“So basically all the options are bad ones,” Nick said. “They can’t find the train. When they do find it, they have to force it to stop, basically risking everyone’s life. And once it’s stopped, they get to negotiate for Erica’s and Zander’s lives with armed killers.”
“Pretty much.” This time it was Max who spoke. The smile was gone from his voice, too. “They haven’t even managed to establish contact with the hostage takers yet to find out what they want.”
“They’re thieves,” Nick said. “What they were after was a laptop from North Jewels. And they were willing to hijack a train and kill a Member of Provincial Parliament over it.”
“Clark Lemain,” Jacob supplied. “How many hostages are there?”
“Three maybe four,” Nick said. “Erica Knight, her son, Zander, and her brother, Tommy, that I know of. She also suspects the engineer, Bob Bass, might’ve been forced or coerced into driving the train. We can’t discount that he’s a hostage, too. Look, guys...”
He took a deep breath. His bothers exchanged a glance. Yeah, being his brothers, they knew what he was going to say before he did. “We have to find that train and then you’ve got to get me inside it. I can protect the hostages while you alert the authorities to its location and get this bird out of the storm before it tosses us all into a lake. I can negotiate. I’m a military corporal. I have all the necessary training. And the authorities need someone on the inside to let them know what’s going on.” He leaned forward. “Come on, guys. You don’t have to tell me that it’s risky, foolish or dangerous. We all know that. But so was coming to find me to begin with, and we also know that this is the best opportunity we have to get the hostages home alive.”
Jacob ran his hand over his jaw. Max glanced back and met Nick’s eyes.
“Come on, Max,” Nick said. “What would you do if Daisy and Fitz were on that train?”
“You know the answer to that,” Max said. “They are Henrys. They are family. And we stop at nothing to protect family. Are you telling us that Erica Knight and her son, Zander, are your family?”
Max’s voice was as sharp, strong and as pointed as a javelin aimed at Nick’s heart. Nick glanced at Jacob and saw the same qualities in his gaze. It was like his brothers knew and saw something they were waiting for him to face. And suddenly Nick heard Erica’s adage in his mind.
People are really good at not seeing what they don’t want to see... And if she were anyone other than Erica, I’d have asked her if Zander was mine. But Erica has always been on this pedestal in my mind. I can’t imagine she’d ever keep something like that from me. I know I need to ask her. But I don’t even know how...
“I don’t know,” Nick said. He shrugged. “After everything I put Erica through, I have no right to even hope for any kind of relationship with her. All I know is that I’m going to fight for them as if they were every bit a Henry as you and me.”
* * *
The rain had lightened. Erica dozed, lying uncomfortably on one of the seats in the first-class lounge, Zander curled up on top of her. Her limbs ached. But it was nothing compared to the ache in her heart and the bitter taste that fear had left in her mouth. She fought the urge to shift her limbs and instead just thanked God that she’d finally managed to get Zander calmed down after the motorcycle had crashed. The train was moving quite a bit slower than usual, as if wherever they were going the engineer wasn’t in a hurry to get there. The lounge had settled around her, into a tableau that was both tedious and tense. Julie stayed hunkered over the laptop while Mr. Grand paced behind her. Lou sat hunched in a chair on the opposite side of the aisle, with a weapon at the ready. Quiet stretched around her, thin and brittle, as if everyone was on edge but no one quite had a handle on how or why. It was like being stuck inside a movie scene just moments before the shark attacked the boat or the earthquake hit, where the only thing to focus on were the tiny little details.
Her eyes were drawn to the deep, wrinkled lines between Mr. Grand’s eyes. Something was wrong. For a man who’d seemed so utterly in control when he’d first smoothly pulled a weapon on her, he now seemed uncertain. No, more than that. He seemed downright worried. She saw that same unease in Julie’s face and the way her eyes kept glancing instinctively in the direction of the front engine. No doubt whatever she and her brother, wherever he was, had thought they’d signed up for, it wasn’t this. Or at least, it hadn’t turned out how they’d expected.
Okay, all useful information. But what did it mean? And what did she do about it?
“I’m sorry.” Julie glanced up at Mr. Grand. Her voice was low and strained, but still Erica barely managed to make out her words. “I’ve searched everything I can access. There are no bank account numbers. No financial details. No list of names. There’s nothing here.”
“Then look harder,” Mr. Grand snapped. “There has to be.”
And who’d told him that exactly? Someone within North Jewels Diamond Mine? Someone in Clark’s office who he’d confided in? Who had hired Mr. Grand to intercept this secretive cloak-and-dagger handoff? What if Clark had been set up? What if there never had been any data on the machine? Why had the train slowed? Why had she only seen three of the thieves? Where was Julie’s brother, Rowan? Was Bob being held hostage, and if so, how were they forcing him to drive the train? For that matter was Julie even still a willing participant in this?
Had Nick survived the crash?
How would this all end?
She could feel defiance bubbling up inside her. The desire to fight back beat like a drum in her chest. She lived, breathed and worked on this train. The people they’d left bound and helpless on the side of the tracks had been her coworkers. Clark had been her brother’s friend since elementary school. There had to be something she could do. There had to be some way to fight back. She could find something to use as a weapon. She could wait until the next time Mr. Grand went into the front engine or a first-class sleeper cabin and rush Lou. There had to be something, anything, other than just sitting there as hostages.
She glanced at Tommy. He was lying on his back, looking up at the ceiling, his face awash in guilt and misery. Her brother had never backed down from a fight. It’d been his biggest fault for as long as she’d known him, leaving her to clean up his messes, come up with his bail money and make sure he still had a roof over his head. He’d got them into this mess. How could he just crumple and let the villains take over now?
Zander shifted in her arms. His small hands slid up around her neck, holding her tightly. “Mommy, I’m tired. I want to go home. When can we go home?”
“I don’t know, Little Soldier.”
Tears filled her eyes and she wondered if today would be the day she’d finally let them fall. The little boy in her arms was the most important thing in the world. His life was why she couldn’t risk fighting back. She couldn’t risk him getting hurt. She couldn’t put him in danger. What if she managed to disarm Lou but a stray bullet hit Zander in the process? What if she got free but lost everything? The weight of his little body and her love for him pressed against her chest.
Help me, Lord! I feel both stronger and weaker than I ever have before. I don’t know what to do! I don’t know how to protect my boy. I don’t know how to save him. I’m frightened. I’m exhausted. I need help, Lord. I can’t do it alone.
She’d always been responsible for someone, as long as she could remember, long before Zander had come along. After her father had died on an overseas deployment, she’d worked a part-time job in high school to help her mother with the mortgage. She’d kept the house clean when her mother worked long hours. She’d done Tommy’s chores and basically been the buffer between the brother who was always popping off about something and their exhausted, overworked mother.
Maybe that was part of why she’d liked Nick so very much. He’d been easygoing, he’d been independent and able to take care of himself. Nick hadn’t put any de
mands on her. He hadn’t asked her for anything. And sure, she’d helped him with studying, but he’d never asked for it or made it feel like it would be her fault if he failed. No, Nick had been his own independent man even when they’d been in junior high together. And she’d been so exhausted from taking care of her mother and brother that she’d loved and craved those moments together when she could just be with Nick, be herself, relax and be free.
But hadn’t she been bailing him out, too, in her own way? Maybe she’d never done his dishes, completed his homework or given him money. But she’d let him get away with acting like he didn’t care and they weren’t together. And why? Because she’d liked him too much to risk losing him. Because she’d been too afraid that if she called him on his nonsense, he’d decide he was happier and better off without her. Because she’d secretly been terrified of losing him.
And she’d lost him anyway.
Lord, I thought I was so strong, not needing him to love me or call me his girlfriend. But maybe I was just an emotional coward. Maybe I didn’t believe I was strong enough to lose him. I blamed him for everything. I blamed him for not loving me enough to make our relationship official. When I was never brave enough to face rejection. I blamed him for leaving, when I never had the courage to ask him to stay.
Nick’s soft, warm grin filled her mind. And suddenly she was so swept up in the memory of him—the shape of his mouth, the touch of his hand, how the smell of him filled her senses when he wrapped his arms around her—that it was like he was there beside her in the train. A deeper ache moved through her until it even hurt to breathe. She’d missed Nick every day they’d been apart. Now he’d landed back into her life only to be yanked away again.
God, please, let Nick be all right! Please, he needs to be safe! I need to see him again. I need to tell him about Zander. I have to tell him I’m sorry.
Light filled the window above her, bright and glaring, filling her eyes with blinding radiance as if waking from a dream.
Mr. Grand leaped to his feet and shouted for everyone to get down. Julie screamed. Lou yanked his weapon and ran down into the cabin, gun held high as if not knowing where to aim. And still the light shone, not like the tiny pinprick of light of the motorcycle before. But like a giant, celestial spotlight sweeping the night for them. Then she heard the sound of rotors, growing louder and louder as the helicopter came closer.
Hope leaped in her chest. Zander squirmed and struggled in her arms. “I need to see out the window!”
She wrapped her arms around him. “No, you need to stay with Mommy!”
“It’s a helicopter!” Lou’s voice bellowed. His face reappeared in the front engine.
The noise grew louder. The light grew brighter. The helicopter was getting closer.
“Fire at them!” Mr. Grand ordered. “Shoot them down!”
“With a handgun?” Lou shouted. “You expect me to take down a helicopter with a handgun? I’m not armed for this! Any of this!”
“You got a better idea?” Mr. Grand snapped.
“I do!” Erica said. “Hail them!”
She jumped to her feet, clutching Zander to her chest. Her gaze fixed on Mr. Grand and she hoped her hunch about him was right. If he was lost and floundering, maybe she could convince him. And if he wasn’t, at least she could buy whoever was in the helicopter some time. “Look, it’s probably a rescue helicopter. It’s been half an hour since you left the back part of the train. Clearly someone was going to figure out something was wrong and send someone to find us! This is your opportunity to tell them what you’re doing and how this ends!”
And tell me whatever you can about what’s going on, so I can figure out what I need to do to get out of here alive...
Lou glared. But she ignored him. Somehow she doubted he was the mastermind who’d hired Mr. Grand.
“Look, it’s been about two hours since you hijacked this train,” she said, “and less than two until we reach Moosonee. Now, I don’t know what your plans are. I’m guessing your plan was to pull whatever data you could off the laptop before we get there, and then what? Walk off calmly and disappear into the sunrise? Because clearly that’s not going to happen now. They’re going to be sending police and military to intercept the train. They’re going to come looking for us. They’re going to want to know what your demands are and why you’ve hijacked this train.”
I’m counting on the fact you don’t know.
The rotors were so close the noise was almost deafening inside the metal train. Mr. Grand paused for a long moment. Something flickered behind his eyes and, for a moment, she thought he was listening. Then his head shook.
“Please, just let me into the front engine,” Erica said. “Let me talk to Bob. I can help him hail the helicopter. You can find a way to end this.”
Instead, Mr. Grand shoved his gun into Julie’s hands. “Shoot them if they try anything.”
He turned, stormed to the end of the first-class car and yelled at Lou to fire. Bullets echoed in the night.
Erica shook her head in frustration. Didn’t they realize how impossible their situation was? How hard it was getting themselves deeper, deeper into trouble until there was no way any of them would be able to make it out alive?
“Please, Julie!” Erica turned to the young woman sitting behind the laptop. “Listen to me. They’re distracted right now, and I don’t know how long we have. We have to get up, run into the front engine and find a way to hail the helicopter. Your brother is in there, right? Holding a gun on the engineer? He won’t shoot his sister. He’ll listen to you. We can work together to end this. My father was military. My grandfather was military.” And so is my son’s father. “You think once word gets out that a train has been hijacked in northern Ontario they’re not going to do something?”
Julie’s head shook. Erica took a step forward and reached out her hand.
“Hand me the gun, Julie. Come with me and help me stop the train,” she said. “You don’t have to fight this battle anymore. We’ll figure something out. We’ll find a way to end this where nobody gets hurt. Trust me. Your life and your brother’s life are worth more that whatever payday you think you’re getting. Please, don’t be this person when you have the opportunity to be someone better.”
There was a thud above her, like something had hit the top of the train. She held her breath. Then suddenly the sound of the rotors began to fade. The helicopter was rising. That was it? The helicopter was leaving? Their rescuers were going?
“No.” Julie gritted her teeth. “This ends when I crack the files.” Then her slender shoulders drooped as a long sigh moved through her body.
Erica slumped back against the wall, feeling the coolness of the window against the back of her head. Lord, I don’t even know what to pray right now...
There was a tap, so faint she barely heard it, on the window right beside her head. She glanced back. A cry rose to her lips.
Nick’s wet, bedraggled and upside-down face filled the window.
NINE
Erica gasped as suddenly her legs felt so weak she nearly pitched and fell. She grabbed the wall for support.
“Everything okay?” Tommy asked. His eyebrows rose.
What? No! She opened her mouth but no words came out. How could he ask that? Nick was stuck, flying through the night, on the outside of a train!
She turned back. Nothing but darkness filled her gaze. Nick’s face was gone from the window. She blinked. Had she been imagining it? Or had her body blocked everyone else from seeing his face in the window? Tommy clearly hadn’t seen it and not a muscle had moved on Julie’s face. She allowed herself one last glance at the window and almost laughed. Four squiggly and smudged letters ran in the condensation on the outside of the window. She watched as in an instant the rain wiped them away.
KISH—Keep. It. Simple. Henry.
A hysterical giggle leaped to her lips
and she barely managed to swallow it back.
Nick—her Nick—was somehow outside, clinging to the top of the train. She had no idea how he’d managed to pull that off. But he was right—she had to keep it simple. The only thing that mattered now was helping him get inside the train.
And that would be anything but simple.
The thought of Nick clinging to the roof of the train like some kind of superhero made her both want to laugh and cry. She hadn’t told him about Zander because she was afraid if Nick knew Zander was his son, he’d do something reckless. And now, here, he’d done the most reckless and dangerous thing she could imagine to save them. If there was any man on the planet tenacious enough to somehow drop from a helicopter onto a hijacked train in a rainstorm, it was Nick Henry. Now it was up to her to save him.
She leaned down to set Zander back onto the floor. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d carried him this much, and her limbs were aching. Instead Zander wrapped his arms around her neck and his legs around her waist. He leaned in so close to her ear that his whisper shook her eardrum. “We have to open the window, Mommy, and let Soldier Nick in.”
She blinked. Zander’s eyes were on hers and he was leaning in so close their noses touched. Well, that was definitely a simple solution. None of the train windows opened from the outside and the reinforced glass wouldn’t break easily. The first-class lounge windows didn’t open and she didn’t know how to break one without someone stopping her. Each of the first-class cabins had windows that opened, though. As well as a door that could be locked from the inside. If she could just find a way to talk Mr. Grand into letting her take Zander into one of those and then lock the door behind her, she could open a window from there.
“Come on,” she whispered. “We have to go save the soldier. You remember the sleeper cabins?” He nodded seriously. “We need to go into one of them and open the window, and I need your help to do that. Now, do you think you can yell and cry really, really loudly for Mommy? Like, be really naughty and pretend you need a time-out?”
Rescuing His Secret Child Page 11