the 13th Hour (10 page)

"Okay, now what are you doing?" Julia asked.

Nick spun around to find her sitting on the third step of the maroon-carpeted main stairs.

"You're beginning to freak me out again."

"Just checking the doors," he said, but his lie was all too evident. After half a lifetime together, his face was easier to read than his sloppy handwriting.

"After what happened today," Julia said. "I think, karmawise, we're pretty safe."

Nick didn't know what she was talking about, but he wasn't about to correct her, to tell her how wrong she was.

He went into the powder room and latched the window that had been left cracked open since the exhaust fan had died.

"And our karma is in such good shape because . . ." he said as he came back into the foyer, taking a seat next to her.

Her face grew confused, "Are you kidding me? I'm still freaked over it."

Nick had no idea what she was talking about.

"I still can't get over that I'm alive," Julia said as if for the fifth time.

Nick's head spun around as if shot from a cannon. "What did you say?"

"I can't believe I'm alive."

Nick could only stare in confusion.

"The plane crash . . . ? "she said in a leading way, as if her point was obvious. "I was supposed to be on that plane."

"What?"

"I tried to reach you all day, I figured you were so buried in your work, didn't you get my message?" She looked into his eyes in a clinical sort of way.

"You were supposed to be on the flight that crashed . . . here? Today?"

"I thought that was what all the emotion was for, that somehow, by the grace of God, your wife cheated death."

"I'm sorry," Nick said honestly, his breathing quickening. "I'm confused."

"What happened today?" Julia laid her hand upon his leg, rubbing it gently as if he was injured. "You're not yourself."

"Tell me," Nick said. "About the plane."

"I was just running up to Boston for a last-minute meeting. An hour at most. Catching the shuttle back--I can't believe you didn't check your messages."

"Why weren't you on the plane?"

The phone rang, startling them both. The kitchen phone was old-fashioned, attached to the wall, the handset linked by a long, coiling wire. Unlike the electricity for the town, the phone lines still worked, drawing their power from a separate system.

Julia beat Nick to the phone, snatching it off the wall cradle in the kitchen. "Hello," Julia said as she answered it. "Oh, hi, I'm glad you called." She put her hand over the mouthpiece. "I'll only be two minutes."

Nick nodded and walked out through the mudroom, a chill coursing through his body as he examined the small space. He glanced up the back stairs, opened the back entrance to the basement, and quickly closed and locked the door. Finally he looked at her purse on the hook, took it down and checked inside, seeing her wallet, phone, and Palm Pilot. He again looked at the almost antiseptic space. There wasn't even a mote of dust in a corner, it was so clean. There was no blood on the floor, no mayhem, no body . . . yet.

He shook off the waking nightmare, hung the purse back up, and walked out into the garage. He reached into his pocket, withdrawing his keys, and thumbed the trunk release. As the lid rose, he looked inside, moved everything around, checked under his hockey bag, behind the med kit, but it wasn't there. The gun hadn't been planted here . . . yet.

He grabbed the handle of the lid and closed the trunk. He looked about the garage as he had one hour before--which was really one hour in the future.

It was so much to keep his mind wrapped around. Time was no longer linear, it was a series of surreal vignettes, each one forming a piece of a puzzle, and each piece he would have to pay strict attention to. Forward, backward, remembering the future as he headed into the past.

He was finding it hard to keep it all straight but fought his mind. He had to keep the pieces sorted without the distraction of his emotions if he was to stop Julia's killer.

And then the plane crash ran to the forefront of his thoughts. Did Julia avoid one death only to face another hours later? Why wasn't she on that plane? He'd had no idea when she left for work this morning that she was going to Boston. Not that it was out of the ordinary. They both spent way too many hours in airports and in the air running from one meeting to another, all in pursuit of the American Dream. Nick hated flying. He knew it was an illogical fear when one looked at the statistics, but he was always filled with trepidation whenever either he or Julia flew.

He thought it the most horrible of deaths, helplessly falling from the sky, the screams of the desperate ill-fated passengers filling your ears until you all met a simultaneous death in a fiery crash. Nick had tempered his fear, learned to deal with it for work, but it always grew to new proportions when Julia flew, causing him sleepless nights and angst-filled days whenever she traveled by air. He had even once implored her not to fly, on the basis of a weather forecast and misinformed intuition. She had yet to let him live that one down.

But now, what stroke of luck had pulled her off? She didn't mention it to him, she didn't have time to explain before she got on the phone.

He walked out of the garage and looked again at Julia's car. He saw the keys in the ignition, something that bothered him no end. He thought it was like a free pass to steal the car, an invitation that said, "Please, I don't care, take me for a joy ride, sell me to the highest-bidding chop shop."

Nick thought of running, taking Julia as far away as he possibly could. But would that only delay the inevitable? Would whoever was trying to kill her get to her later, track her down tomorrow, maybe Sunday? Would she be killed at a time . . . at a time when he couldn't intervene, when he couldn't save her?

He pulled out the gold watch and checked the time: 6:35. The detective said she was shot before 7:00, and he had less than twenty-five minutes before he was pulled back again. He had to stop her killer, and he had to stop him now. He needed to know who it was so they couldn't reach out of the dark and snatch her away again.

As he looked back at his house, at everything they had sweated for, the cars, the garden, it meant nothing. Nick pulled out his cell phone and made the call he'd intended to from the moment he'd held Julia alive and well in his arms.

"Byram Hills Police, Desk Sergeant Manz speaking," the voice answered.

"Hi," Nick said. "This is Nick Quinn."

"How can I help you, Mr. Quinn?"

"I believe someone is going to try to kill my wife."

"What brings you to that conclusion?" the officer's voice was stern and without emotion.

Nick was suddenly at a loss for words. He had figured he would simply get the cops up here and have them apprehend the killers before they got close to Julia.

"Mr. Quinn?"

"We're at our house--"

"Is there someone else there?" Manz interrupted. "An intruder, someone outside?"

"No," Nick said as he looked around his property. "But I believe they are coming."

"I'm sorry to question you on the phone, but as you can imagine, we are very short-staffed as a result of the plane crash. Has someone made a threat against your wife?"

"No," Nick knew he couldn't take this too far without sounding crazy.

"Mr. Quinn," Manz exhaled. "I don't know how to tell you this, but everyone is at the crash site. I've got one car out on patrol. The best I can do is get them there in a half hour. We're on the verge of chaos with only two cops dealing with car accidents and various other emergencies. May I suggest you and your wife leave your house right now, go somewhere you may feel safe. In fact, why don't you come down here? Then you can give us a better idea of why someone may be trying to kill your wife so we can arrest them before anything happens."

Nick thought on the officer's words. The police were all down at the crash site. Sending a drive-by for what sounded like some guy's unfounded paranoia when a real disaster was at hand, when over two hundred bodies lay in pieces on Sullivan Field, was not going to happen. He was alone in this.

"That's a good idea," Nick lied to the officer.

"I'll try to send someone to do a drive-by as soon as I can tear them away from the crash scene. In the meantime why don't you head on down here."

"Thanks, I appreciate it." Nick closed his phone.

Nick was afraid whoever was after Julia would not stop until she was dead. Hiding in the police station would only put her killer off for the moment. There was no question in his mind that the killer would get to her later. Nick felt it, he knew it in his gut, and at that point in the future Nick would not have any watch in his pocket, no luck on his side.

He needed to catch the killer now, before he killed Julia. And if the police couldn't do it, he would have to do it himself.

Nick headed back up the driveway, back into the house. He was confident he could save Julia: He had the element of surprise, he knew they were coming, and they didn't know Nick would be there to stop them. But if he was going to save her he couldn't do it alone. He had struggled against it but if he was going to prevent Julia's death he needed help.

He needed her help.

He walked through the mudroom, being sure to lock the door behind him, and set the alarm. While the power was out, the alarm system had a twelve-hour battery backup to prevent those movie-type scenarios in which the thief cuts the power, shutting down security so he can steal $58 trillion.

As Nick stepped into the kitchen, he found Julia still on the phone.

"Julia," he whispered, interrupting her call.

She held up a finger, listening intently to whoever was on the other line, unconsciously tucking her blonde hair behind her ear as she continued listening.

"Yeah, sure," she said into the phone, and finally looked at Nick. "I'm on hold, what's the matter?"

"Hang up, now."

"What, why? I'll only be two more minutes--"

Nick snatched the phone from her hand and hung it up.

"Dammit, Nick. What did you do that for? You don't understand how important that call was."

"Julia, look at me," he said, ignoring her, trying to get her to focus on him. "I don't have time to explain," he paused, not sure how to say it, and decided to just be direct. "Someone is going to try to kill you."

Julia looked at him as if he was crazy, the moment hanging heavy in the air, but seeing his intensity, her confusion quickly slid into fear. "What do you mean?"

"I don't know why, but they're almost here." He couldn't mask the dread in his voice.

"Who? How do you know?"

"I don't know who and I can't explain how I know. You just have to trust me."

Julia's head spun around, looking about the room as if someone would pounce on her at any second. "This is crazy."

A sudden knock on the door startled them both.

Nick crouched behind the center island, pulling Julia down alongside him onto the wide-pine-board floor. "Stay here."

"Is that them? My God, we have to call the police."

"I did. They're all out at the plane crash. We'll be lucky if someone gets here in a half hour."

"I think you're overreacting. This must be a misunderstanding," Julia said. "Why would someone want to kill me?"

"Julia," Nick said, his voice thick with anger. "Will you listen to me?"

Nick's voice and the fear in his eyes convinced her. If he was afraid for her life, then there was no doubt something dangerous was happening, and she should pay attention.

"We should get out of here then, before they trap us in our own house," Julia said, suddenly desperate.

"Stay here." Nick said as he crawled around the island, leaving her on the floor of the kitchen, hunkered down behind the center island, next to the stove and out of sight of the windows. He grabbed a knife off the counter and headed for the front door. "Whatever you do, stay in the kitchen, stay down and away from the windows, and don't go near the garage door."

J
ULIA SAT ALONE
on the floor and pulled her knees up, wrapping her arms about her legs as if that would give her comfort. Nick was never paranoid, he never drew conclusions unless he had all the facts, and the one thing about him, the one thing that drove her crazy, was that he was seldom wrong. She had no idea what was going on; her mind was unable to focus. She had never felt true life-and-death danger. She had always thought of herself as good in a crisis. Now, there was a crippling fear such as she had never known coursing through her veins. Some unknown person was hunting her. Her usually rational mind began to fail her.

There was a sour feeling in her stomach. Her mind was locked up by fear, fear for her life, fear of being taken away from Nick.