Chapter Four
After Hours
The following morning, I was on the train, this time seated directly opposite the stranger and feeling quite uncomfortable with this particular seating arrangement. However, I was not the one who arranged it. If it had been my choice, I would have taken a seat at the other end of the railcar, where I could surreptitiously inspect the man who punished Elsa so brutally the night before. Unfortunately, I hadn’t bothered to think of that until the man was already sitting in the facing seat, as if the arrangement was preordained.
Once the stranger settled in his seat, he gave me the same brief smile that he had on other occasions and then opened his briefcase and pulled out a tattered copy of Chelsea’s Awakening. The book cover showed the backside of a nearly naked
