“Zander will be okay,” Nick said. “He’s a tough kid.”
“I know,” Erica said. “He’s with Tommy and Clark Lemain. They’ll make sure he’s okay.”
“The same Clark Lemain who got busted selling both exam answers and cigarettes, and fairly successfully pinned it on me?” He didn’t bother trying to hide the contempt in his voice.
“And got a full scholarship to University of Ottawa, studied law and is now the country’s youngest ever Member of Provincial Parliament.” Her tone of voice made it clear she’d expected him to know that. He’d always hated that tone of voice.
“Well, some people are better at hiding who they are,” he said. “According to my brother, Clark had a reputation for being too handsy with girls, but no one would complain publicly. He’s probably no better now. You know he had a crush on you in high school.”
It was a petulant thing to say and she ignored it. But somehow the fact that Erica was still close to a highly successful man who’d been very attracted to her galled him.
“Clark is Tommy’s friend,” she said. “They’ll be okay.”
That was the second time she’d used that word and, in his experience, he wouldn’t exactly classify being with Tommy and Clark as “okay.” Erica’s brother had been a hothead who drank underage and would never back down from a fight. Not that Nick himself had been all that much better. Clark was a smarmy weasel who’d cultivated a nauseatingly clean-cut image while being anything but. But for now, he could keep his mouth shut on all of that. His high school years were hardly anything to crow over and he had no right to be jealous of anybody in Erica’s life now.
Besides, he couldn’t begin to imagine what Erica was going through and wasn’t about to make things any harder on her than they already were. “How do we get out of here?”
“I don’t know yet. I’m still trying to figure it out,” she said. Now there was something about her tone that made the corners of his mouth curl up slightly at the edges. “The locker has a pretty standard clasp on the outside, but I’ve never tried to figure out how to open it from the inside.”
Okay, he racked his brain for what he’d seen. He thought he could picture it. “Why does it feel like the train is speeding up?”
“Because it is,” she said. Her voice shook, but only slightly, for a second. Then she seemed to grit her teeth. “The train stopped briefly, presumably in Coral Rapids, not that I could actually see out a window, then it started moving again. So hopefully that means Mr. Grand and his buddies took the case and ran.”
“Why was a North Jewels Diamond Mine case sitting alone in a baggage compartment?” he asked. “I would’ve expected anyone transporting something that valuable to want to keep eyes on it.”
“We get a lot of valuables in baggage,” she said. “But on this trip, it was actually the only thing that I had to lock in the cabinet. The woman who checked it in was young, maybe early twenties. Mostly I remember she seemed kind of anxious about making sure it was secure.”
“Would you recognize her again?” Nick asked. “If Mr. Grand had the combination, she might be in danger.”
“Probably,” she said. “I tend to pay attention to people when I check in their valuables because I have to give them a receipt and unlock the cabinet again for them at the end of the trip. But are you really okay, though? Be totally straight with me, Nick. This is no time for you to pretend you’re Mr. Indestructible. They hit you pretty hard. You went down like a bag of rocks.”
Well, good to know she still had his number. Truth was, everything hurt. The tight quarters and rattling wasn’t helping much. But it was nothing compared to the ache in his chest when he thought about what she was going through. She’d been held at gunpoint and her child had been threatened by criminals. The last thing she needed to worry about right now was him.
“I’m okay.” He felt his voice drop like someone had somehow turned it down an octave. “I promise. I’m achy, yeah. But I’ve been hit far worse. And thank you for double-checking.”
She went quiet again and something inside told him she was thinking about Zander. He didn’t know what to say. Should he reassure her again? Or ask what she was thinking? She’d always been the one who’d been good with words. He’d found it nearly impossible to even say the simplest things like “You’re beautiful” or “I like you” or “You matter to me” let alone anything more about the deeper feelings growing in his heart for her back then.
He leaned forward gently and felt her forehead brush against his. Then he felt the wetness of a tear against his cheek. The Erica he’d known had always been too strong and stubborn to let herself cry in front of him. He could only remember seeing tears in her eyes once and that had been the most shameful moment of his life. They’d woken up together in the barn, with their arms around each other, and before they’d even had time to talk about their lapse in judgment, Tommy had burst in and yanked them apart. And I’d bailed. I left her there, with her brother shouting at her, rather than standing beside her and taking the heat. I should have made it clear, then and there, how very much she mattered to me. Instead, I pretty much proved Tommy right when he accused me of not caring about her or anyone other than myself. Lord, why did I have to be so selfish and self-destructive? The pain in his chest cranked up to eleven and suddenly his arms ached to hold her. “Oh, babe, what did they do to you?”
“I’m fine, and Erica will do.” Her tone sharpened. Yeah, guess he’d forever lost the right to call her that, no matter who had a gun to their heads or what tin box they were trapped in. “They didn’t lay a hand on me besides tying my hands and pushing me a bit. They told me to stay silent until the train left the station, then someone would find me eventually and I’d be reunited with my son. Now, how are we going to get our hands untied?”
He blew out a long breath and rolled slowly from one side to another and then back again. Thankfully he could feel the lump of his pocketknife still in his jacket. “If you can roll your back to me, I can position myself so that you can get my knife out of my jacket pocket and into your hands. Then we can roll back-to-back, you can pass it to me and I’ll cut your hands free.”
“You’ll cut my hands free, in the dark, with your hands tied and your back turned?”
Well, she didn’t have to sound so skeptical. Apparently in the soft haze of long-lost affection he’d managed to forget just how much she’d needled him, challenged him and pushed him. Then again, he also seemed to remember that he’d appreciated it. Sometimes.
“Yeah, Erica, I will,” he said, steeling his voice and not even trying to hide either his frustration or his determination. “Then you’re going to free my hands and I’m going to use the blade to jimmy the clasp open.”
He held his breath and waited for her to argue. Instead he heard something that was a cross between a sigh and “Okay” as he felt her roll over. Her hands brushed against his jacket and he guided her fingers to his pocket and waited while she eased the knife out and slid it into his hands. Then she turned her back to him.
“Just don’t cut me,” she said.
“I’m not planning on it.” In fact, he was praying very hard that he wouldn’t. He opened the pocketknife, tapped his finger against the tip to make sure it was pointing the right direction and started to carefully cut the rope binding her wrists. Silence fell in the space between them, a silence that he wanted to fill with words he didn’t know how to speak.
“So you finally met Zander,” she said after a long moment.
“I did,” he said. There was a weight to her words that he couldn’t quite decipher. “I...I had no idea you had a child.”
He felt her freeze. Tension seemed to radiate down her arms and limbs and into her hands. Had he said something wrong? He had so many questions. Starting with who Zander’s father was. Not that he had the right to ask.
“How did you meet Zander?” she asked, and it was only t
hen he realized she didn’t know how they’d ended up in the dining car.
“He found me, woke me up and asked me for my help,” Nick told her. “He said he’d seen bad guys with guns under the table in the dining car and wanted me to help him rescue you. He was very insistent.”
A small gasp slipped through her lips and he had the distinct impression that whatever she’d been about to say she’d bitten back.
“In fact, he tried to talk me into letting him have my gun,” he added.
She laughed. It was a watery laugh that seemed half laugh and half sob.
They lapsed back into silence and he was surprised at how quickly he missed the sound of her voice. He didn’t know what to say. Or even what he wanted to. That she’d been everything to him when they’d been younger, but he’d never really felt worthy of her affection. Of anyone’s love really.
He’d been born into an amazing, incredibly strong, God-loving family. But he also never remembered a time when he hadn’t looked at his sister’s picture on the wall and wondered if his birth had felt like some kind of consolation prize. He’d never quite understood why his family’s tragedy had made him want to act out, shove back, be a brat and generally try to see just how far he could push people away before they stopped loving him. His parents, his brothers and God had never given up on him. But while Erica had patiently stood by him for years, he’d eventually pushed her one step too far.
I cared about her the most, Lord. So why did I treat her the worst? Why did I refuse to even call her my girlfriend when that’s clearly what she was? Why did I have to blow everything up to see just how much she mattered to me?
Because he had. Because he did. And, generally, he was thankful for everything that mistake had changed in his life. How it had pushed him to be a better, stronger and faithful man. He’d even tried dating a couple of women on base and being the gentleman who Erica had deserved. But it had never worked. No one, no matter how nice a person, had ever been her.
He gritted his teeth and focused on the job at hand.
“I can’t stop wondering what happened to the other train staff,” Erica said eventually, after a very long moment of silence. “There are supposed to be eight of us. Two engineers, two conductors and four train attendants. And Bob Bass is driving the engine today. We normally have a larger crew for the day shift, but the night train runs on a skeletal crew. The staff tend to congregate in two groups at opposite ends of the train, in the front and rear engines, this late at night. But still, we should’ve seen someone, and they should’ve seen what was happening on the security cameras.”
“What’s a rear engine?”
“Exactly same as a front engine, it just points in the opposite direction. It means we can change direction without turning around and make the entire trip without refueling. Either one of them can drive the train. It’s like a snake with a head at both ends.” He felt her shrug and grabbed her wrists with his fingers to steady them again.
“Trains are pretty soundproof,” she told him, “because they’re all individual cars. Add in the noise of the train and the rain outside, you could probably fire a gun in one car and all you’d hear in the other would be a muffled bang like something falling over. Especially if it had a silencer.”
Not exactly comforting. His hand slipped, taking the blade with it. She winced. So did he. “Did I hurt you?”
“Just pricked me. Only a little. It’s okay. You can keep going.”
He ran his fingers over the rope. He’d cut through enough that it had begun to fray and the blade was too close to her skin for his liking. He set the knife down and started to pull the rope apart strand by strand. She sighed. He knew that sound. “Don’t worry,” he said. “You’ll be free in a moment, you’ll be reunited with your son and this will all be over soon. I promise.”
For a long moment neither of them said anything. They just lay there back-to-back, the heels of her leather shoes brushing against the backs of his legs as the train rumbled through the night beneath them. Finally he felt the rope fall free from her hands and heard her gasp in relief. Then he felt her roll over and pick up the knife. She started cutting his hands free. The fact that her hands were free and she could actually face him would make it go much faster now.
“You really didn’t know about Zander?” Her voice moved behind him in the darkness. Why was she bringing this up again? Should he have?
“No,” he admitted. “I really didn’t.”
“Tommy said he told you when I was pregnant,” she said. “Plus, Huntsville is a very small town.” Her voice trailed off and he had the impression there were words she was keeping herself from saying.
“It’s not that small,” he said. “Plus, I’d joined the army and you’d moved to Kingston. Basically, Tommy told me that you’d left town and were better off without me.”
“Well, I didn’t know you were in the army.”
The rope snapped from his hands. For a second he just lay there, too stunned to know what to say and fighting the urge to turn toward her. Instead he took the knife from her hands, brought it around in front of him and slid the blade into the tiny gap of light. He started working on popping the clasp open. “How could you not know I was in the army?”
“You said it yourself. I’d moved to Kingston for university and you’d moved on base.”
“Yes, but I wrote you a letter! Telling you I’d joined the army. Telling you...everything.”
The clasp snapped back. The door fell open. Light flooded through. He rolled out, stood and then reached back for her. But Erica was already crawling out of the locker. Her auburn hair had slipped from its braid and now fell in messy loose waves around her face. His mouth went dry. She ignored his hand and pushed herself to her feet.
“Well, if you sent me a letter, I didn’t get it. I blocked both your cell phone number and your email address. You can’t really blame me for that.”
“I didn’t. I don’t. But I wrote you an actual physical letter—a really long one, with pen and paper—and hand delivered it to your house.”
She opened her mouth. But before she could speak, a shout came from the other end of the baggage car. He looked up. The door flew open. Fox ran through, a gun in his hands.
* * *
“Get behind me!” Nick shouted, throwing himself between her and the charging criminal. “And stay down!”
She dropped to the ground and rolled, even as she heard the sound of the gun firing and a bullet flying over her head. It clanged against the ceiling and ricocheted. She sprang to her feet, ran for the door, yanked it open and tumbled into the gap between the cars. Then she yanked on the handle of the door leading to the rear engine. It was locked. Why was it locked?
“It’s Erica Knight! Let me in.” Desperately, she banged on the window and pounded the door. No sound, no motion. Nothing came from behind the glass. “Come on! Somebody! Let me in!”
A second bullet sounded. She hit the floor and rolled. The reinforced window of the rear engine door—the one she’d been banging on just seconds before—cracked into a web of glass. She turned around, trapped in the no-man’s-land between two train cars, with Nick and Fox battling on one side and a locked door on the other. She slid her body against the wall, looked around the corner and watched as Nick threw himself at Fox. They wrestled for the gun. Her heart leaped into her throat as she watched Nick’s strong, lean form battle to rip the weapon away from a man twice his size.
Help me, Lord!
She had to think. She had to act. But one thought seemed to pound through her like a strong and relentless heartbeat as she watched the soldier and the thief exchange blows. That soldier was Nick! The boy she’d loved, longed for, hated and lost, was back. He’d always been athletic. But now he was brave. He was courageous. He was the kind of man who’d throw himself in the path of a criminal’s gun after giving his helmet and bulletproof vest to her son. Their so
n. The son Nick clearly had known nothing about. She never should’ve trusted Tommy. Then again, denying the baby was his and bailing had seemed like the kind of thing the Nick she’d known would do. She had to tell him. He had to know.
But not here. Not now.
“Erica!” Nick shouted. “Get ready to catch!”
Catch what? She leaned around the corner just in time to watch as Nick delivered a quick and swift uppercut to Fox’s jaw, knocking him back so hard the gun flew from his hand and skidded across the ground. Nick dived for it. Fox lunged after him, catching Nick around the legs and sending him sprawling to the ground. Nick’s hand shot out, flicking the gun and sending it flying down the metal floor toward her. She darted out from behind the door and scrambled for it.
Fox looked up. His cold dark eyes met hers. He charged at her. Nick caught him by the shoulder and yanked him back.
“Get to the rear engine!” Nick shouted. “I’ll catch up with you.”
The engine door was still locked! She ran back into the space between the cars.
“Get back!” she shouted to whoever might be listening inside the rear engine. “I’m going to try to shoot out the window!”
She stepped as far as she could to the side and prayed she was far enough out of the line of fire to avoid getting hit by broken glass or a ricocheting bullet. Then she raised the gun, aimed at the splintered window and fired twice. The first bullet bent the reinforced glass pane inward. The second destroyed what remained of the window. She yanked her decorative uniform scarf from around her neck, wrapped it around her hand, stuck it through the window and unlocked the door from the inside. She forced the door open and tumbled into the rear engine, praying with every heartbeat that Nick would be just one step behind her. Glass crackled beneath her feet. Her heart pounded so hard she could barely breathe. “We have to stop the train and alert the authorities. There are armed thieves on board!”
Rescuing His Secret Child Page 4
