Midnight Train to Paris (5 page)

Hope courses through my body as I watch Samuel’s broad shoulders, his tight jaw, his dark five o’clock shadow. He is a man on a mission, a man who will stop at nothing to find what he’s looking for
.
And he won’t let anyone, even the wealthy Morel family, get in his way.

I realize that in the six years since I’d last seen Samuel, since that wintry day when I left him, I’ve never met another man quite like him.

And in this moment, as he refuses to break his stance, I am certain I never will.

“I
will not
sit here and do nothing while some monster has taken the woman I love,” Frédéric says. “Now ask me your questions, then get the hell out of here and find her.”

Frédéric’s mother wipes a tear from her eye, then places a shaky hand on her son’s shoulder. “Don’t make this worse than it already is,
chéri
. We hired Monsieur Kelly to help us, and that’s what he’s trying to do. Now, sit down.”

Samuel and I sit opposite Frédéric and Hélène, where we can see the icy blue waters of Lake Geneva sparkling just outside the massive windows to our left. I can’t believe Isla was staying at this unbelievable estate. Besides the fact that her French fiancé seems to be a bit of a spoiled brat—handsome, but spoiled all the same—what on earth would’ve possessed her to leave?

“I’m going to ask the questions in English so that we can all understand,” Samuel says before taking out his notepad and pen.

Samuel must be forgetting that I speak French too. I almost correct him, but then I remember that Isla obviously never told the Morels that her mother was of French origin. And I wasn’t about to explain the morbid story of our past to these strangers.

“The night of Isla’s disappearance, you held the annual Morel Holiday Gala at this property, correct?” Samuel asks Frédéric and his mother, who is looking more distraught by the second.

“That’s correct.” By the obstinate look on Frédéric’s chiseled face, I can tell he isn’t used to answering other people’s questions…and I can also tell he doesn’t like it one bit.

“How long has this party been a tradition in your family?” Samuel asks.

“What does that have to do with anything?” Frédéric snaps.

Hélène places a jewel-studded hand on her son’s thigh, then answers the question, her voice quivering all the while. “The Morel family has been holding this holiday celebration for over seventy-five years now, at this exact same residence. Some of the most famous dignitaries, politicians, and businessmen in history have been in attendance. It’s quite the event, Detective.”

“I see,” Samuel notes. “Before the party, did Isla mention to either of you or to any other guests, her plans to take the Orient Express train overnight to Paris?”

Frédéric’s face grows somber. “No, she didn’t.”

“I understand you proposed to Isla during the party,” Samuel says. “How did she react?”

“Well, of course she said yes,” Frédéric huffs.

“Yes, we know she accepted your proposal, Monsieur Morel, but how did she react? Did she seem genuinely happy?”

“What kind of a question is that?” Frédéric says, scrunching his forehead. “Isla and I were in love. Of course she was happy with my proposal.”

Frédéric’s flagrant show of confidence is maddening. I want to slap him across his smug face. For the past several years that Isla has been traveling around Europe, she has always gone for those rich, conceited, stuffy types. Unfortunately, I never could cure her of that problem.

“I don’t mean any disrespect, Monsieur Morel,” Samuel continues, “but it’s no secret that Isla was hiding something from you. Something that would make her decide to slip out of this party without telling a soul, take the last ferry all the way across Lake Geneva into Switzerland, and climb on a midnight train to Paris. Do you have any idea,
any idea at all
, what Isla was hiding from you and your family?”

“Why don’t you ask
her
?” Frédéric says bitingly, pointing at me.

I try to hold my tongue so Samuel can do his job, but the arrogant, entitled look on this French guy’s perfect little face has crawled underneath my skin, and I can’t take it anymore. “My
name
is Jillian,” I say, louder than I intend to. “And
I
am Isla’s family. I understand your shock at finding out about me, but until twenty-four hours ago, I had never heard your name out of her mouth either. Isla was clearly keeping secrets from all of us, so get over your hurt ego and answer the damn question.”

Frédéric lifts his angry glare from me and shoots his gaze back at Samuel. “I had no idea Isla was planning to leave the party. I had no idea she was hiding anything. She was happy here with me, with
my
family.”

“Something made her leave without telling you, and I’m guessing it wasn’t because she was happy here,” Samuel pushes.

Frédéric stands, then pounds his fist on the coffee table, a grown man with the temper of a two-year-old. “If you want proof, you can watch the video from the gala. I’ve never seen a woman who looked happier or more beautiful than Isla did that night.”

Hélène stands abruptly and places a hand on her son’s shoulder, her diamond bracelet sparkling in the late afternoon sunlight. “I don’t believe we’ve received the video yet,” she says coolly. “Are we finished here, Detective? This has been a difficult two days for us all, and my son could use some rest.”

“No, Madame Morel, I’m not quite finished.” Samuel stands to his feet, his six-foot-two frame towering over both Hélène and her son. “When my colleague requested the video from the party, you specifically told him that you didn’t have one made this year.”

Hélène flares her nostrils just the slightest bit, then switches into French. “I don’t believe so, Detective. That must be a mistake on your colleague’s part. You’re welcome to see the video when we receive it. It usually takes about a week or two to arrive, but hopefully you will have found Isla by then.”

“The name of the videographer?” Samuel asks.

“I don’t handle those sorts of details, Detective. We have an event planner, of course.”

“The name of the event planner then?” Samuel asks.

“You’ll find her name and title on the guest list I’ve already provided to your agency. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to be on my way. Before you arrived, I found out that my sister is quite ill. I have to take the train up to Paris immediately to be with her.”

Then the matriarch of the family turns to me, placing a chilly hand on my arm. “I’m sure you understand how it is with sisters. It’s a bond you can’t break, no matter what happens. I am curious, though, as to why Isla never mentioned you. We were so close…Isla and me. She was like the daughter I never had. She was really a part of our family, and if something were to happen to her, I…well I just don’t know what we’ll do.”

A stab of jealousy hits me as I watch this frail older woman, whom I’d never heard of before today, shed tears over my sister.

The daughter she never had.

Our own mother never even treated us like daughters…had Isla found a new mother in Hélène? Had she really decided to be finished with her traveling lifestyle, her escapades of dating one rich, handsome man after the next, so that she could settle down with this absurdly wealthy family?

It’s not like I could blame her. The life Frédéric and his family could give Isla is certainly a far cry from the nightmare of an existence we’d known as children.

But then why didn’t she tell me about her new plans?

And more importantly, why did she leave?

“Madame Morel and Frédéric,” Samuel speaks up. “I do have one more important question for you both.”

Hélène raises one of her pencil-lined eyebrows and purses her full lips. “
Oui
?”

“You said your family has been holding its annual holiday gala at
this
property for over seventy-five years now. Are you aware that a crime of this exact nature occurred in 1937, exactly seventy-five years ago? Three young women were abducted from an Orient Express train passing through Lausanne en route to Paris, right around Christmas.”

Hélène shoots her hand up to the shiny pearl necklace adorning her neck as her skin turns from light pink to a sickening shade of gray. “What are you saying? That someone is repeating the same crime seventy-five years later? But that’s absurd!”

“We can’t rule anything out at this point, Madame Morel. If there’s even a slight chance that studying this past crime could lead us to Isla, then it’s a lead we must explore.”

Frédéric nods his head in agreement. “He’s right, Mother. This could tell us something valuable. What more do you know about the 1937 incident?”

“A young woman by the name of Rosie Delaney was never found. Have either of you ever heard that name?”

Both Hélène and Frédéric shake their heads.

“No, I don’t believe I have. What happened to the other two women?” Frédéric asks.

Samuel clears his throat and looks from Frédéric to Hélène before speaking. “They didn’t survive unfortunately, and the kidnapper was never found.”

“How dreadful,” Hélène says, letting her teary gaze turn toward the glossy lake outside. “I can’t bear to think about it another second. Have we answered all of your questions?”

“I’ll need to speak with your husband, Madame Morel. Is he home?” Samuel says.

“He left some time ago, and I’m not sure when he’ll be back,” Hélène says curtly. “I’m sorry, but I really must leave now.”

“I’ll have my father call you as soon as he arrives,” Frédéric says, gazing aimlessly out the window.

After Hélène leaves the room, Frédéric walks up to Samuel. “I apologize if what I did with the press has messed up the investigation, but what if someone sees her? What if someone out there has information? The public needs to know about this catastrophe, Monsieur Kelly.”

Samuel nods. “I understand your urgency, Monsieur Morel. It was mainly due to the high-profile nature of your family and the Brooks family that we wanted to hold off on giving this situation media attention. The kidnappers want to see how desperate you are. They want to hear how much money you’re willing to give to get her back.”

“It doesn’t matter how much money they want. I’ll hand it over. As long as she comes home safely.” For the first time, there isn’t even a hint of arrogance in Frédéric’s tone, but as much as I want to sympathize with him, I’m still angry for what he did.

“Even if we
were
in a ransom situation,” I interject, “and your family handed over millions to these monsters, how can you be so stupid to think that they would keep Isla and the other girls alive?”

Frédéric glares at me. “Don’t talk about Isla like that.”

“She’s my sister. And if you loved her as much as I do, you wouldn’t have blatantly ignored the investigator’s instructions to keep your mouth shut.”

Samuel takes a step between us, holding his hands up.

“You’re both wasting time here. Jillian, I need to speak with you outside before I leave. And Frédéric, we’ll be in touch as soon as we know more.”

Samuel places a hand on my shoulder and leads me away from the fuming French man, who most definitely hates my existence right now.

An eerie curtain of steam rises from the expansive crystal blue waters of Lake Geneva. I walk along the water’s edge, my gaze darting to the snow-capped mountains in the distance.

We need to go to those mountains. We need to find Isla.

Samuel paces beside me, waiting until we are far enough away from the Morel Château to be out of earshot. “You refused to answer any of my questions for the entire plane ride, but you’re going to talk now, Jill. You’re going to talk whether you want to or not. Your sister’s life is on the line here.”

I keep walking, picking up my pace. I don’t care that my heels are digging into the blankets of snow that cover the lawn. I’d just as well strip them off my feet and walk barefoot.

“Why are you quizzing me?” I ask. “Frédéric is
clearly
hiding something, and you’re just going to let him get away with it!” The scents of snow, pine, and cool water fill up my lungs, but no matter how deeply I try to breathe, I can’t seem to get enough oxygen.

Samuel grabs my shoulders and swivels me around to face him. His hands are warm through my thin suit jacket, and as I stare into those truth-seeking eyes of his, I feel my resolve melting away. I want to cave. I want to tell him everything.

But I promised Isla I wouldn’t tell a soul.

“There’s absolutely nothing I can tell you about our past that will lead you to Isla today. Her abduction obviously has to do with the fact that the Morels have insane amounts of money, and someone wants to cash in. Plus there’s that whole copycat crime possibility from seventy-five years ago. Why aren’t you spending your time researching those possibilities instead of asking me questions that have nothing to do with why Isla’s been taken?”

“My team is already out there researching every possible angle, Jill.” Samuel keeps his hands wrapped firmly around my shoulders, so I am forced to look him in the eye.

“Do you think it was an accident that I chose to take this assignment?” he says. “My agency knows that we used to be together, that we dated before I married Karine. But only
I
know why we broke up—because you never wanted to open up to me, to tell me the truth. Whatever it is you and your sister have been hiding all these years—that’s what I’m here to find out.”

“You already know my mother is in prison. What more do you need to know?”

“I know she’s serving a life sentence for murdering a man named Russell Hughes, and I know that you and Isla were present when she murdered him. But in the short time we’ve had to investigate, it’s been nearly impossible to find any more details surrounding the murder. The records are sealed, and it could take days or even weeks to find the information that could help us find Isla. By that time, it could be too late.” Samuel steps closer to me, his warm breath grazing over my nose, his persistence wearing me thin.

It feels both horrifying and comforting to hear Samuel acknowledge what happened to Isla and me. Horrifying because I’d sworn to Isla that I would never tell a living soul as long as we lived, and comforting because it is the truth. That incident, that day that forever changed the course of our lives, is part of who I am, and it is part of Isla too, despite the years we have spent trying to erase it.

But the story Samuel has just told is only a small piece of our truth, and the rest he will never know.

“I need to hear the story from your mouth, Jill,” Samuel says. “I need to know all of the details, names of anyone from your and Isla’s past who may want to hurt her now. Names of anyone else who may have been involved in that murder. I know you think it’s not relevant, but
every
possibility needs to be explored in a case like this.”

I pull away from Samuel’s grasp and march farther down the lake. “Isla isn’t a
case
,” I mutter under my breath.

“I knew you wouldn’t open up to anyone else, Jill,” Samuel calls after me, his voice earnest, softer now. “I thought that with our history, you’d at least consider talking to me.”

I keep walking, ignoring the urge to stop running away, to take Samuel’s hand and never let go. “Our history is exactly why you’re the
last
person I would open up to.”

I may have refused to let him in, refused to tell him the truth about who I really was, about what had happened to Isla and me, but is he forgetting how much hurt he caused me? How quickly he jumped from me to Karine, professing his wedding vows to her only months after we’d split?

Samuel’s cell rings out into the empty space, the piercing sound rattling my already frazzled nerves. But before he answers, he grabs my arm.

“You know, Jill, in the years since you left me, I’ve read all of your articles. Every single one. I find it interesting how you’ve based an entire career around your search for the truth. But in real life, to the people who matter most, all you do is lie.”

I rip my arm away from Samuel and turn my back to him. I can’t let him see the tears that are pooling at the corners of my eyes.

I think of jumping in the lake. Of letting the freeze swallow up these rotten lies, this horrid past that Isla and I share. The past we’ve both spent our entire lives running away from.

Maybe Isla was running away again. Riding the midnight train to a new life when someone took her.

As I wonder what it would feel like to slip my feet into these ice-cold waters, to let it all slip away, another thought invades my mind.

Maybe Isla wanted to be taken.

A hand on my shoulder jolts me from visions of Isla running across snow-covered train tracks in a pitch-dark night.

“Jillian, something has happened.”

The stern, sorrowful tone in Samuel’s voice demands that I turn to face him. That I listen without talking back for once.

He hesitates, the lines around his eyes scaring me, making me dread whatever he’s about to say.

“Emma Brooks was just found in the Alps.”

I gulp for air, but my efforts to breathe are to no avail. “Is she…is she…?” I stammer as my shoulders shiver violently from the cold.

“They were too late. She was already gone,” he says.

I expect my body to collapse into a heap on the snow-covered grass, but that same invisible portal of strength I’ve been relying on for my whole life keeps me standing. The lake, the mountains, the trees all spin furiously around me, but I don’t cave.

For Isla, I will never give up.

I reach out, gripping Samuel’s arm. “Go find her, Samuel. Go find my sister.”

Back inside the Morel Château, Frédéric already has the television on.

We stare at the screen in silence as TV crews riding in helicopters swarm over the mountainous forest where Emma Brooks’s nineteen-year-old body was just found.

The reporters tell us that police have not yet released information on
how
the ambassador’s daughter was killed, but by the way Samuel is clenching his fists at his sides, I can only assume that he already knows the details.

And for once, I don’t grill him. I don’t want to know.

“I have to go now,” Samuel announces to Frédéric and me. “They need me on site.”

Frédéric turns from the TV, his face pale and drawn. “Is there any hope of finding her alive?”

“What happened to Emma Brooks is a tragedy, but that doesn’t mean we won’t find Isla in time. You’ve hired the best team in the world, Monsieur Morel. And I promise you, we’ll do everything we can to bring Isla home safely.” Samuel’s green eyes are unwavering, strong, determined. I can see that he isn’t allowing even an ounce of doubt to invade his consciousness.

In this moment, I’m beyond thankful for Samuel’s ability to believe that he and his team will find my sister, bring her home unharmed. Otherwise, the doubt swarming between Frédéric and me would be enough to drown us all in a giant pool of despair.

I leave Frédéric staring hopelessly at the television as I follow Samuel through the dimly lit foyer and out the front door. Night has descended upon this lakefront resort town, but no matter how beautiful my surroundings are, I can’t shake the belief that as long as there are monsters out there who get off on harming innocent women, the world will always be an ugly place.

At the top of the stairs, Samuel surprises me by taking my hand.

“I don’t want anything to happen to you, Jillian. Promise me you’ll stay here.”

I realize that I love the way Samuel’s hand feels wrapped around mine. And in a moment of irrationality, I suddenly wish that all those years ago, I’d never let him go.

“I promise,” I say. “I won’t leave.”

With each breath, our lips release little white puffs of air. Samuel steps closer to me, the heat emanating off his chest making me remember what it was like to have my entire body wrapped up in his. What it was like to have his hands exploring the skin on my back, my legs, my stomach, my breasts.

No one since has ever made me feel so beautiful, so loved, so whole.

Samuel leans into my ear, the scruff on his cheek brushing against my face. “I want you to pay attention to everything that happens in this house once I leave,” he whispers. “And don’t let on that you speak French. They have no idea. You have full license to snoop around. And if you find anything—anything at all—call me immediately. There will be a car waiting just around the corner in case you need it.”

“I thought you didn’t remember that I speak French,” I say, closing my eyes as Samuel keeps his face pressed against mine.

He squeezes my hand, his lips brushing ever so slightly against my ear as he whispers one final message. “I remember everything about you, Jillian Chambord.
Everything
.”

And with that, Samuel slips into the silky blue night, leaving me alone to wonder why on earth Isla’s disappearance would be the one thing to finally bring us back into each other’s lives.

Back inside the château, I walk toward the palace-worthy salon and find Frédéric taking one last look at Emma Brooks’s beautiful face flashing across the television screen. He turns off the TV and hurls the remote through the elegant living room, muttering French obscenities under his breath. The remote lands with a thud against the wall before Frédéric turns and sees me watching him.

“I’m sorry,” he says, his cheeks flushed.

“It’s okay,” I say quietly. “I know how you feel.”

We stand together in an awkward silence, and I have a million questions I want to ask him. But by the way he acted with Samuel earlier, I decide it’s best to leave him alone for now. There’s no telling how long I’ll be staying in this stranger’s home, and I don’t want to make the situation worse than it already is.

“Would it be okay if I use your bathroom?” I ask.

“Yes, of course. I’ll show you to a guest bedroom in the right wing, and I’ll bring you some of Isla’s clothes. I’m sure you’ll want something to change into tonight, before bed.”

Frédéric leads me up a grand staircase in the middle of the château. I run my hand along the smooth ivory banister and gaze up at the crystal chandelier overhead. For as beautiful and regal as this vacation palace is, I can’t help but notice that it has a certain chill to it. The property doesn’t feel warm or welcoming like a home should feel.

More like a museum—cold and impersonal.

The complete opposite of my sister.

“Isla left some of her clothes here?” I ask as we continue climbing the never-ending set of stairs.

“Yes, she left almost everything here. All of the beautiful pieces I bought for her. The jewels, the high heels—all of it.” Frédéric doesn’t even try to mask the bitterness in his tone. “All they found of hers on the train was a small suitcase and a purse.”

He stops when he reaches the second floor, gazing below at the showy grand piano and the life-sized paintings adorning the ivory-colored walls. “I have so much to give Isla. What girl in her right mind would give up all of this?”

“Maybe she just needed some air, some space. All of this wealth…it can be suffocating to people who aren’t used to it, you know.”

Frédéric turns to me, pursing his lips as he eyes me up and down.

Here we go again.

“What could you possibly know about how Isla was feeling? She didn’t even tell us you existed,” he hisses. “What did you do to her to make her hate you so much, Jillian? Tell me, what did you do?”