Midnight Train to Paris (20 page)

I look Agnès straight in the eye and shoot my
hand up to hers, stopping her from pushing the knife any farther into my
already broken skin.

A visceral cry sounds from my lips as I wrench the blade
from her cold, decrepit hands, lift the dagger and thrust it deep into her nonexistent
heart.

She crumples to the ground, her thick black
dress swallowing up her frail, limp body.

Breath and adrenaline course through me as one
final gust of wind swoops through the frosty nursery, slamming the windows
closed at my back. The baby mobiles finally cease spinning, their dreadful tune
dying out with the wind. I turn toward Rosie, who is awake and—
thankfully
—alive,
but my eyes lock instead on a man who is collapsed and bleeding in the doorway.

Samuel.

The dagger spills from my hands, landing on the marble floor
with a clatter as I run to Samuel’s side. He is slumped against the door frame,
lying in a pool of his own crimson blood.

Air is no longer passing through his lips, and his chest is
still.

“Samuel! Samuel, come back,” I beg, shaking his
shoulders and checking his neck for a pulse. My hands are shaking too much
though, my fingers smeared with blood, tears clouding my vision.

“Samuel!” I scream into the icy nursery. “Don’t
leave me. Please, don’t leave me.”

Sobs rack my body as I collapse against the man
I have always loved, the man I will never stop loving.

The man who saved me from my own wretched lies.

“Please, no. Samuel, please.” In the slippery blood,
through my frantic tears, I fumble, searching for his strong hands. I weave my
fingers into his and pull him to me. “I’m so sorry, Samuel. I’m so sorry.”

The slightest hint of warm air brushes past my
ear as a spark ignites on my left ring finger. I barely feel any of it though.
I just want him back. I would do anything to have him back.

“I love you, Samuel,” I whisper. “Since the day we first
met, I’ve never stopped loving you.”

The spark grows in intensity, until it feels as
if our hands are melding together, becoming one. And as another puff of warm
air blows against my cheek, I lift my head to find Samuel’s striking emerald
eyes blinking back at me.

“Samuel? Oh my God, Samuel, you’re back!” I
shower his gorgeous face with kisses, pulling him to me. He squeezes my hands
even tighter, sucking deep breaths into his lungs.

The electricity swirling around our hands dies
down, but the spark blazing in Samuel’s eyes is as alive as ever.

“I will never leave you, Jill,” he says.
“Never.”

December 31, 1937

Lausanne, Switzerland

A loud train whistle blasts off in the distance, and within
minutes, the glossy blue carriages of the Orient Express come into focus. As
the vintage train barrels over the snow and chugs to a stop in the bustling
Swiss train station, a gloved hand squeezes my forearm.

“I can’t believe I’m actually going to see
Jacques in only a few hours.” Rosie Delaney’s sapphire eyes twinkle in the
early morning sunlight as her other dainty white glove runs over her tiny
belly. “Jillian, you saved my life…and my baby’s. You’re an angel from
heaven. How will I ever repay you and your husband?”

I take Rosie’s hand in mine and smile warmly at
this young, sweet girl who has been given a second chance…and who has no idea
that she is about to change the course of history.

“My only wish for you, Rosie, is that you live a life filled
with love and happiness,” I tell her.

She pulls me into a tight embrace, and just as I
am wiping my own tear from my eye, Samuel’s deep voice sounds behind us.

“Paris is waiting, ladies.”

“And so is the love of your life,” I say to
Rosie with a wink.

Dressed in a spiffy, gold-trimmed, royal-blue
uniform, the conductor steps onto the platform and tips his hat to us.

“
Mademoiselle Delaney
,” he says, taking
Rosie’s white-gloved hand.

Then he smiles at Samuel and me. “
Monsieur et Madame
Kelly,
the entire Orient Express staff would like to convey our sincerest
apologies for what has happened to all of you,” he says in French. “We have
arranged a special, private carriage for you today, including a gourmet lunch
prepared by our most famous chef. And before you deboard in Paris this
afternoon, I will be providing all three of you with a lifetime pass to ride
the Orient Express anytime, to any destination you wish.”

His offer is generous, but if it’s up to me,
this will be the
last
Orient Express ride I ever take. Still, we all
smile kindly at the conductor as he motions for us to follow him aboard.

Inside the elegant, warm carriages of the
Orient Express train that will
finally
transport the three of us to
Paris, the conductor leads us down the corridor, then stops to gesture inside
the sleeping compartment to his left. “
Mademoiselle Delaney
, I believe
this red
valise
belongs to you,” he says.

Rosie cannot contain her excitement as she
shoots up on her tip-toes and pecks the conductor on the cheek.
“Merci,
Monsieur. Merci!”
she squeals, rushing past him and popping open the
old-fashioned suitcase.

As the conductor leads Samuel farther down the
hall to our own private compartment, I linger outside Rosie’s doorway, watching
as she removes a tattered shoe box from her luggage. Inside are stacks of
letters—love letters from Jacques, my grandfather.

Tears stream down Rosie’s cheeks as she clutches
his words tightly to her chest. I watch her joy, her hope, her love spill onto
Jacques’ letters, and I too am gripped with a mixture of overwhelming emotions
as I recall the events of the past week.

After our horrifying Alpine castle ordeal, Agnès’s body was
taken away, and sadly, so was Frances Chapman’s. The thought of Frances’s
blood-stained blond hair dangling from the stretcher as the paramedics walked
her body out of that freezing, wretched nursery still makes me shudder. I am
consumed with guilt that we didn’t arrive in time to save her from Agnès’s
rage. At the same time, I am beyond grateful that we
did
arrive in time
to save Rosie and her unborn children.

Rosie and Samuel each spent four days in the Lausanne
hospital, recovering from their wounds—which, according to the doctors, healed
miraculously fast.
Especially
Samuel’s. The physicians on staff told me
that between the gunshot wound Samuel suffered outside the castle and the knife
wound he took from the giant guard who chased us down the candlelit hallway,
he’d lost enough blood to have died twice. There was no medical explanation as
to how he had survived.

Gazing down at the sparkling emerald that is still molded
tightly to my left ring finger, I remember the sparks that ignited when I laced
my hand with Samuel’s right at the moment that I believed I’d lost him. I
remember the breath that filled his lungs seconds after this ring touched his
skin.

There isn’t a medical explanation for Samuel’s survival, but
I know that somehow this ring—or the power behind it—played a part in saving
his life.

I only wish I knew if I had saved Isla’s.

After leaving my sister’s side to travel back to the past
one final time and kill Agnès Morel, the flashes and visions that had taken me
to Isla came to a dead halt. And now, that invisible connection we’ve shared
since the day we were born feels weaker than ever.

Dread pools in my stomach as I wonder where she is and why I
cannot feel her presence any longer.

As I stand in Rosie’s doorway and watch her pour over
Jacques’s sweet love letters, my only comfort lies in the fact that in driving
that dagger through Agnès’s heart, I have ended the original seed of evil that
began this entire mess. And now, in this mysterious loophole of time and space
we have jumped through, we are on our way to right a wrong that happened so
long ago.

I have no idea what will happen in the future or what will
become of Samuel and me, who are still trapped in 1937…or what will
happen
to my lovely, sweet sister.

All I
do
know is that the new version of the past is
happening
right
now
, right in front of my eyes…and this is what
I must focus on if I don’t want to drive myself insane with worry.

I give Rosie privacy with Jacques’s letters,
knowing she will probably spend the train ride to Paris reading through each
and every one of them, preparing to see the man she thought she would never
live to see again…and preparing to tell him that she is carrying his child—or
as only Samuel and I know, his
children.

I reach our private compartment and find Samuel
gazing out at the charming Swiss town that passes by the steamy
train window. As I rest my head on his shoulder, I know that no matter what
happens in the future, we are doing the right thing. Rosie deserves to live;
her children deserve to know their mother; and my Grandpa Jacques, who I am
about to meet for the very first time, deserves to spend his life with the
woman he loves.

“That two hour gourmet lunch we just had may have changed my
mind about refusing the lifetime Orient Express pass,” I say to Samuel as we
settle into our private compartment for the remainder of our voyage to Paris.

He laughs as he pulls me onto the plush sofa bed
beside him. “That was the best meal of my life,” he says. “But not because of
the food.”

I raise a curious brow. “What do you mean?”

“It was the best meal of my life because I got
to share it with you.” Samuel leans in, brushing his lips over my forehead.
“I’m just so glad you’re okay, Jill. That
we’re
okay. Only a week ago, I
nearly lost you.”

I run my finger along his strong jaw line and
gaze into those gorgeous green eyes of his. “And I nearly lost you.”

Taking my hand in his, Samuel peers down at the
sparkling emerald ring still fitted tightly on my ring finger. As he runs his
thumb over the finely cut stone, a spark ignites underneath my skin.

By the shocked expression that passes over his
face, I know he feels it too. We both know that this ring had something to do
with landing us in the past
and
with saving Samuel’s life.

And the even crazier part is that every time
I’ve tried to take it off, it
still
won’t budge.

“Have you had any more of your visions?” Samuel asks. “Of
Isla?”

I shake my head, not wanting to admit how helpless I feel,
not knowing where she is or what has happened to her.

“No, nothing,” I say finally. “I keep replaying the last
time I saw her over and over in my head, hoping it will help me see what
happened after I left her there with that crazy woman charging at her with the
knife…but there’s nothing. And what’s even scarier is that the stories of our
past, of our childhood…when I try to remember them, they’re fuzzy.”

“What do you mean?” he asks.

“Fuzzy as in I can’t remember everything, not clearly
anyway. The stories I told you about my mom, about the senator, and about Isla…
they feel like they’re fading. My entire childhood with Isla, it feels like
it’s slipping through my fingers.”

Samuel runs his hands up my arms and gives my shoulders a
squeeze. “I’m sure it’s just all the stress we’ve been under. And besides, most
of those memories are traumatizing, Jill. It’s not a bad thing to stop thinking
about them…or to let them go altogether.”

“No, you don’t understand. It’s beginning to feel as if none
of it ever happened. Which, if we’re honest about what’s going on here, could
actually be the case. Think about it, Samuel. We’re in 1937, literally
rewriting
the past. I killed Agnès Morel
before
Hélène was even born, which means
that even if Hélène
does
marry into the Morel family in the future,
Agnès will never have the chance to pass on her sick jewels of wisdom or the
keys to that vile castle. So while I’m sure Hélène will still be a
power-hungry, baby-crazed lunatic, it’s not at all likely that she’ll commit
the same abduction crime in 2012.”

“True,” Samuel says. “And with what we’re about to
do—reuniting Rosie and Jacques—Isla may never cross paths with Hélène Morel
anyway.”

“Isla may never cross paths with Hélène or
any
of the
Morels because Isla may never even exist,” I reply, swallowing the knot in my
throat. “In giving Jacques the chance he never had the
first
time around
to pick Rosie up at this Paris train station and to be the father he was always
meant to be to their children, we’re changing everything. Because he’ll be with
Rosie now, it’s not likely that he’ll wander into that Parisian brothel, which
is where he met—and impregnated—my grandmother. Which means that my mother,
Céline, would never be born. Considering the atrocious person she was, that
isn’t such a bad thing…except when you think about what that means for both
Isla and me.” I glance past Samuel out at the wintry French countryside passing
slowly by the window and feel an immeasurable sorrow take hold in me.

“I know we accomplished what we were sent back here to do,”
I say through the stream of tears that have begun pouring down my cheeks. “But
what if none of it mattered? What if I’ve lost Isla anyway?”

Samuel pulls me into his chest, running his strong hands
down my hair and over my back. “You can’t think like that, Jill. We have to
believe that the
new
way things will play out from here will somehow
mean a better
future for all of us. Saving Rosie’s life and taking her
to Jacques
is
the right thing to do. We don’t know what will happen
beyond today…or really, what will happen beyond this moment.” Samuel places a
finger under my chin and lifts my face to his, wiping the tears from my cheeks.
“All I do know is that through this crazy experience, you came back into my
life. And whether we’re in 1937 or 2012, I don’t want to live another day
without you.”