The Train by Diane Hoh

Author:Diane Hoh [Hoh, Diane]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780590551786
Google: tZHnGwAACAAJ
Amazon: 0613841042
Publisher: Point
Published: 1992-09-14T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter 14

Hannah stood alone in the center of the small room, wishing briefly that she'd gone with them. But she was too worn-out to take a shower. Kerry was right: who needed rest more than Hannah Deaton?

She locked the door to the compartment. She would stay here, safe and sound, until Kerry and Jean Marie came back. She would rest, as promised.

The knock on the door as she was about to pull down the window shade wasn't Kerry's. No tworap, three-rap deal, as Kerry had promised. It was an ordinary knock.

Backing away from the door, Hannah cried, "Who's there?"

"It's Ms.. Quick, Hannah. I have the detective with me. He'd like to speak with you if you're feeling up to it."

Hannah let them in.

"I know it's hard to believe right now," Ms. Quick said, "but I actually have good news. I've received word that Lolly arrived home safely. Her parents were distraught, of course. Can't blame them. Now, if I can only get the rest of you to San Francisco intact… Hannah, this is Detective Teach. He has been assigned to help us. Please try to answer any questions he might have."

But, Hannah thought in silent protest, I'm the one with all the questions. Maybe this detective can give me some answers.

The man was short and balding and dressed in a neat brown suit and brown shirt, holding a round brown hat in his hands, which, Hannah noticed, were also brown: tanned and freckled. His brown shoes were shined to a high gloss. He didn't look anything like the detectives she'd seen on television.

As long as he could answer her questions, she didn't care what he looked like.

But he couldn't answer her questions. He was very nice, speaking softly and clearly, turning his brown hat around and around in his hands as he spoke, but he had no answers for her. He only had questions.

And Hannah had no answers. None that she could tell him. With Ms. Quick watching her with that frowny, worried look on her face, if Hannah told him what she was really thinking she knew she'd find herself off the train and in a padded cell before you could say, "Frog Drummond is alive and out for revenge."

The detective, whose name was Mr. Teach, but whom Hannah had already named Mr. Brown, asked Hannah if she had seen the person who had imprisoned her in the "wooden box." He did not say "coffin." Maybe he thought it would upset her. He seemed like that sort of person.

When she told him no, she hadn't seen a thing, he nodded and asked her if she had any idea who it might have been. She had to bite her tongue.

"No," she lied. "I can't imagine…"

Her friends would have disagreed with that. They would have said the problem was, Hannah could imagine, and was doing just that.

But she wasn't - was she?

Mr. Brown-Tench was no help. But he promised that he would check out the baggage ear and "the… ah… place where you were held prisoner.

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