AllFreeNovel
Share Us
The reivers! She’d even mentioned to Caleb that there had been hiding places built in these cars because of the reivers. She looked up at the ornate paneled ceiling. She tried to remember the sketches of the remodel when the chandeliers were added in the late nineteenth century. If she remembered correctly, there was a sizable gap between the drop ceiling and the train car’s roof. At the time she’d studied them she’d wondered if this gap was used by passengers as hiding places from the reivers.
BAM. BAM. BAM.
They were almost through the door.
Jane stood on a chair and pressed against a square ceiling panel. It didn’t budge.
BAM. BAM. BAM.
She tried another. No dice.
BAM. BAM. BAM.
Bohdan’s men were almost inside. She pushed up yet another ceiling panel.
It moved.
Hurry. Not much time. They’d be breaking in any second.
She gripped the sides of the opening and hoisted herself up into the ceiling. She replaced the panel just as the door finally gave way!
She heard a single set of footsteps in the train car below. Only one man. She could hear him shouting and laughing to someone still outside the door. Carefully, quietly, she moved toward the clump of wires that fed one of the ornate lighting fixtures. She looked through the fixture opening and saw one of Bohdan’s men alone in the compartment, standing where she’d been just moments before.
Now he was speaking to someone through his headset, and she heard him identify himself as Chiswick. She’d heard that name before. Not good.
One of Bohdan’s top lieutenants.
She slid across the ceiling structure, making her way to the far side of the car. Every time she reached a lighting fixture, she paused to see what he was doing.
At one point, he crouched behind her camera and looked at the mural. Chiswick had no idea what he was seeing, she was sure.
Jane turned. It was difficult to see, but there appeared to be a small door on the car’s far side. Could she use it to get to the roof? From there, she might be able to reach Caleb and Rodland in the front engine car.
She slid toward the door panel, hoping the clattering of wheels on the tracks would mask the sounds of her movements.
Just a few feet more…
SMASH!
The ceiling panels erupted in front of her, and Chiswick’s face was only three feet from hers! He was standing on a table and had broken through the ceiling with the butt of his rifle. He turned his gun barrel toward her and smiled.
“Going somewhere?”
She inhaled sharply and couldn’t speak for a moment.
He smiled. “Jane MacGuire. Poor woman, afraid and cowering in the ceiling. It seems I’ve come up with a prize. Bohdan warned me I’d better come back with you or Caleb today. He has great plans for you. If I help him, he might just forgive me. This must be fate; I ran into a friend of yours at your gallery in London. She was most cooperative.”
Felicia. This must be the man who had killed Felicia.
“You’re right, she was a friend of mine,” she said hoarsely. “And I think ‘fate’ is a very good word for it.”
Only when it was too late did Chiswick notice that she was holding a half-hidden gun in her right hand.
BLAMMM!
She shot him in the face.
***
