing the first sign of light through the sheets of snow, a soft female voice travels through the night.

“Jillian.”

My heart pounds as I flip around and find an older woman standing before me, her shoulder-length, silvery white hair glistening in the glowing halo of snow that twirls around her.

“My name is Madeleine Morel. I’m Frédéric’s aunt and Laurent’s sister.” The woman’s sapphire eyes smile warmly at me underneath thick black lashes, the graceful lines of age on her soft pink skin revealing experience, knowledge.

Madeleine Morel
—the beautiful older woman in the portrait that I’d discovered hiding in the Morels’ storage closet.

“I’m sorry if I startled you, but I have something urgent you need to see. Something that will help you find Isla,” she says.

“How did you find me here?” I ask.

“Georges, the chauffeur who dropped you off at the police station, is my twin brother.”

Suddenly that silvery gleam in her pretty blue eyes rings a bell. Georges boasted those same intriguing eyes. And the same warm demeanor.

Something isn’t adding up though.

“I read the plaque on the Morels’ wall,” I tell her. “It said you only had one brother, Laurent.”

“It is a long story, some of which I’m about to tell you right now.” She peeks warily over her shoulder. “But we don’t have much time.”

In her hands, Madeleine’s carrying an old, tattered shoe box. She lifts the lid to show me the contents. Inside are stacks of old letters along with a few black-and-white photographs.

The train whistle blows again, but the train is still a ways down the tracks as Madeline plucks the top letter from the stack, opens it up, and hands it to me.

I hold the crinkled paper underneath the dim glow of the lamp overhead. Faded French words line the yellowed page, and before I know it, I am transported to another time.

1 décembre 1937

My dearest Rosie,

The days are long and cold without you. But my love for you will never run cold. It is as warm and alive as the sun beating down on the hot coals on a blazing summer day.

As I sit in the barracks, counting the days until my exit from the army, I envision you on that very first day. The day you swooped into my life without warning, an angel with curly brown hair and a dimple that drives me wild every time I see it.

You were wearing that sky-blue dress, the one that brings out the sapphire color in your eyes. All it took was one sweet smile from you, and I was yours. I always will be.

I’ll be waiting for you at the train station in Paris on Christmas morning, mon amour. Nothing in the world could stop me from being there to kiss you when you step off that train. It will be the best day of my life…the day I can finally call you my own.

I love you, Rosie Delaney.

Yours, always and forever,

Jacques

Before I can mutter a single word, Madeleine hands me an old photograph. I aim the picture away from the shadows and squint to make out the face of the young man in the photo.

“Turn it over,” Madeleine instructs.

When I do, the words staring back at me suddenly make me realize that my ties to this old love story run so much deeper than I ever could’ve imagined.

Jacques Chambord, 1937.

“But Jacques Chambord is…
was
my grandfather,” I say incredulously. “He was my mother’s dad, but I never met him. He died before I was born. And Rosie Delaney—she’s the girl that went missing in 1937, abducted from the Orient Express train, just like my sister.”

Madeleine nods. “Yes, your grandfather Jacques was at the train station that morning, as promised, but Rosie never stepped off the train.”

“Just like Isla and Christophe,” I whisper. “How did you get these letters? Did you know my grandfather?”

“When Rosie stepped on the train from this very station just before midnight, she chose to leave everything behind. Her family, her fiancé, her riches, everything. All to be with the one man she truly loved. The man she would’ve married, the man who was the father of the twins she was carrying.”

“Are you saying…?”

“Yes, Jillian. Rosie and Jacques were my and Georges’s parents. Only we never got to meet them. We were taken from our mother shortly after we were born. I was raised within the Morel family, told I was one of them, and Georges was given up for adoption. But I always knew I was different. I always knew they were hiding something. And just last year, I met Georges for the first time, and the puzzle pieces started falling into place.”

“What are you saying? That the Morels kidnapped you and Georges from Rosie? Do you know what happened to her? Who took her and who killed the other two women from that train?”

The train whistle blows a third time as it nears us, its wheels barreling over the snow-covered tracks. Madeleine shoots a glance at the glossy carriages that are quickly approaching, at the steam billowing into the night sky.

She grabs my wrist, her white gloves warm against my frosty skin, then lowers her voice. “I have to go now. They’re watching us, Jillian. You need to get on that Orient Express train tonight. The train will lead you to Isla. And the contents of this box will tell you everything else you need to know.”

Madeleine pulls two tickets out of the pocket of her navy-blue pea coat.

“Take these. You’ll need them to ride the train. And don’t stop until you find them. Do you understand me? Don’t give up.”

“I don’t understand. What are you talking about, Madeleine? Who’s watching us? Do you know who took Rosie? Are Frédéric and Senator Williams behind Isla’s disappearance?”

The shiny blue Venice Simplon-Orient-Express train pulls into the station beside us as Madeleine lowers her face to my ear. “It’s more complicated than that, but there isn’t enough time to explain. It is up to you to save them
both
, Jillian. This is in your hands now.”

She fits the lid firmly over the shoe box, gives me one last mysterious nod, then walks swiftly down the platform until the snowfall wipes her silhouette from my vision.