Midnight Train to Paris (A Paris Time Travel Romance)

by Juliette Sobanet

  I sit up slowly, lifting my heated glare back to the heartless, deranged woman who surely has no plans to spare my life either. “You killed Frances for sleeping with your husband, and now you’re going to steal Rosie’s baby? What happened to you, Agnès? Why would you take it this far?”

  She tosses the gun into one of the cribs before charging toward me with the knife. She thrusts the bloody tip toward my neck, but my instincts are quicker. I reach up and wrap my hand around her weak wrist before she can break my skin.

  “Who the hell are you to question me?” she spits in my face, struggling against me. But for as evil as she is, I am stronger. I shove the old hag off me, slamming her back into one of the cribs. She pushes herself away from the railing, smoothing out her dress with the knife, streaking blood all over the heavy black material as she sets her vindictive gaze on me.

  “How dare you,” she growls. “I am the queen of one of the wealthiest, most powerful families in this entire country. My husband may get all the credit for making our fortune, but he was nothing before he met me. Nothing! All I asked for in return was his faithfulness and a baby girl to carry on the Morel line of women.”

  “Why isn’t your son enough?” I shoot back. “Why do you need to steal someone else’s child? You have no right!” I block Rosie’s body with my own as I stand to look straight into Agnès's hollow eyes.

  “I grew up watching my father and my brothers make horrific, selfish mistakes, and I knew a son could never cut it. A son could never carry on the legacy of a powerful, smart, wealthy woman—and I was right. That idiot son of mine, Alexandre—while I’ll do anything to protect his name, our name—he’s as worthless as they come. Mesmerized by Rosie Delaney, the innocent little américaine. Little did he know, she’s a heartless floozie who fell in love with a pitiful French soldier and got herself pregnant with his baby.”

  As Agnès speaks, her disturbing facial features warp into Hélène’s and back again several times, making me realize that Hélène is telling almost the exact same story in the future. Like Agnès, she loves the jewels, the money, the power of her position in the infamous Morel family. And like Agnès, she thinks her son, Frédéric, is an idiot for falling for Isla…a woman who would choose the love of a lowly artist over the authority and wealth she could have had by marrying the son of the Morel dynasty.

  Which meant that as crazy and jealous as he was, Frédéric wasn’t involved in Isla’s abduction. And Alexandre wasn’t involved in Rosie’s.

  All along, it had been the demented mothers.

  I should’ve known.

  Agnès walks around the still unconscious Rosie, smearing fresh blood on her cheek with the dull side of the blade. “It better be a girl, Miss Rosie,” she whispers in her ear. “I’ve already lost three of them, and I won’t lose another.”

  Agnès had lost three baby girls? Suddenly the old cabin nursery, the three white cribs surrounding us, and the incessantly twirling baby mobiles make sense.

  Agnès's threat makes me remember the story Samuel told me about Hélène Morel—how she once lost a baby girl as well. The similarities between the two mothers and between their equally atrocious crimes is uncanny… making me wonder if before Agnès died, she had the opportunity to groom Hélène into the kind of woman who would stop at nothing to hurt anyone who messed with their precious family name. The kind of woman who would go so far as to steal someone else’s baby girl just to carry on her sick legacy.

  Agnès keeps her gaze pinned to me, pacing in frantic circles around Rosie and me, as if she is trying to keep time with the baby mobiles that continue to spin wildly over our heads.

  “You want to know why I would take it this far?” she shrieks. “Why I would orchestrate such an elaborate abduction? Hiring a team of trained men to obstruct the train tracks, storm the Orient Express, take Rosie, Frances, and you—a third woman simply to make the entire incident look random. Because I won’t stand for the kind of betrayal my husband has made me suffer through. I’ve known for years that he was seeing that whore, Frances! After everything I’ve done for him, after the man I’ve made him into, how dare he go behind my back with her. I was not going to allow him to make a fool out of me any longer.”

  A devious grin spreads over Agnès's thin lips. “I gave Henri the Orient Express ticket to give to his precious little mistress, and I even pretended to fall ill the day before our Morel Holiday Gala, so he could break up with her in private.”

  “But you weren’t ill,” I say, finally putting all the puzzle pieces together. “You were on your way here, waiting for the girls to arrive at your secret castle. So you could have your way with them.” A sudden, vivid memory of Hélène Morel dashing out of the Morels’ lakefront château to be with her supposed ill sister flashes through my mind.

  Hélène’s sister was never ill.

  She was heading here to this exact castle, to reenact the crime Agnès had committed seventy-five years prior.

  I don’t have time to analyze the similarities any further, though, because Agnès's hysterical voice breaks my concentration. “I chose that exact train because I already knew that Rosie, my son’s disloyal fiancée, was planning to leave him and take the midnight Orient Express to meet her lover in Paris. Rosie may be beautiful, but she was stupid. So, so stupid. Keeping that box of sickening letters and the train ticket her lover sent her in a suitcase in my vacation château? Did she actually think I would never find out?” Another disturbing laugh breaks through her dry, cracked lips, making my stomach curl. “So I figured, why not kill two birds with one stone?”

  I steady myself against the railing of one of the cribs, waiting for the moment when Agnès becomes careless in her ranting and looks away so that I can charge her and steal the knife from her death grip. But for as crazy as she is, Agnès isn’t an idiot. She knows if I had the audacity to storm this freaky ice castle, I won’t hesitate to take her down at my first opportunity.

  “It wasn’t easy, building this empire,” she rambles. “It wasn’t easy creating something from nothing, especially during this vile depression. I was raised in the slums of Paris, eating crumbs for breakfast, working the streets as a child. But I was determined; I wasn’t going to allow anyone to stand in my way. And now, look at me,” she says, gesturing to the high ceilings and creepy paintings adorning the nursery walls. “I have the richest husband in the country, I have jewels, castles, power. Do you actually think I would allow these young, promiscuous harlots to storm in and ruin everything I’ve worked so hard to create? I need an equally strong woman to mold, to carry on my legacy.”

  I already knew that the sweet daughter Agnès would kidnap from Rosie wouldn’t grow up to be the heartless, power-hungry woman Agnès was hoping she’d be. I’d only met the elegant Madeleine Morel briefly, but from what I’d seen in that snowy Lausanne train station, she was much too warm and entirely too kind to be Agnès's pawn. Which explained why Madeleine’s portrait had been removed from the Morel women hall of fame.

  And so, before Agnès died at the ripe old age of ninety-nine, it must’ve been Hélène who she chose to mold into her likeness.

  “I should’ve known Rosie would never cut it,” Agnès continues as I eye the gun lying behind her in the crib. “It’s a shame, though, because her father is in such a strong political position, and her mother was always so loyal to our family. Stupid like her daughter, but loyal. If Rosie had any eye for power, for wealth, it could’ve been a perfect match. She could’ve been the daughter I never had. But you see, Jillian, when Rosie turned on my son, she turned on my whole family. She threatened to disgrace the family name I’ve worked so hard to build. I am only taking what is rightfully mine—the baby girl I was always supposed to have.”

  The story Madeleine had told me was true. She’d been taken from Rosie at birth and raised as if she were a Morel. She’d always known she was different, though—nothing like this monster of a woman who stole her from her rightful mother. And Madeleine’s twin—Georges, the gener
ous chauffeur—was given up for adoption because Agnès clearly had no interest in raising another son.

  “I suppose this was always our destiny, sweet Rosie,” Agnès says as she walks past me and whispers in Rosie’s ear. “Too bad you won’t live long enough to watch your little girl grow up. Don’t worry, though. She’ll be in good hands.”

  Just as I take advantage of the slip in Agnès's gaze to lunge toward her, the image in this ice-cold nursery flashes abruptly. Now, instead of defeating the crazed Agnès, I am standing beside my bound up sister, whose violet eyes are darting frantically toward the door.

  I follow her gaze, my insides revolting in disgust at the scene before me.

  Dagger still in hand, Hélène Morel leans forward and plants a long, sickening kiss on the lips of the man both Isla and I hate most in this world—Senator Parker Williams.

  EPISODE 8

  CHAPTER 20

  December 25…

  The French Alps

  The sight of Senator Williams's lips on anyone—let alone on Hélène Morel—is enough to make both my twin sister and me physically ill…not to mention physically violent.

  The problem is that Isla is still tied to a chair, her mouth covered with tape, and I have only traveled to the future as a helpless spectator—a fly on the wall with no physical abilities, no way to save my sister from the sick, unlikely couple who have worked together to plan and execute her abduction and the murders of two other innocent women.

  And there is no telling when this revolting scene will flash and I will find myself back in 1937, very much physically present, and most likely at the mercy of the evil Agnès Morel.

  Hélène pulls her lips from Williams's round face, then nods to the center of the room, where Isla is squirming beneath the taut ropes that bind her.

  I am invisible to our enemies, but as Isla lifts her fiery gaze to mine, I am certain she knows I’m here. Now I just have to find a way to save her life before Williams finishes what he surely came here to do.

  Williams's bushy gray eyebrows pinch together as he meets eyes with Isla. “I thought you were going to take care of her,” he quips, turning his gaze toward the clean knife in Hélène’s hands. “What are you waiting for?”

  Hélène paces coolly toward Isla, pointing the dagger at Isla’s stomach. “How far along are you, Isla?” she says in English, her thick accent jarring to my ears. “Two months? Three months?”

  “She’s pregnant?” Williams says, not hiding the shock on his greasy face.

  Hélène gives a slow, calculated nod. “Which is why we’ll be waiting until after she has the baby to take care of her, as you say.”

  Williams storms toward Hélène, digging his fingers into her shoulder. “This wasn’t in the plan,” he growls. “And the only way this will work is if we stick to the plan, Hélène.”

  She flips around, shrugging him off of her. “And I suppose kidnapping the Ambassador’s nineteen-year-old daughter and murdering her was in the plan too?” she shrieks, pointing the knife at her lover’s chest. “How could your men have made such a grave error? Both of our families are friends with the Brooks family! And why in God’s name would you resign from office while all of this is going on? Was that all a part of your brilliant plan too?”

  Williams wraps a strong hand around Hélène’s wrist, stopping her from coming any closer with the sharp edge of the knife.

  “My men followed the instructions you gave me to a tee. Just like you asked, they kidnapped Isla and two other women at random so that there wouldn’t be a connection made between the three women, and consequently no connection would be made to you or to me. The fact that Emma Brooks happened to be on the same train as Isla was a complete coincidence. And there’s nothing we can do about it now.”

  Isla lets out a muffled scream as she thrashes underneath the ropes. Her frantic movements tell me she knows something about why Emma Brooks was taken…and that it wasn’t a coincidence.

  I need to figure out a way to get that damn tape off her lips so we can all find out exactly what she knows.

  The lovers’ quarrel continues to erupt behind me as I will myself closer to my sister.

  Suddenly I am engulfed by the stench of evil.

  It is Senator Williams, approaching my sister, staring her down with his menacing glare.

  “Need I remind you, Hélène, that this woman who made a fool out of your son, out of your whole family, is a whore. Do you really want a whore’s baby?”

  A thousand men could not hold me back from the rage that plows through me at Parker Williams's revolting words.

  My sister is not a whore!

  I lunge at the monster who stole everything from Isla, and to my complete surprise, his tall, blundering body actually stumbles backward, knocking right into Hélène.

  Annoyed at his clumsiness, Hélène pushes past him, dagger pointed at Isla. “Whore or not, that baby belongs to my family!”

  Hélène switches into her native tongue of French as she slithers up to my sister. “I always knew there was something off about you, Isla…from the first time Frédéric brought you home. It’s funny because my husband’s dear grandmother Agnès warned me about you on her death bed. She told me to be on the look-out for a woman just like you. And to do everything in my power to protect this family from the money-grubbing whore who would defame my family name, who would try to take away everything I—and she—worked so hard to build.”

  Hélène gestures above to the tall, arched ceilings, and around to the same creepy paintings that still adorn these walls seventy-five years after Agnès spilled blood in this exact room. “On the day Agnès predicted your arrival, she gave me the keys to this very castle as she told me the story of a woman just like you, a young girl by the name of Rosie Delaney, who stole Agnès’s son’s heart and tried to steal her son’s baby. But the story didn’t end so well for Rosie, and it won’t end so well for you either, Isla Chambord.”

  Hélène’s voice cracks with desperation as she continues on her diatribe. “I lost a child once. A little girl. It should never have happened. Never. And I just know that baby you’re carrying is a little girl. But after the way you lied to me and to my entire family, you don’t deserve her.” Hélène crosses her arms tightly over her chest, tapping the dull side of the knife furiously against her arm. “That’s right, Isla. I know all about your dirty little past. I had my close friend here, Monsieur Williams, perform a background check on you. Lo and behold, my instincts were correct, as usual. He told me all about your days as a prostitute. Do you actually think I would allow a woman like you to marry my only son? Did you think I would stand idly by while you ran off with that pitiful artist and tried to steal my son’s baby?”

  Without warning, Hélène smacks Isla hard across the cheek. “Before she died, Agnès also gave me the keys to the nice little cabin where you’ll be staying until you have the baby. I believe you made a quick stop there on your way to the castle, no?”

  Isla struggles beneath the ropes as Hélène moves in closer. “The only reason I’ve kept you alive is so I can claim what’s rightfully mine. Once I have that baby in my hands, you’re finished, Isla Chambord. And I’ll personally see to it that no one ever finds your disgusting, used-up body.”

  This time I go for Hélène. I’m not sure how this invisible presence of mine is able to turn physical, but it doesn’t matter how because it works.

  Hélène plummets back into Williams with a thud, a startled look splashing across her heavily made-up face.

  “Who did that?” The diamonds dangling from Hélène’s ears swish around as she scans the chilly room.

  But I’m not paying any attention to her or to her equally slimy partner-in-crime any longer. I’ve turned all of my focus, every ounce of my energy, onto Isla.

  As I envision peeling the tape off of my sister’s mouth, I watch in disbelief as the silver tape actually unravels and falls into her lap.

  She sucks in a loud breath while I go to work on the ropes
that bind her wrists together.

  “The story your friend, Parker Williams, told you isn’t true,” Isla says coolly in French as both Hélène and Williams stare with mouths agape at her newly freed lips. Williams storms toward Isla, but I redirect my force right at his groin this time, and I almost laugh as he crumbles in half, clutching himself and moaning like the pathetic weasel of a man he is.

  Isla winks at me, then continues on her rampage as a petrified Hélène cowers on the ground. “I was never a prostitute,” Isla says. “My mother was the prostitute. And when I was only thirteen, before your knight in shining armor here became a senator, he used to stop by our house for weekly visits with my mother. The first day he saw me though, he cut a deal with my mom. He paid her twice the normal rate to have me instead.”

  Hélène’s pencil-lined brows lift in horror as she glances at the man still writhing on the cool marble floor before her.

  “That’s right Hélène, your lover is a sick pervert who sleeps with young, innocent girls like me…and Emma Brooks,” Isla says.

  While Hélène climbs slowly to her feet, her vindictive gaze turning now to Williams, I lean closer to my sister and quickly tell her the story on Senator Williams that went to press the day after the train abduction.

  I have no clue how, but Isla can hear me, and she doesn’t miss a beat. “And you want to know why the senator resigned so suddenly, putting your abduction plans in jeopardy?” Isla quips. “Because he’s wanted for the murder of two young sisters who were sold into the child prostitution ring that he was running back in D.C. Oh, and he was funneling money from that prostitution ring directly into his campaign.”

  With each word of truth that is spoken in this godforsaken castle, both my twin and I feel a surge of empowerment. I focus with all my might on the ropes that bind her wrists, and like magic, they slip from her hands and fall into a pile on the floor.