Midnight Train to Paris (A Paris Time Travel Romance)

by Juliette Sobanet

  “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?”

  His words sting me, even though I know this angry little jerk has no clue what he’s talking about. In his world of glamour, money, vacation homes, and ski trips, there isn’t room for the kind of atrocities Isla and I faced growing up.

  “The real question is what did you do to make her want to leave you and your precious riches?” I snap back. “If Isla had never met you, this never would’ve happened. She never would’ve been taken from me!”

  “Ça suffit—that’s enough,” a stern male voice booms from the bottom of the stairs. “Frédéric, a word please.”

  The tall man hovering at the foot of the stairs looks like an older version of Frédéric. His dark, piercing eyes hide behind a set of round black glasses as he watches his son storm down the stairs and straight past him, without so much as a second glance.

  The bright lights from the chandelier overhead reveal deep wrinkles around the man’s eyes and across his forehead. He shakes his head and gazes wearily up at me. “I apologize for my son,” he says in English, his accent much stronger than Frédéric’s. “You must be Jillian, Isla’s twin sister.”

  I nod at him without smiling. I don’t think I could smile if I tried.

  “I’m Laurent Morel, Frédéric’s father. I’ve just spoken with Investigator Kelly. He told me you would be here. Please use any of the guest rooms in the wing to the right. Dinner will be served by Florian, our chef, at nine o’clock. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to speak with my son.”

  Laurent takes off through the château, leaving me alone on the second floor. As I hear Frédéric and his father erupt into shouts downstairs, I remember Samuel’s instructions outside.

  You have full license to snoop.

  I try to understand what the two men are shouting about, but their muffled voices in quick French are incomprehensible to me. As long as they’re arguing downstairs, I decide that now is as good a time as any to do my own investigation.

  I’m not about to sit alone in some palace-sized bedroom and wait for information to come in on Isla. I need to find out what my sister’s angry fiancé is hiding and why she chose to leave him and his rich family behind.

  Ignoring Laurent’s instructions to find a guest room in the right wing, I head left. Dim lamps light up the long hallway, the shiny wooden floors creaking slightly with each step I take.

  Three golden-framed portraits line the smooth walls, each of them a life-sized painting of one of the Morel women. Three obvious empty spaces reveal gaps in the Morel lineage where portraits should’ve been, or perhaps used to be. A shiny gold plaque below each regal canvas reveals the women’s names, their husbands’ and children’s names, their birthdates, and when applicable, dates of death.

  First, of course, is Hélène Morel, wife of Laurent, mother of Frédéric. A shiny string of pearls adorns her neck, the sparkling diamond bracelet I noticed her wearing earlier resting loosely on her tiny wrist. I can see by the gleam in her eye that she likes the jewels, the glamour, the riches, the power that this family brings. Most women would.

  She seems younger in the painting, happier.

  But of course, whenever this portrait was painted, Hélène hadn’t been looking for her son’s abducted fiancée and rushing off to take care of an ill sister.

  Moving on to the next woman in this long line of wealth, I find Thérèse Morel, wife of Alexandre, mother of Laurent and Madeleine. I search the walls for a portrait of Laurent’s sister Madeleine, but she’s nowhere to be found. I wonder whether she died at a young age or if she is one of the missing portraits. On that note, I wonder if the Morel men—the people who’ve actually earned the money in this family—get their own personal wall of fame too. Or perhaps while the Morel men are out running the family real estate business, the wives are the ones calling the shots behind the scenes. It certainly seemed that way earlier with Hélène.

  The third and final portrait is the creepiest of them all—Agnès Morel, born in 1891. She only had one son, Alexandre. Her grayish black hair is pulled back into a tight bun, and the lines on her face make her appear powerful, domineering, and a little bit evil.

  For a moment, I lose myself in her commanding gaze, her eyes like an endless black sea of history, of stories. She died in 1990, which would’ve made her ninety-nine years old.

  At the very end of the dark hallway, I notice a door slightly ajar. I hesitate for a moment, but when I hear Frédéric and Laurent’s tense voices still echoing downstairs, I open the door. Flipping on the light, I discover the only cramped space in this massive mansion—an old, dusty storage closet. I run my hands over boxes filled with books and picture frames, but stop when I see a large white sheet covering something up toward the back of the closet.

  Peeking underneath the corner of the sheet, I find the three missing gold-framed portraits stacked against the wall.

  I whip off the sheet and kneel down to find a painting of the most beautiful, elegant woman of them all, smiling gracefully back at me. She has a full head of glossy white hair, rosy cheeks, and warm, inviting blue eyes with silver specks in them. Something about those silvery sapphire eyes strikes a familiar chord with me, but I’m not sure why.

  The plaque lying next to her painting reveals the name I was searching for just moments ago: Madeleine Morel, daughter of Thérèse and Alexandre, sister of Laurent, born in 1938.

  Interesting. She looks nothing like her brother Laurent. And why did they take her portrait down?

  I remember that I don’t have much time, so I place Madeleine’s portrait to the side and gaze at the second hidden painting.

  But I gasp when I find that the canvas has been slashed to pieces, leaving only a glimpse of a woman’s dark brown curls, and a dimple pressing into her rosy cheek. The rest of the painting has been destroyed, ripped to shreds.

  I search the ground around me to see if there is another name plaque, but Madeleine’s is the only one here.

  Suppressing the feeling that I should get the hell out of here right now, I push the second frame aside and realize I don’t care about the mysterious drama that would’ve caused someone in the Morel family to destroy a painting of one of their own women or to strip Madeleine’s tasteful, elegant portrait off the wall.

  Because there, in front of me, is a portrait o
f my own beautiful twin sister, her violet-specked eyes casting a seductive gaze at the painter, her full pink lips curving upward into a sensual grin.

  Ever since we were little girls, Isla was always the prettier twin, the one all of the men stared at, lusted over.

  I’d always wished it had been me they had chosen. That those sickening men had taken my innocence away and left her alone.

  As I stare at the long strands of wavy, chestnut hair that fall effortlessly over her bare shoulders, for the millionth time I wonder how things would’ve turned out if Isla hadn’t been so damn beautiful.

  Even our mother was jealous of her beauty.

  But then that’s why I’m here, searching for my lost sister in some cold French mansion in the middle of winter. That’s why Isla escaped to Europe when we were only twenty years old, and why she never came home again.

  Because of our demented, jealous mother.

  I lay the painting of my sweet, gorgeous sister back down on the chilly hardwood floor and realize that it’s been almost two years since we’ve seen each other. I am instantly jealous of the man who was lucky enough to paint this portrait of Isla, this man who must’ve stared at her beauty for hours while he crafted the perfect contours of her face, the warmth and the love in those eyes that we share.

  The signature at the bottom of the painting reads C. Mercier.

  Of course, the artist could’ve been a woman, but I know my sister, and only a handsome man would earn such a provocative gaze, such a bewitching smile.

  A rustling noise outside the closet startles me. I flip off the light and peek through the crack in the door, but don’t see anyone in the hallway. The men’s voices are still muffled downstairs, but they sound a little bit calmer now.

  Moving swiftly, I cover the paintings back up with the sheet, slip out of the storage closet, and continue my quest, this time quietly opening up all the bedroom doors in search of Frédéric and Isla’s room…of the possessions she left behind.

  On the fifth try, I find what I’m looking for: Isla’s laptop.

  I work quickly, searching through her recently opened files to see if something stands out. When I don’t find anything relevant, I begin scanning through her pictures. Photos of Isla posing with Frédéric at glamorous galas and Morel family business functions fill the page. In all of the pictures, my sister is dressed impeccably in long, silky gowns, dangly diamond earrings, and three-inch heels.

  A pang of jealousy hits me as I mull over the fact that over the past eight years, Isla has created a life that I know nothing of. A life that she didn’t want me to take part in.

  Of course she didn’t want me here in her new glamorous world. I was a reminder of her dark past. Of the atrocities that had happened to her when she was only a teenager.

  Of the fact that she had suffered tremendously more than I had. While all along, I’d been completely oblivious.

  I push away the familiar rage that threatens to boil over inside me as I continue scrolling through her photos.

  At the bottom of the page, I spot a picture file labeled Charity Gala, dated December 21, only a day before Isla disappeared. Opening up the file, I scroll quickly through the slideshow. About halfway in, I find a photograph that makes me feel like I must be going insane. But as I examine it closely, I realize that the scene before me is not an optical illusion.

  Frédéric is smiling a cheeky grin, looking stuffy and arrogant as hell in his tux, with one arm around his father, and the other around a man with thinning gray hair and a husky, round face that I could never, ever forget.

  It’s Senator Parker Williams—the sick, perverted man who I’ve been working tirelessly to expose for running a child prostitution ring and murdering two innocent sisters in D.C..

  What in the hell was he doing here with the Morel men, only three days ago?

  And what was Isla doing taking a photograph of him?

  I notice then that Senator Williams is the only man not smiling in the photo. In fact, he looks nervous, like he’s been caught.

  Suddenly my mouth goes dry and my vision blurs. My hands begin trembling so fiercely that I’m unable to scroll through the rest of the photos.

  All I can see are Parker Williams’s big, rough hands fondling my thirteen-year-old sister, ripping off her clothes, then covering her mouth every time she tried to scream.

  He didn’t want me. I wasn’t the sexy one. He only wanted Isla.

  At thirteen, my innocent twin sister had been Williams’s first conquest with a young girl. It was before he became a senator. He’d started off sleeping with my mother, paying her for sex just like all the other wealthy men who traveled to the other side of the tracks from their rich D.C. neighborhoods, looking for something more exciting than their cookie-cutter wives. After our dad left, there was a different man in our mother’s room every night. When we were little, she lied, telling us they were just “playing games,” but Isla and I weren’t stupid.

  Williams was one of my mother’s regulars, but when he caught Isla prancing home from school early one day, wearing the short jean skirt that used to drive the junior high boys wild, that sick man dropped my mom so fast, she almost went blind with jealousy.

  Our mother hated Isla from that day forward, but she allowed it to go on. And she continued collecting money from Williams every time he slept with her thirteen-year-old daughter.

  I was too busy working at the school newspaper every day after school to know what was going on in my own home, to my own sister.

  And Isla lied to me too. She was ashamed, horrified, and embarrassed.

  We’d been best friends up until that point.

  But after her first encounter with Parker Williams, she was never the same, fun-loving twin sister I used to know. She became moody, angry, secretive, and distant.

  And I didn’t know why until it was too late.

  I shake away the memories of the horrific day that stole our innocence forever and promise Isla that I won’t be too late this time.

  I know who is behind my sister’s abduction, who took that young, lovely Italian girl, and who killed the ambassador’s innocent daughter, Emma Brooks.

  I wonder if Senator Williams knew about the 1937 train abduction. Maybe in his warped mind, he decided it would be fun to reenact the exact same crime with three other young, beautiful women. He always was obsessed with Isla.

  Whatever his twisted reasons are for doing what he did, I am sure it was him. I am sure it was Senator Williams.

  Now I just have to find out if Frédéric and Laurent are working with him too.

  Because if they are, I have to get the hell out of here fast.

  EPISODE 3

  CHAPTER 7

  December 24, 2012

  Évian-les-Bains, France

  I dial the number Samuel left me on his business card, but each unanswered ring only serves to make me feel more frantic.

  “You’ve reached the voicemail of Samuel Kelly. Leave a message.”

  “Samuel, it’s me,” I whisper into my cell phone, praying Frédéric and his father continue ranting a while longer downstairs to buy me more time. “You need to investigate a U.S. senator by the name of Parker Williams. I am one hundred percent certain he’s behind all of this, and I’ll explain more when you call me back. I’m emailing you a picture of him with Frédéric and Laurent Morel, taken only one day before Isla’s disappearance, at a charity gala. Obviously, this means you need to be investigating the Morels’ potential involvement in the abduction as well. Please call me as soon as you get this.”

  With shaky hands, I hang up the phone, then turn the ringer on vibrate. I don’t want the Morels to hear the ring when Samuel calls back. Next, I sign into my email, attach the Williams photo, and send the message off to Samuel.

  I’m sure he’ll call me back soon.

  He has to.

  Quickly, I scan through the emails I’ve missed from the past twenty-four hours.

  There are five unread messages from Natalie, my
boss, and piles of unread emails from my other colleagues.

  Judging by the fact that Senator Williams was photographed in France only three days ago, and most definitely had something to do with my sister’s kidnapping, my original plans to expose and bust him back in D.C. have obviously been botched.

  Bracing myself for the possible loss of my job, I open Natalie’s first email, which she sent last night, while I was en route to France.

  Jillian,

  The third sister in your conspiracy theory did in fact show today. We took her statement on record, then set her up with Officer Reynolds for protection, as you requested. Everything with the girl checked out exactly as you said it would. I’m sorry I doubted you.

  One rather massive hitch: as we were taking Scarlet’s statement, Williams appeared in a live press conference from France, announcing his resignation from the Senate. Obviously, he was onto you and wanted to preemptively try to save his sorry ass.

  I know you did your homework on this story, but how could you have missed the fact that the senator left the country?

  Now that law enforcement has heard Scarlet’s testimony, Williams is wanted for murder. By the time officials made it to his family’s vacation home in the French Alps to take him into custody, he was already gone.

  He’s now officially MIA.

  His chief of staff, however, is already behind bars. They’re grilling the shit out of him to find out if he knows where Williams is hiding.

  Somehow the senator found out you were onto him, Chambord. There’s simply no other reason he would’ve resigned exactly when he did and fled the country. Is there anything you’re not telling me?

  On that note, what is going on with the whole “I have a sister I never told you about” debacle? Is she really missing? And who in the hell was that smoking hot man who came in here to deliver the news? I could tell by the way you two looked at each other that there’s a sizzling history there. When you get back, I want the full report on what goes down between you and the investigatory sex god.