No Hiding Behind the Potted Palms! A Dance with Danger Mystery #7 (26 page)

“Hey!” I hollered. “Let go
of me!”

I felt myself propelled
through the black nothingness, bouncing against the walls as the
train picked up speed. I was beginning to fear for my
life.

“Help!” I cried out.
“Someone, help me!”

The hands grew rougher and
one of them clamped over my mouth. A flashlight cut through the
darkness from far away, like a disembodied fairy dancing across the
sky. I was tossed against the wall with a hard thud as my assailant
fled. I could hear voices coming toward me as I lay slumped on the
floor of the corridor.

“Are you okay?” asked a
conductor. “What happened? What was that guy doing to
you?”

“I’m not sure,” I admitted.
He aimed his flashlight at my face.

“You’re
bleeding.”

“I am?”

“Come on,” he told me. “I’ll
take you to Doc. He’ll patch you up.”

The lights came on and we
all looked up simultaneously.

“I don’t need a doctor,” I
shrugged him off, reluctant to take this any further. Maybe I was
in denial that someone just tried to assault me. Maybe I just
wanted to believe it was a misunderstanding. Maybe all I really
wanted to do was go to the dining car, sit down in the light, and
be with a crowd of people, where I would have plenty of witnesses
if the mystery man tried to attack me again. Maybe I just wanted to
forget the last ten minutes, like they never happened. So many
confusing emotions swirled around my head. And then I realized it
was my head that was swirling as I lost consciousness.

I have no idea how long I
was out, but when I woke up, an old man who smelled like cigars and
coffee was leaning over me. He held my wrist with his thumb and
forefinger, taking my pulse.

“What do you think, Doc?”
The conductor leaned over us, a heavy-set man with blue eyes and a
bushy brown moustache.

“I don’t know, Robert. Her
pupils are dilated, her pulse is racing, and she seems confused. I
can’t find any real injury, other than that scratch on her face.
Are you sure she’s not under the influence?”

“I’m not drunk!” I said
testily, sitting up quickly from the bench seat. It looked like I
was in the crew’s quarters. “I only had a couple glasses of
wine.”

“Not that kind of
influence,” Doc replied. I looked him right in the eye, or at least
I tried to, but my eyes had trouble focusing. “Follow my finger.
Doesn’t seem to be drugs involved.”

I forced myself to watch his
stubby finger move from right to left and then left to right. It
wasn’t easy. There was a sharp pain forming right in the center of
my forehead. An important thought was trying to break into my
consciousness. I wanted to let it in, but I couldn’t seem to open
the door.

“My purse. Where is my
purse?” I reached down, hoping it was here, beside me.

“There was no purse when we
found you,” Robert insisted.

“What am I going to do?
Everything is in my purse, even my laptop!”

“Maybe that’s what he was
after,” Doc suggested. “It’s a motive for the attack.”

“What am I going to do?” I
said again. I kept hoping that this was a dream and someone would
wake me up.

“We’ll have to notify the
police at the next station,” Doc told Robert.

“But that’s not till
Florence. We’re in Georgia right now. Who has
jurisdiction?”

“You have a point. I guess
we’ll have to fill out an incident report, son.” They talked around
me, as if I weren’t there.

“But what am I going to do?”
I asked for the third time. “I have no money, no keys, no
nothing!”

“Look on the bright side,”
said Robert encouragingly. “We’ve got your car keys. This train
doesn’t stop again until Florence, South Carolina. That means no
one can get on or off until then. Your purse is somewhere on this
train.”

“But what’s to stop the guy
from stealing my money and my credit cards and just tossing my
purse out the window?”

“Well, chances of that are
small,” Doc decided. “For one thing, windows are only supposed to
be opened in the event of an emergency. For another, it’s not so
easy to do. You have to know how to work the latches.”

I looked at the two train
employees, wondering if they truly were that naive. It was
beginning to dawn on me that I really was attacked. Was it
deliberate?

I thought back to the
moments before it happened. I had been on my way back to my seat
from the lounge and I had stopped at the restroom. While I was in
there, the lights had gone out. Whoever was waiting for me outside
the door must have seen me go in. Was he lying in wait to ambush me
when I left? Why would anyone want to do that to me?

“We’ll have to call Amtrak
security,” Doc told us. “We still have a couple of hours before we
pull into the station. In the meantime, we’ll escort you back to
your seat, Miss....”

“Dunham. Kelsey Dunham,” I
answered perfunctorily as I rose from the bench. I grabbed the edge
of the table as the train jiggled. Robert gently took my elbow and
escorted me back to the passenger car.

“You haven’t had anything to
eat. Could I bring you something? Or would you like to stop in the
dining car and eat?”

I was going to refuse. I was
going to just go back to my seat and flop. I was angry that I had
been violated, all the more because it was in the dark and I
couldn’t see my assailant. But then I thought that if I were in the
dining car, I would be wide awake, and so would my fellow
passengers. What if my seatmates in the passenger car were all
asleep? What if my assailant came back?

Chapter Three
--

“Maybe I could eat a little
something,” I agreed. I leaned on Robert’s arm as the train jiggled
over a bumpy stretch of tracks. “Can I ask you
something?”

“Sure.”

“Have many people been
robbed on the auto train?”

“Miss, I’ve been working
this route for almost ten years. The only episode I can remember
was the time the lady with Parkinson’s supposedly opened the window
and fell out. And if you ask me, that wasn’t what happened. I still
think it wasn’t an accident. Was it murder or suicide? I don’t
know, but people just don’t fall out of a train window.” He looked
at me sincerely, no doubt thinking that the story was reassuring.
If anything, he had just guaranteed I would spend a sleepless
night. The only thing missing from this trip was an exotic locale
and a domesticated version of Hercule Poirot. Welcome to “Murder on
the Amtrak Express”.

The dining car was filled
with people chattering and silverware clanging against china.
Robert signaled the wait staff.

“Miss Dunham has just had a
very upsetting experience. She was robbed when the lights went out.
Make sure she’s looked after and call me when she’s ready to go
back to her seat,” he told a kindly older woman in
uniform.

“Oh, honey,” her silken
voice drawled. She noticed the bandaged scratch on my forehead.
“How terrible for you! Come with me and I’ll find you a nice seat
with a good group. My name is Bonnie, by the way.”

She led me to a table near
the middle of the dining car and sat me down next to an elderly man
and a young couple. Once they heard about the incident, they
offered their sympathies. I found myself appreciating their
comforting words and advice.

“I don’t think you should be
alone tonight,” said Meredith, a third-grade schoolteacher. “They
should have someone stay with you and make sure you’re okay. After
all, you shouldn’t have to worry about your safety on a
train.”

“You’re missing the bigger
picture,” her husband, Scott, a young accountant, told her. “What
if Kelsey isn’t going to be the only victim? What if there’s
someone on the train planning to rob other passengers?”

“We should keep watch,”
Ernie decided. “That’s what we used to do in the service when we
rode the train. You didn’t want to get rolled by one of the other
guys while you were sleeping, so you took turns with your
buddies.”

“You got rolled on the
train?” Meredith was appalled.

“Sure. Guys will be guys,”
Ernie responded. “We really can be an uncivilized bunch. What car
are you in, Kelsey?”

I told them, relieved to
hear they were seated at the opposite end of my car. At least I
wouldn’t be completely alone. The next hour passed pleasantly
enough as we exchanged stories. By the time my ice cream arrived,
my faith in my fellow human beings was returning.

When Robert returned to
collect me, he had a wide grin on his face. We watched him navigate
the aisle to where we sat.

“Miss Dunham, look what was
just found!” In his arms was my purse. My tablemates
cheered.

“Oh,” I cried, relief
flooding over me. “Thank you so much!”

As I examined the contents,
spreading everything across the table, I sent up a grateful prayer.
It was all here -- my wallet, still containing my money and credit
cards, and my laptop, although I noticed the flashing light on the
side. Someone had turned it on. Maybe he decided not to take it
because I had added a security password. I checked my makeup case,
even though I was pretty sure the thief hadn’t stolen my mascara or
lip gloss. I was feeling pretty good until I realized there was
something missing.

“My keys!” The keys to my
Arlington condo, my own 2006 Mazda, and even Uncle Jack’s spare
keys for the blue Camry were gone. “Damn!”

“Why would someone want your
keys?” Bonnie asked, her voice full of concern. “It’s not like the
guy can just walk through the train and get into your car while
we’re en route.”

“It does seem strange,” said
Horace, another member of the dining car staff. “At least you know
the guy can’t get off the train until Florence.”

“And we can have the
security people meet us there,” Robert added helpfully.

“Why would anyone want to
get into Uncle Jack’s car?” I wondered out loud.

“Are you carrying anything
valuable?” Meredith asked. I thought about that.

“Just my suitcases, a couple
of art prints, and a papier-mâché gecko.“

“Gecko?” Horace’s face lit
up. “Oh, I love those little critters.”

“That little insurance guy
is adorable,” Bonnie concurred. “I love his British
accent.”

“Did you leave the gecko in
the back of the car?” Scott wanted to know. “Maybe someone saw it
when you were getting ready to board.”

“I only paid forty bucks for
it,” I told the group. “It’s hardly worth stealing. And it’s packed
in a carton in the trunk of my car, out of sight, with all my other
stuff.”

“Well, then,” Horace
reasoned, “maybe this was just a random act of stupidity, a crime
of opportunity.”

“If robbery was the only
motive, why not take the laptop? It’s easy enough to pawn something
like that. It just doesn’t make a whole lot of sense,” Robert
insisted.

“Where was my pocketbook
found?” Suddenly that seemed important.

“In the stairwell. One of
the other passengers found it and handed it to Doc.”

“So no one saw
anything.”

“Nope.” Robert looked
uncomfortable. I realized he was hoping the finding of my purse
meant this could all be put behind me, but for me, it just brought
more questions because I had no answers.

“Well,” I responded with a
bright smile, “at least I got my purse back. I have my wallet and
my laptop. Thank heavens for that.”

“Who knows,” Ernie added.
“Maybe those keys will turn up, too.”

We headed back to the
passenger car en masse, my three companions and Robert. Once
Meredith, Scott and Ernie were settled in their seats, Robert
accompanied me to mine. The other passengers in my section were
already starting to dose. The little old lady with the hot pink
metal cane was softly snoring, her head resting on a pillow in a
green-striped pillowcase and her legs enveloped in a colorful
knitted afghan. The other elderly lady was reading.The man with the
smoldering eyes was reclining in his seat, the black briefcase
still in his lap. I couldn’t see those amber irises beneath the
closed lids, but for some reason, I got the impression he was wide
awake. Maybe it was that his hands seemed to tensely grip the
handle of the case.

“The call button is over
here,” Robert told me in a hushed tone, pointing to the wall. “The
porter and I will take turns checking on you throughout the night.
Feel free to holler if you need help.”

As he turned and headed out
of the passenger car, I hoped it wouldn’t be necessary. And then I
remembered Meredith, Scott, and Ernie. I thought I could count on
them to quickly come to my rescue quicker than the train
employees.

I tried to sleep, but I was
too restless. I kept thinking about the hands that grabbed me as I
came out of the restroom. I didn’t think it was an accident. I just
didn’t know why he went after me. With my eyes closed, I went back
over the events of the last six hours. There must be something I
was missing, something I didn’t know, but what?