Total pages in book: 109
Estimated words: 103620 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 518(@200wpm)___ 414(@250wpm)___ 345(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 103620 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 518(@200wpm)___ 414(@250wpm)___ 345(@300wpm)
You never know who people really are. Not by looking at them anyway.
Nigel leads us to an arched stone entryway that looks like some Harry Potter shit and extends his gloved hand, directing us to pass through. “This way, please.”
Alec goes first, followed by Christine, Eliza, and then me. Walking through the arch, I take one last glance to make sure we aren’t being followed. Not that we would be, given all the ceremony and the fact that we got here safely as promised, but old habits die hard.
Because I’m looking over my shoulder, I don’t notice that all three have stopped dead in front of me and are gawking at something, so I smack right into them.
“What the fu—?” I start. But then I also stop dead and feel my jaw drop open too.
Sitting on the train track in front of us is… well, it’s something.
Rich, navy blue with polished bronze trim. Elegant, sophisticated lines. Classic engineering from the wheels to the chimney. Oh, yeah. There’s a chimney. And it’s huffing out white smoke into the tunnel.
The windows are all lit by soft, warm light and the shades are pulled halfway down, allowing a glance at only the tiniest sliver of what awaits us inside. And what that appears to be is… opulence. Like, the classical, early-twentieth-century kind. Oak. Mahogany. Tufted leather. Linen tablecloths. Winston Churchill shit.
And suddenly I remember something… Back when Christine and I were on the boat, when it was just the two of us and we were sailing to find Alec, I had a thought. Not a profound or necessarily even a serious one. Just a random, passing thought that darted into and out of my brain like so many thousands of thoughts I have in a day.
I thought: Next time we run away I think we should do it by train.
Fuck me. Can these people—whoever they are—read minds too?
What in the hell are we walking into?
I don’t know, but I get a very literal response to that last pondering when Nigel comes around to stand in front of the four of us, extends his arms out wide, and says…
“Ladies and gentlemen! Welcome aboard the Orient Express!”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
“The… Orient Express? Are you being serious?” I ask the guy.
“Yes, indeed, ma’am. Quite serious. The Venice-Simplon Orient Express, owned and operated by Belmond Limited and utilizing vintage Pullman carriages as well as vintage sleeping and dining cars from the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lit—all lovingly restored to their former glory—is the first and last name in five-star leisure travel. And, for the next seventeen hours on your trip to Vienna, it is entirely yours.”
“Say again?” I blurt out, almost like a reflex. “Whaddayou mean ‘ours?’”
“There are no other passengers on this journey,” he says. “The only other persons aboard will be myself and one butler to ensure your needs are being met. We felt this was the minimum number of bodies necessary to see to your comfort.”
“Our comfort?” Danny says with more than a little edge.
“Butler?” I add.
“Yes, sir. Yes, ma’am. Anticipating the client’s every want, need, and desire is the hallmark of our service.”
We stare at this guy as he stands in front of us, smiling, the idling anachronism chug-chug-chugging in place behind him. Eliza is the first one to break away.
“Yeah, all right,” she says as she walks past him and steps up and onto the train.
The conductor dude avoids her courteously and once more steps to the side of us, extending his hand out in an invitation to board as well.
Danny looks at me, I look back at him, I look at Alec, he looks at both of us, and then he boards also, without a word.
I close my eyes again, almost without thinking.
Castle.
Lars.
A man with a scar.
Talk of… what? Of…
Killing someone.
“Hey.” Danny’s voice, pulling me out. As ever.
I open my eyes and see him standing on the steps leading into the car. He has his hand outstretched for me. And for the briefest of flashes we’re not ourselves. We’re other people, in another time. I’m not wearing my leather jacket and boots. Danny’s not wearing his. He’s in a fancy-looking double-breasted suit, hair slicked back, blue eyes gleaming in the soft light of the station’s boarding platform.
I’m in some kind of pretty dress. Taffeta or jacquard or something. It complements Danny’s suit. I have on a hat. It sits jauntily on my head and my hair is silky and beautiful and styled perfectly in elegant waves that peek out from under the hat across my forehead and blend into the long waterfall of brown cascading down my back.
Then Danny says, “Keene, come on,” and I’m back here and now. Even though I’m not sure where that is or what it means any more than I do the fantasy I just indulged myself in.
The conductor’s smile widens even further as he waits patiently for me to step on. I have a terrible, terrible, fearful feeling. I’m scared. Scared of what’s to come, scared to know what I did the last time I was wherever we’re going.