"Art of Trouble"1

Trouble. Why does it follow me like I’m the opposing magnet to its negative force and if I am the positive force, why should it follow me at all? A conundrum she'd considered a fair description of her life, seemed all her life she’d had a hint of it clinging to her. 

Jade Matheson peeked through the bushes at the car doing 2 miles an hour driving down the road in her direction, obviously looking for something and, obvious to her, they were looking for her.

Why had she let her friend Karen talk her into joining that art appreciation class for adults at the local university? If she hadn’t taken those classes, she never would have met Adam and if she’d never met Adam, she never would have met his brother…trouble, with a capital t that stands for Thomas.

Oh yes, he was trouble and she should have steered clear of him, kept dating Adam, the less magnetic brother, and not been swayed by Thomas’s intriguing eyes, sexy as they were. She knew they were trouble. And now she was in it deep.

The car passed at a snails pace, she could see the face of the passenger. Eyes of a killer if she ever saw any…Well, she never had, but she was pretty sure they’d look like that. Her heart beat a rhythm she knew wasn’t normal, fear made her hyperventilate. She was going to pass out and fall from her hiding place to be seen by the man with the killer eyes.

“Stay strong…Stay strong,” she whispered.

A leaf on the bush tickled her nose and she pinched her nostrils closed with her fingers and looked up to stop the sneeze she knew was about to explode.

The car continued down the street, slow and steady and she managed to control her need to sneeze until it was several houses past. Then the sneeze erupted viciously and she banged her head on the thickest stalk on the base of the bush and scraped her cheek on a branch when she moved back. A trickle of blood dripped down her cheek from the scratch and she stopped it with her fingers and felt lightheaded again. She took several deep breaths and steadied herself.

She could get out of here now that the men looking for her had passed but, fool that she was, she wasn’t going to go to a safe place…she was going to find Thomas and warn him.

*

Thomas St Clair checked his watch. Jade was supposed to meet him before he left for the station; she should have been here by now. He grew concerned she’d been delayed by reasons other than a lack of punctuality and hoped he was wrong. He rolled up the priceless painting and pushed it into the protective tube then placed the tube into his leather carrier. He looked at his watch again and sighed. He could give her only five minutes more then he would have to leave.

Thomas stepped off the Long Island Railroad train and walked the long platform to the up escalator that would lead him into Penn Station. When he stepped into the open waiting area he checked the train schedule.

Train number 69 from New York’s Penn station to Montreal was about to board and he couldn’t miss it. He looked around hoping Jade might be there to meet him but saw no familiar faces in the milling passengers. 

He headed to the track number listed on the schedule and silently wished her well.

*

Jade ran up the escalator from the LIRR tracks praying the train to Montreal hadn’t left the station and scooting around the stationary people in front of her as she hurried to the top.

She sprinted down the long walkway then stepped out into the open waiting area and looked up at the train schedule. She found the train number and track for the train to Montreal and noted there was only four minutes till departure.

Jade ran towards the stairs that led down to track number 69 but stopped short when she saw a familar man standing near the stairs leading down to the track. Those killer eyes were slowly scanning the crowd.

Jade’s heart stopped. How could she get past him? 

She saw a large group walking her way and slipped behind the last person praying she could blend in. when the group stopped walking so did she. A  man in front of the group had stopped to ask an Amtrak employee for directions to the elevator down to the tracks. That's when Jade noticed the  elderly man standing near the front with a walker. Taking the elevator would avoid that man by the track. Maybe her luck had changed…but she was wrong.

The Amtrak employee asked the man how many in the group needed to take the elevator down and the number he gave her would not include Jade.

Jade maneuvered to the front. “Excuse me,” she whispered to the Amtrak employee, not wanting to draw the attention of the man with killer eyes.

“Yes, how can I help you?”

 “I need to take the elevator down to the track as well. I...have a plate in my ankle and it's difficult to walk down stairs,” she lied.

Jade followed the man with the walker and three others into the elevator and thanked whatever dumb luck had kept trouble asleep so she could escape. Killer eyes hadn't spotted her and she was going to make the train.

The elevator slid down to the track level and when the doors slid open Jade sprinted to the train. She stepped onto the train a minute before it began to pull away from the station. Watching the platform recede out the winodow she sighed with relief and gratitude that she'd made it.

She began to walk through the cars looking for Thomas. But she should have realized trouble still clung to her, and she should have looked behind her.

The man with the 'killer eyes' had also boarded the train, three cars back.