Midnight Train to Paris (3 page)

And finally the sound of a little girl whimpering.

It’s the same whimper I heard when we were only thirteen. The day the gunshots stole any last shred of innocence we had left.

Except this time Isla is twenty-eight-years old. A grown woman. Whimpering like a child because someone has taken her.

The line goes dead, but I’ve already died inside.

I drop the phone into the inch of snow that has collected at our feet and barely feel Samuel’s hands as they reach for me.

You’re too late, Jilly. You’re too late.

“Where’s your car?” I ask Samuel, the urgency of Isla’s situation suddenly making it clear what I have to do.

He nods toward a black Escalade parked illegally in front of the building. The windshield is already covered in snow.

I break free of his tight grip on my shoulders, scoop my phone up off the wet ground, and jog toward his car.

“Jillian, I need to listen to that message right now, and then I have to catch my flight to France,” Samuel calls after me. “This is no time to mess around.”

I turn to face him just as I reach the sleek SUV. “I’m not messing around. I’m coming with you to find my sister.”

Samuel shakes his head as snowflakes dust the shoulders of his jet-black suit. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.” He reaches out an open hand, the stern look in his eyes making me want to smack him.

“Give me the phone,” he orders.

“Listen, if you don’t want me to be involved in this case because of our history together, that’s bullshit. This is my sister, Samuel. You know she’s the only family I have.”

“What about your mother?”

I back up against the door of the SUV, narrowing my eyes at him. How in the
hell
does he know about her? “We don’t
have
a mother.”

“Really? Because last I checked she was still serving her life sentence in a Virginia prison. Remember, Jill, I’m an investigator. It’s my job to find out everything I can about the people I’m searching for. You can either help me with that, or you can obstruct my search for your sister and two other innocent women. Now give me the damn phone.”

I look Samuel square in the eye, then unbutton the top of my white blouse and slide the phone into my bra. “I’m not letting you hear Isla’s message until you unlock this car and take me to the airport with you. And then I want you to tell me everything you know about Isla’s supposed fiancé and anything else you know about her life in France.”

“Oh, so
you’re
the investigator now?” he quips, eyeing the opening in my shirt.

“Open the damn car!” I growl.

“Listen, I understand why you want to come. But I know you, Jill. I know how you operate. If I take you over there with me, you’re going to storm in and try to run this investigation, when you don’t have a fucking clue what you’re doing. You didn’t know your sister was engaged for Christ’s sake. And the high-profile family who hired me…well, I don’t think it would be wise for me to show up with the sister they didn’t even know existed until a few hours ago.”

“Screw that family.
I’m
Isla’s family. I clearly know more about my sister and how
she
operates than anyone else does. I’m the one who will be able to lead you to her. I know I can. Just open the car, Samuel.”

“In case you’re forgetting, someone has abducted your sister and two other young women from a train. Whoever is behind this is dangerous, and I can’t have you running around, taking matters into your own hands,” Samuel says. “It’s not safe, and I refuse to waste valuable time making sure you don’t get yourself into trouble. This isn’t a story you’re breaking for
The Daily
, Jill. We’re talking about three innocent lives here.”

When I respond by pushing the phone farther into my bra, Samuel shakes his head at me, frustration seeping through his pores. I don’t care though. I’m not budging.

“I’ll be sending over one of my top investigators this afternoon to question you and get any information that might help us—email correspondence from Isla, information on anyone from your past who may have wanted to hurt your sister—all of it. But right now, I need you to let me listen to that message, then get the hell out of my way so I can catch my flight and find your sister.”

I can see that Samuel isn’t going to change his mind without a fight. I eye his suit jacket, combing my gaze down the front of his firm chest to his pants pockets. I notice a slight bulge in his left pocket, and that’s when I know what I have to do.

Before he can calculate my next move, I grab onto his shoulders and run my fingers up to the back of his hairline, right to the spot at the nape of his neck that used to drive him wild. Then I tip my chin, trying
not
to inhale his intoxicating scent, and press my lips against his.

Snowflakes cover our faces as I brush my lips over Samuel’s once, then twice more. I ignore the familiar way he tastes, the heat pulsing through my veins.

By the third kiss, I have what I came in for.

The keys.

I pull away from him, hit the unlock button and run around the front of the car, climbing into the driver’s side.

Samuel stands on the sidewalk, his feet planted to the ground, his green eyes glaring at me through the snow. He doesn’t run toward me, demanding that I get out of the car. Instead he climbs into the passenger side, runs his hand through his light brown hair, and shakes his head at me as I turn the key in the ignition and press on the gas.

“You haven’t changed a bit, Jillian Chambord. Not one bit.”

I speed down Constitution Avenue, thankful for the lack of cars on the street and for the Escalade’s ability to plow right over the snow.

Samuel’s hand suddenly plunges down my shirt.

“Hey!” I say, but he’s already retrieved what
he
went in for—my phone.

“Two can play at this game, Jill,” he says. His comfortable use of
Jill
momentarily makes me lose focus. He’s the only one who’s ever called me by that name.

“What’s your voicemail password?” he asks.

“1937,” I tell him as I speed right through a red light.

“We’re not immune to the law. You might want to be a little more careful,” he says, punching in my code.

“We don’t have time for careful,” I quip. “We’re going to Dulles Airport I assume?”

Samuel shakes his head. “No, Reagan.”

“But, there aren’t any international flights out of Reagan.”

Samuel holds a finger up to shush me while he listens to Isla’s message. He turns the volume up to full blast on the phone, and listens intently. My grip on the steering wheel tightens, my knuckles turning white as I try to block out the sound of her voice traveling through the car.

What was Isla doing on that train?

I gaze over at Samuel as he hangs up the phone. The look in his eyes is determined, strong, hopeful. “This call came in at 6:37
P.M.
yesterday, which would’ve been 12:37
A.M.
France time. This confirms that the time of abduction was most likely during the stop they made in the Alps for mechanical problems. This is big, Jillian. This will help us narrow down our ground search.”

Samuel pulls out his phone and begins texting while I focus on the snowy road ahead, swallowing the fear that consumes me at the words
abduction
and
ground search
. How can this be happening to my sister? Why haven’t I paid more attention to what was going on in her life recently? What if I could’ve saved her somehow?

I’ve been so consumed with breaking the Senator Williams story that I…

God, when will I stop lying to myself?

The truth is that most days, it’s easier
not
to talk to my twin sister. It’s easier not to remember what happened to us and what ultimately tore us apart.

I know Isla feels the same. Which is why I rarely hear from her anymore.

So why did she call me so many times this week? What was she trying to tell me?

A warm hand lands on my shoulder, breaking up my incessant string of worries. “Jillian, your passport. Do you need to stop by your apartment in Rosslyn to pick it up?”

“How do you know I still live in Rosslyn?” I ask.

He sighs. “Jill, just answer the question.”

“I have it in my purse. I always carry my passport with me, just in case.”

I decide to stop at the next red light, but I don’t look at Samuel. I don’t want to see the inquisitive, confused expression that I already know has splashed across his handsome face. It’s the way he always used to look at me…back when he would ask me questions I couldn’t answer. Questions I chose
not
to answer.

The light turns green, and I floor the gas. “Why are we going to Reagan? Are any planes even going to be taking off in this weather?”

“The Morel family—the family your sister was going to marry into—has arranged for a private jet. And yes, that plane will be taking off no matter what. I’ll be sure of it.”

“A private jet? Are you kidding me? Who
are
these people?”

“The Morels are essentially the French equivalents of the Trumps, except that they come from old money. They own a ton of real estate in Paris and all over France, and they have strong political ties too.”

“I see…but I’m still not sure whether I understand why they would go to so much trouble to hire you to find my sister when you’re not even going to be in France for the first twenty-four hours of the search. Isn’t this a huge waste of time?”

“The agency I work for is the best in the world, Jill. It’s made up of people like me—former special agents who’ve decided to dedicate their lives to finding missing persons. We’ve given up everything—our homes, personal lives,
everything
—to find these people.”

I think about Samuel’s wife, Karine, and the coverage my paper did on her abduction and her gruesome murder, and I immediately understand. Samuel is the type of person who wouldn’t be able to sleep at night if he knew that what happened to Karine was happening to other women.

“My two partners who are over there right now are both former CIA as well. They’ve already put a team together to question the other passengers on the train and the Morels. And I just gave the search team a green light, so trust me, no one is wasting any time.”

“Fine. But why is this family pulling out all the stops to get
you
over there, Samuel? Why are you one of the leads on this case?” I swerve the car around the traffic circle, the Lincoln Memorial towering to our left, its normally crowded set of stairs completely void of tourists on this harsh winter day.

“In the three years that I’ve worked for the agency, I’ve had the highest success rate at finding victims. I’ve given my life to this career, Jillian. To finding people like your sister. When I got the call this morning about this case and heard the names of the three women who’d disappeared, I knew I had to take this one.”

“Because of me,” I say softly.

Samuel nods, the silence of our past together weighing us both down.

I charge over the Arlington Memorial Bridge, the icy Potomac River stretching underneath us. I wonder what it would feel like to jump in the water right now. To be swallowed up into the unbearable freeze. I think of Isla freezing in the snow, lost in the mountains, and for the first time since he stormed into Natalie’s office only an hour ago, I am glad it’s Samuel here by my side. I’m glad it’s Samuel who will be leading the search for my sister.

I won’t, in a million years, admit this thought to him though.

“So who are the other two girls that have gone missing?” I ask. “Are they connected to Isla in any way?”

“The three girls all boarded the train from different stops, so it
appears
as if they were chosen at random, but there is a connection we’re investigating.”

“What is it?” I swerve left onto George Washington Parkway as the windshield wipers bat at the heavy sheets of snow falling from the sky.

“Before I tell you this, you have to promise me you aren’t going to leak this back to your editor at
The Daily
,” Samuel says, his voice cold. “We’re trying to keep the story under wraps to buy us more time to find the girls. Press coverage may tip off whoever is behind this and compromise our search.” He pauses and looks away from me. “I’ve seen it happen before.”

“I would never do anything to compromise the search,” I say. “And in case this is what you’re insinuating, I had nothing to do with the coverage of your wife’s story. I would never have—”

“She’s dead,” Samuel’s voice booms through the heated car. “It doesn’t matter how those fucking vultures got ahold of the story. Karine is gone.”

I zoom down the parkway, letting those words resonate in the air between us. Karine is already gone. I can’t let that happen to Isla too.

“I
won’t
do anything to mess this up, Samuel,” I say. “You have to trust me. Now please tell me the names of the two other girls. Maybe Isla’s mentioned them at some point. Maybe I can help.”

Samuel types something into his phone and holds up the screen for me to see.

A photo of a young woman with curly brown hair and huge baby-blue eyes stares back at me. “Emma Brooks,” he says. “Recognize the name?”

I shake my head. “Sounds vaguely familiar, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard that name from Isla.”

“She’s the nineteen-year-old daughter of the U.S. ambassador to France, George Brooks.”

“Holy shit.”

“Which means we only have a day or two tops before every news station in France
and
the U.S. is covering the story.”

“A day or two if you’re lucky,” I say. “An ambassador’s daughter was abducted from a train in the Alps. I’m sure Brooks and his family will want to go public with this soon.”