Excerpt from The Stranger on the Train by Abbie Taylor, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Without speaking, Emma marched to the gap and down the passage. She was going to get some tissues, wipe off the blood, take Ritchie and go. Just as she reached the brown door, she looked back. She could see all the way to the front of the shop, where Ritchie was sitting on Antonia's knee, still rubbing his eyes. Then he saw Emma and his face lit up. He gave a heartbreaking smile and held up his arms.

"Muh," he said.

She almost turned back to take him. Her weight went to one foot, then the other. But her face and hands were all bloody, and if the toilets were anything like the rest of the café, she could imagine only too well what condition they'd be in. She didn't want to take Ritchie in there if she could help it. There was something funny about Antonia—something about her superior attitude that Emma didn't like—but she'd done a good job minding Ritchie on her own already, those few minutes when she'd taken him off the train. Ritchie would be okay with her. Just for a few seconds more.

Emma smiled at him.

"I won't be a minute," she said.

Then she opened the door and went in.

As soon as she smelled the air, she was glad she'd left Ritchie outside. The toilet was just one room, with a tiny sink covered with gray cracks and no window. A ventilation fan in the wall above the sink was clogged on the inside with lumps of blackish material. This really was a horrible place. Emma would be just as glad to get Ritchie out of here as soon as possible, even if it meant him having to wait till much later to get anything to eat. She looked at herself in the mirror over the sink. The glass was rippled and bendy; her face looked wider than normal, but it was enough for her to see the swollen area on her lip, oozing from the tip. Blood streaked her cheek and chin. She looked a right mess.

On the cistern at the back of the toilet was an industrial-sized roll of toilet paper. Emma reached for it, avoiding looking into the toilet bowl. She unrolled some of the sheets and tore them off. They were probably filthy but she didn't care. She wet the tissue under the tiny trickle from the tap and scrubbed at her face. There. That was the worst of it sorted. She threw the tissue into a bin under the sink and tore off a second piece. This she held to her lip, pressing it on the cut for a few seconds to stop the bleeding. But when she took the tissue away, it stuck to the cut and pulled the scab off, making the bleeding start all over again. Emma sighed with impatience. It took two more pieces of tissue before the cut finally stayed sealed. A final quick scrub at her chin, and a rinse of her fingers, and she was done. She didn't bother looking for anything to dry her hands with.

When she came out of the toilet, she was too busy at first breathing in the fresher air to fully take in what she was seeing. She was looking down the passage towards the front of the restaurant; she had a good view of most of the tables from here. She could see the window with its flaking red lettering: "Mr. Bap's" spelled back to front. But just inside that, where she would have expected to see Ritchie with his flushed, sleepy face, and Antonia with her flicky blond hair, there was a gap. Ritchie's pushchair was gone. The table by the window was empty.

Emma didn't start to worry straightaway. They were here somewhere. She just wasn't seeing them. She came out into the main part of the café and looked around. The tabletops were sticky and yellow in the fluorescent light. The bearded old man sat with his eyes closed. The man behind the counter was still nowhere to be seen.

Uncertain, Emma stood in the middle of the room. What was happening here? What was going on that she didn't understand? Then she got it. They'd gone outside! Antonia's husband had arrived. They'd got Ritchie ready and put him back in his buggy. They were all out there, waiting for her in the street.

Excerpted from The Stranger on the Train by Abbie Taylor. Copyright © 2014 by Abbie Taylor. Excerpted by permission of Atria/Emily Bestler Books. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.