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

And then it was gone.

* * *

Silence.

Ritchie, Emma thought, through a haze of horror. She was on her hands and knees at the end of the platform, her head almost touching the tangle of signs and barriers. Ritchie is gone. I don't have him. He's gone.

She felt sick. She was going to pass out. Numbness prickled around her mouth and in her hands.

What had that woman said?

Ex. Op.

Next. Stop.

Emma struggled to her feet, ignoring the pain in her hand and knees. Strangely, there was a man on the ground behind her. Emma didn't stop to wonder about him. She ran down the platform, frantically searching for the board that showed you how long before the next train came.

Next thing, the man was on his feet beside her, jogging backwards to face her.

"Hey!" he shouted. "What did you think you were you playing at? Why didn't you let go?"

Emma ignored him. The board. Oh God, where was the board?

"Didn't you hear me?" The man got deliberately in front of her, forcing her to stop.

"Please—" Emma tried to duck around him.

"You could have been killed." The man was leaning into her, taller than she was, blocking her path. His face was a blur. All she registered was that he was dark-haired and wearing something blue. "If it wasn't for me you'd have gone under the train. All over a fucking . . . what was it? Designer handbag?"

"It wasn't a handbag," Emma yelled at him. "It was my baby."

"What?"

"My baby!" She screamed it into his face. "Mybaby, mybabymybabymybaby." Her voice cracked. She put her hands to her mouth.

"Fucking hell." The man's face went white.

Emma gave a long, keening sob, pushed past him and headed for the sign. Through spots in her vision, she saw the board. Next train: one minute. Her breath wheezed in her ears. One minute. One minute.

"Fucking hell." It was the man, beside her again. "I'm going to press the alarm."

"No!" She spun to face him. "Don't!"

"What?"

"I have to get to the next station." Emma struggled to speak clearly, to make him understand. "There was a woman on the train. She's going to take Ritchie off there."

"A woman? Are you sure?"

Emma felt the tension around her eyes. She pictured the woman's lips, moving around the words: Ex Op. Next. Stop. That was what she had meant. Wasn't it?

Rattling on the tracks. A breeze blew her hair across her face. She swung back towards the tunnel.

"Why didn't she pull the alarm?" the man asked.

Emma bit her lip. Oh God, train, come on. Please. Please. Come on.

The man said: "Look, I really think—"

"No, you look." Emma turned on him, almost snarling. "I know you're trying to help, but please, don't press any alarms. You'll stop the trains, and I just want to get Ritchie at the next station, so please, just go away, and leave me alone!"

The train had arrived by this time. Emma was on it as soon as the doors were open. She kept moving, power walking down the aisle to the end of the carriage, as if by doing so she could bring herself closer to Ritchie.

A final shout from the man.

"Hey!" He was waving something. "Is this your—"

And then the doors closed.

In the train, Emma stood swaying by the window, almost touching it with her nose. The tunnel turned the window into a mirror. She saw her own pale face, like a blob, elongated and distorted in the glass. There were other people in the carriage but she never saw who they were.

"Come on, come on," she whispered. The agony of just having to stand there and wait. She had a physical ache to have Ritchie back with her, a panicky feeling as if she wasn't getting enough oxygen until she could breathe him in. She pictured herself at the next station, grabbing him into her arms, pressing her face into the velvety curve of his neck.

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.