If she acted like she cooperated, maybe she could find her way off the train. She leaned closer and nodded. “Absolutely. So, if I give you this necklace, you can let me go. I’ll fly back to Florida and he can forget all about me—again.”
Without any explanation, Ted stood and snapped his fingers at the other man. “I can’t let that happen. Alexandre, see if you can get her to talk about Dane Pearce until I get back.”
She watched Ted walk out of the small private room as the train continued on its tracks, making a light purr under her own tied feet. For a second she saw the plush red carpet of the main train, but the golden door closed and his footsteps disappeared from her hearing. The click of the door reverberated inside her gut. She’d use her years of defense training to get out of here. As the other man came over, Alexandre, she smiled at him, noticing his groomed face and hook nose— her instincts whispered to be cautious, as if timid. For all she knew, talk meant threaten rape. She glanced down and asked, “Alexandre, you’re French?”
“Oui.” He sank onto the chair his boss had just vacated. “Alexandre Mazet at your service, madame.”
He thought himself a ladies man. Maybe she could find her way out of this, with Alexandre’s unwitting help. She licked her lips and coughed, lowering her lashes. “Look, Dane and I were high school and that was a long time ago. I’ve not seen the man in ten years and I don’t want to. Not when I can talk to nice men like you. Why don’t we sit peacefully and have a glass of wine while we talk? Wine always loosens me up.”
“Wine is an excellent idea.” He stood. “Though it’s better for you that we don’t share too many personal details.”
“Why?”
“My wife might be jealous,” he teased. “Or, I might have to kill you later.”
Not good. She jingled her handcuffs. “I’ll behave. The wine sounds yummy, but you’ll have to untie my hands if I’m to join you.”
He eyed her as if assessing her strength. “How do I know I can trust you?”
Weak was her best weapon. She let out a small, sad sigh. “You don’t, but can you honestly trust any woman? Besides, you’re the one with the gun and we’re in a locked cabin. Where can I go?”
He gave her a glance that made her think she was on the menu as he took out a key and uncuffed her hands and legs.
She massaged where the metal chafed her. “Just a word of warning—wine makes me very friendly.”
Alexandre pointed her toward the bar with a sly grin. “Just what the boss ordered. Why don’t you pour?”
“I’d love to.” Emily knew that his eyes were on her figure, which had been his plan. Her blue pants hugged her hips and she gave an extra shimmy as she poured two glasses of wine.
She turned and handed him a glass with a flirty smile.
Slinging the strap of her pocketbook over her shoulder, she picked up her wine and sashayed in front of him to keep him distracted as she sank to the edge of her chair, casually hanging her pocketbook behind her like they were in a restaurant and everything was completely normal.
He offered his glass for a toast.
After a clink, Emily gulped her drink.
He watched her and shook his head. “So American. You gulped that down fast.”
“I guess I’m nervous. Do you have any crackers, or cheese?”
Alexandre got up and searched the cabinet beneath the bar.
While he wasn’t looking, she reached behind her and slipped her phone and prescription pills for stopping men at a nightclub in her lap, hiding them beneath a napkin.
He returned. “Nothing to eat. Now, where were we?”
“You need to drink,” she laughed, getting up and going to the bar to pour another. “I needed it. It’s been a long day.” She let out a sigh, and turned to him with a wink, then faced the bar again. “I’ll drink this one slower.”
Emily typed without looking at her phone at all and hoped for the best. Dane, we’re on the train to Paris.
Now, she wasn’t 100% sure they were off to Paris, but Ted had said bank so she put it together. She tucked her phone beneath the napkin.
Alexandre asked, “So how did you get mixed up with treasure hunting with Dane Pearce?”
Right. She slowly took the cap off the prescription bottle, not wanting to make a sound. She returned to the table with a pill hidden in her palm and sat again. The table provided cover for her phone and the bottle as she leaned forward. “I hadn’t planned to be. Two days ago, I graduated from college. Ted and his men showed up when I was out with my friends—so did Dane, and his guys.”
“Congratulations.” He lifted his glass to drink.
She tapped her glass with his and sipped. “Thanks. I wish I could get home and not be here.”
Alexandre drank. “I understand. Sometimes I wish that I wasn’t on Vet San’s payroll.”
Emily scooted her chair closer to his, then ran her hand through her short bob like a model on a shoot. She tapped his hand as she looked him in the eyes. Once she was sure he was captivated, she slipped her pill in his wine. “Why are you?”
He turned his hand so they were palm to palm and let out a small sigh. “Most of the time, I’m not aiming my gun at beautiful women.”
For a hitman he wasn’t horrible looking, but she needed him to wait to look at his drink so she lowered her lashes and asked with a giggle, “You think I’m beautiful?”
She glanced at the glass. Good. It was dissolved. Emily took her hand back and picked up her wine as he said, “You’re the prettiest girl I’ve seen in the past year that I’ve had more than five minutes alone with, where I didn’t have to just shoot her and leave her for dead.”
Her heart went cold as she thought about other women who he’d simply shot without one word spoken. Goosebumps grew on her arms. “Well Alexandre, I don’t want you to shoot me.”
He shrugged and sat back in his seat. “I don’t want to shoot you either, but a job is a job.”
She held up her glass and gestured for another toast. “That’s a horrible way to live. Have you thought about quitting?”
“No.” He tapped his glass with hers.
Adrenaline rushed through her as she waited. He sipped his wine, as she did, and finished his first glass. Without being asked, she poured him more. Michael had always said this worked fast. Alexandre’s pupils widened. As she handed him the second glass, he shook his head and said, “I’m feeling dizzy.”
A moment later his forehead hit the table. She picked up her pocketbook, fluffed her hair and patted him on the back. “Sorry Alexandre, I didn’t have a lot of time to mix a smaller dose.” Her brother-in-law had always told her to be prepared—thank you, Michael. “I’ll be going now. Thanks for the wine.”
She reached behind him and took the keys. As she approached the door, she said a little prayer that it would open. She twisted the handle and heard it unlatch with a release of breath. She was free. Now she just needed to get off the train, undetected. But one step at a time.
Chapter 6
Once on his plane headed for New York, Uriel didn’t leave the bar.
Brady and Henry filed flight manifests and spoke to ground control, but none of that mattered to him.
Uriel’s skin buzzed. Emily was gone. He’d killed her when he let her come along. His head pounded from grief, or the whiskey, or both, but the memory of Emily’s blue eyes as she climbed out the limo window haunted him.
Probably forever.
If he’d been thirty seconds faster, could he have saved her?
The question didn’t stop demanding an answer and no amount of shots silenced it. In fact, the question seemed to grow louder with every glass.
Time slowed down, slower than sand in an hourglass.
A shot of whiskey didn’t make time move faster—but he’d keep trying.
His friends had dragged him away from the limo wreck, shoved him on his plane, where they now waited for takeoff.
The authorities at least had Ted’s face on camera. This had be
en Vet San’s sloppiest job in years which meant he was desperate.
The man’s wrinkles were almost as haunting as Uriel’s guilt. He poured the last shot and finished the bottle.
Brady picked up the empty glass bottle. Uriel turned toward him and slurred his words, “We… didn’t… pack enough whiskey.”
Sitting beside him, Brady shook his head like he was disappointed. Uriel’s skin itched like razors rubbed against him as Brady said, “You don’t normally drink like this.”
Because Emily had been alive. Though out of his world for years, she’d been safe, away from him. Now all he could remember was how she’d tasted sweeter than honey. His mind flashed to the day his mother had been murdered and how Emily had held him back, saving his life.
He hadn’t returned the favor. He squeezed his eyes shut and wished her blue eyes would fade from his memory. “I have to tell her family…”
Brady took the glass to the bar to the left of the cockpit. “I’ve been monitoring the local police wires for hours now. They found no trace of human remains.”
The explosion boomed in his ears with each blink of his eye.
Somehow if he’d been faster, he might have saved her. He shook it off and banged on his small table. “When I find Ted, I’m done playing games.”
He heard Henry in the cockpit talking to the tower, then, what sounded like “cleared.”
There was no more shots to take. They had to get home, but even home wouldn’t be enough to forget her.
Emily had already haunted him but now she’d star as his biggest mistake. And this was all Ted’s fault. Sure, the man had stolen a few things from various digs over the years and sold them to private buyers, but he’d never been sloppy.
Or a murderer.
Now he was both. Uriel’s blood boiled as he shook his head. “What does Ted want?”
Brady wiped Uriel’s glass clean at the bar while he said, “He’s foiled your finds a few times.”
“He killed Emily.” Uriel straightened as if a dagger had pierced his spine.
Somehow, someway, he’d avenge this awful wrong.
Emily deserved far more.
Brady put the glass down and folded the bar towel. “Look, I didn’t see blood, just smoke. Granted my eyes burned, but I stalled our leaving so I could find more proof. There was no body, no DNA. Look, I’ll go try to dig up more whiskey for you, but maybe you should have some hope that all isn’t lost.”
Brady was the optimist. He was the realist. Emily was dead and his heart shriveled and died with her. For now he needed to drink and forget. Tomorrow he’d channel his biological father’s thirst for revenge and craft out every detail.
He placed his head on the table and hoped the pounding stopped. He heard a ring. He’d have ignored but Brady called out, “Uriel, your phone. It could be the authorities with news.”
He found it, reading the screen.
Dane, we’re on the train to Paris.
Uriel’s eyes sharpened and he read the text again.
Emily.
She was alive. He jumped out of his chair though he swayed from the whiskey as he said, “We need to head to Paris.”
Brady walked from the back toward the cockpit with a bottle in hand though he put it on the bar rather than give it to Uriel. “I’ll tell Henry. Care to explain what changed your mind?”
Uriel handed Brady his phone and tried to shake off the bottle he’d just had. “Emily’s alive.”
Brady smiled like he wanted to say he’d been right all along, but bounced forward and spoke to Henry.
Uriel splashed water on his face from the bar sink. Brady returned and directed him to the bathroom. “Let’s get you cleaned up then. You’ll need a level head.”
Right. Without a care he dropped his clothes and hopped in the compact shower.
The plane took off and Uriel held the handlebars while the water washed away the grime of the explosion.
If Emily was alive, she’d need him.
He’d not disappoint her or let her die, again.
Finally he turned off the water and found a clean black t-shirt and his favorite brand of jeans he’d kept on board in the event of an emergency. Once dressed, he returned to the cabin and saw Brady reading his tablet. Uriel opened a bottle of water and gulped it. “If they are heading to Paris then Ted has her necklace.”
The impulse to text Emily back hit him, but he remembered his biological father’s cautionary advice to never tell anyone your plans, especially who you intend to see or who you intend to rescue or surprise. Michael’s voice even said the words. This time Uriel would listen to him.
Emily certainly would. Breathing deep, he put his empty plastic bottle in the trash.
Brady cleaned his glasses from fingerprints with a microfiber towel he carried in his back pocket. “Is that important?”
Uriel tapped his fingers, needing something to do, something to focus on to help the whiskey wear off. Then he remembered the small black box. He hadn’t opened it. He jumped out of his seat and ran to his jacket, where it was still in the pocket. He took it out and returned to this seat. It was smaller than a box people used for proposing marriage. He showed it to Brady like it was a ring. “It’s the key to the next piece of the puzzle.”
Brady fixed his glasses on his face but laughed like Uriel had just proposed. For the first time in hours, Uriel laughed too.
“What’s in it?” Brady leaned over his armrest to see.
“I don’t know.” Uriel transitioned it around until he saw a pin hole. He shook it, and pressed on every angle. Nothing. He went to the bar to find a metal fork or a knife to pry it open.
Brady asked, “What kind of clue would be in this other than a ring to give Emily when we find her?”
“I’m not giving Emily a ring.” Uriel looked up briefly while he tried to push the small lock with the fork but the tines were too thick. “Besides, this is from the Pearce family vaults. She wouldn’t want whatever it is.”
“Clearly,” Brady said sarcastically. “She still wears the jewelry you gave her, out with her friends.”
True. She hadn’t tossed the necklace somewhere and hooked up with some other guy.
The thought left a knot in his throat, but he focused on the box. He needed something thinner. The earring had a smaller pin so he went through his tool chest and found a small metal wire. Finally, he jimmied the hole. “I don’t know…” A second later, he clicked the lock. “There.”
It opened and he lifted a silver key the size of a diamond ring off a black velvet pillow. He kept it in his open palm. Brady asked impatiently, “What is it?”
Uriel held it up to the light as he stated the obvious. “It’s the key.” He read the inscription. This was clearly the security box key to the bank in Paris. He met Brady’s gaze. “Do you know what this means?”
Brady folded his hands between his knees. “No, I’m a few steps behind you.”
He returned the key to the box, and put it in his jean pocket as he explained to Brady, “With Emily’s necklace, Ted and his guys might get in the bank, but they won’t get inside the security box without this.”
Brady gave him a pensive look like he was solving his own puzzle. “How do you know that?”
“It’s the name of my father’s bank and this key opens the box.” Uriel realized fast Emily would demand to go with Ted, which meant he could find her.
Nothing ever stopped her. Criminals should probably be thankful she hadn’t become a cop as she was relentless. Lightness filled his chest.
“For a man who never talked about his past until a pretty girl showed up for one of our trips, I will say this...” Brady stood and found a bottle of water for himself at the bar. “You have an interesting back story, Uriel.”
Brady and Henry, and their archeological travels, had helped him forget his mother’s death and Edmond Pearce’s betrayal of what he thought was his family.
He immediately recalled the feel of Emily’s arms wrapped around him as they
lay entwined after prom all those years ago. It might have been the last time he’d ever been so peaceful, which was one of the reasons he’d run. He sobered up as they flew toward Paris. “The past doesn’t matter, but we need to get Emily. We must be at the bank before Ted.”
Henry announced via speaker from the cockpit, “Fifteen more minutes.”
Perfect. Soon he’d wrap his arms around Emily again and not let go. Her “death” had shaken his life clear of all doubts.
Brady, still at the bar counter, made three coffees. “Where do we go first?”
Uriel accepted a mug and answered, “Emily will meet us at the bank.” He knew that with every certainty.
Brady walked to the cockpit with the second cup.
Uriel sipped the caffeinated drink as he imagined all that Emily had learned, which must have been from Michael.
And Michael had ice in his veins when he went after whatever he wanted.
Michael’s coldness had never bothered his new family of women he’d surrounded himself with, including Emily, as his sister-in-law and charge. Michael had once said Dane should think of Emily as his sister, which was why he’d insisted he return to boarding school and avoided his biological father’s home as much as possible.
Emily was never his relation, and it was better if Michael kept his distance too. He’d already had one horrible father and didn’t want to double his luck.
So he changed his name and his life.
Thanks to Michael, Emily wasn’t completely helpless.
Somehow she’d survived and now they could finish this jewelry nonsense together. He’d return the jewels and continue to help in the world instead of just be another rich boy with a bad childhood.
He’d been ready to go back without pursuing this anymore. Now the key almost radiated heat, though he knew he was just imagining it.
Brady returned and asked, “How are you?”
“I’m thinking clearly now.” He finished his last gulp as Brady rejoined him. Uriel glanced at his friend, who offered his tablet. Dr. Brady Booker was excellent with math and code, and Uriel read his notes about the limo crash that didn’t have any bodies. He’d also pulled up all the train schedules and possible banks in Paris. Brady had been solving Emily’s disappearance while Uriel had been drowning his grief.
Hidden Dane (Hidden Alphas Book 4) Page 5
