the 13th Hour (11 page)

She couldn't focus on the why or who. She reverted to the most primal of emotions, her survival instinct kicking in. All that mattered was staying alive, staying alive for Nick, for their future, which held such promise.

She had tried to reach Nick throughout the day to tell him of her brush with death, of how she had miraculously exited Flight 502 just before its departure. She would have raced home to tell him, but a situation with a client was dire and required her immediate attention. So she had made countless calls, all to no avail. With the power out, the house answering machine wasn't working, nor was the cordless phone in Nick's office. She had tried him several times on his cell phone and had left him a voicemail, but they had never gotten in touch. She knew he was working toward an imminent deadline, analyzing real estate and financial information, reading through dozens of annual reports he had gathered on his four-day whirlwind trip around the Southwest, hoping to finish so he wouldn't have to work over the weekend. She knew he was probably frantic without power, working by the daylight that poured through his window, forced to use his laptop until the battery died.

As the day went on and she never heard back from him, she had begun to grow angry, knowing he was ignoring her, avoiding her calls, still upset about tonight's dinner with the Mullers, but now . . . She never told him of her deception, of the deliberate lie. She had wanted to tell him the truth, had planned to tell him in private tonight. She had put it off all week and now regretted her delay.

The phone rang. Julia looked up. She knew who it was; he was probably pissed at being disconnected. But she put him out of her mind. Those fences were easily mended. She let it ring. As she looked around, the moment seemed to drag out forever.

N
ICK SLIPPED INTO
his library and peered out the window, ignoring the ringing phone, which seemed louder than he remembered. A car was parked at the end of the driveway, the distance making its identity--beyond the color, blue--hard to distinguish. He glanced toward the front door. The man was standing there, casually turning about. He was on the later side of his forties, maybe early fifties. While Nick had no experience with criminals, this man looked completely harmless. Gray hair, horn-rimmed glasses, probably 230 pounds on a five-foot-six body put him severely overweight. One hand rested easily in his pocket while the other hung at his side. There was no gun, no sense of threat to the man. But there was also no question someone was about to try to kill Julia, and he would take no chances.

Nick hunkered down on the floor and opened the cabinet behind his small desk. Pulling aside a stack of old books, he revealed his small safe. He'd installed it himself as a place to tuck away Julia's jewelry and their passports, deeds, and other important documents. He spun the dial right, left, and right, and with a click pulled it open. The nine-millimeter Sig-Sauer had been sitting there for over six months, oiled and wrapped in cheesecloth. He hated guns, but better safe than sorry had been drilled into him by his father on too many occasions. He was an excellent shot but hadn't fired the weapon since February. He unwrapped the pistol, letting it flop into his hand, grabbed a clip from the safe's internal drawer, and shoved it in the butt of the gun. He pulled back the slide, chambered a bullet, and went to the door.

As he exited the library into the living room, the phone stopped ringing, the sudden silence adding a sense of foreboding to the air. He stayed tight to the wall, held the gun against his chest, looked into the hallway, and realized he had forgotten all about the alarm. Angry at himself for not thinking of it earlier, he thought while it wouldn't bring the police running, it would put off whoever was trying to get in, and maybe it would give him the advantage he would need. Nick flipped off the safety of the gun, slipped into the foyer, and with an eye through the small windows that flanked the door, caught sight of the heavyset man still standing there. He quietly reached up and hit the panic button.

* * *

T
HE ALARM SUDDENLY
screamed in Julia's ears, sending her racing heart into double time. The phone began ringing again, adding to the cacophony of sonic distraction. She couldn't imagine who would be trying to kill her, but then, as her mind shed its panic, reordered itself, and returned to its logical state, the obvious fell into place, as if a thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle had spontaneously come together.

She realized why they were after her, and she knew they would never stop until she was dead. And as the seconds ticked on, her thoughts hyperfocused, she deduced who . . .

She couldn't answer the phone, as he was calling back, the man she had just spent five minutes on the line with. The man she had turned to with her problem was the man coming to kill her.

Julia quickly crawled to the mudroom and checked the door, making sure Nick had locked it. She reached up and grabbed her purse off the hook, pulling it down on the floor with her. She reached in and grabbed her cell phone, quickly dialing 911.

"Nine-one-one emergency?" the woman's voice answered.

"My name is Julia Quinn," she whispered, "5 Townsend Court, Byram Hills. You have to hurry, my husband and--" Julia's voice stuck in her throat.

A cold sweat rose on her skin and her breathing came in ragged fits and starts as the panic overwhelmed her.

Despite her confirmation that the door was locked, she heard it click.

And quietly watched as the mudroom door opened.

N
ICK TORE OPEN
the front door and aimed the gun. But the fat man was gone. Nick stepped out onto the front porch, gripped the pistol in both hands, and spun left to right. And he finally caught sight of the fat man jogging in an awkward waddle to his car. He never looked back.

Nick breathed a sigh of relief as he lowered the pistol, thumbing the safety back on. The phone stopped ringing again, leaving the drone of the alarm as the only sound in the air. The world was calming down, a peaceful equilibrium was approaching.

But then his heart seized in his chest as he watched the man open the door and slide into his car. Nick immediately choked the handle of the pistol in his hand, thumbing off the safety, and ran for the kitchen.

His mind went into a tailspin as he realized his fatal error. That he had been tricked, lured away from Julia for the briefest of moments, made him feel incredibly foolish. They did it so simply. He had never thought of there being more than one.

Nick just watched the heavy man get in the passenger side of the car.

There was someone else.

J
ULIA STARED UP
at the gun and the world slowed to a crawl, time flowing like molasses. She couldn't understand, would never understand how Nick knew this moment was coming. She regretted not heeding his words, not staying in the kitchen, for now she knew his prediction would come to pass.

She would never be able to point Nick in the right direction; no one would ever know the truth. Her murderer had kept her on the phone, had kept her in one spot as he drove up to their house, pinning her in place, distracting her with the phone call as he made his approach.

Julia saw the sudden flame within the barrel, wisps of smoke curling up from what looked to be a gun that bordered on exotic jewelry. And in that brief moment, she recognized the gun; she had seen its picture earlier in the day . . .

And as the bullet traveled out of the long barrel of the ornate Colt Peacemaker, time caught up. The projectile tore through the air and ended Julia's life.

N
ICK RACED THROUGH
the kitchen, the alarm screaming out. And as he rounded the corner he saw Julia hurtle backward, half of her head exploding on the wall.

Nick suppressed the nausea, the scream, and ran toward her. But he knew there was nothing he could do as she hit the floor. He knew exactly what she had looked at seconds earlier, the horror that she just experienced. He knew there was nothing he could do. He had already mourned her, he had already stood over her shattered body an hour earlier, in his warped time frame. Going through it again would only crush whatever was left of his soul and prevent him from identifying her killer to stop all of this madness.

He leaped over her body, tears of anguish already filling his eyes, and crashed through the half open mudroom door. He sprinted through the garage and exploded out the open bay door to see Julia's assailant running at a full tilt to his car at the end of the drive, where the open driver's-side door lay in wait for his escape. Without thought, his legs pumping as fast as they could, Nick rapid-fired his pistol. Bullets ricocheted off the ground, off the rear of the blue car, but the man kept running without hesitation, running for his life as the gunfire missed him by inches.

And faster than Nick could imagine, the man arrived at and dove into his car.

The tires screeched, smoke pouring off the ground as the rubber burned before finally catching and launching the blue sedan into the street.

On reflex, Nick pulled up and ran to Julia's Lexus, sitting in the turnaround. For once he was glad she left the keys in the ignition. He fired up the SUV, threw the car in gear, and tore out of the driveway in pursuit.

Number 5 Townsend Court was at the end of a cul-de-sac. Nick and Julia had chosen the house for its privacy and seclusion, far from town, far from any main road. The area was truly cut off, with the nearest access to the rest of the world over a mile and a half away.

Nick made the sharp right onto Sunset Drive and caught sight of the fleeing blue car less than a quarter mile away. He punched the accelerator and was at sixty miles per hour in seconds, closing the gap. He watched Julia's killer try to make the left onto Elizabeth Place, tires locking up, squealing in protest as he missed the turn, running up onto the Tannens' front yard before finally emerging back onto Elizabeth.

Nick cut the distance to the fleeing car by half as he locked up the brakes, threw the car into a sidespin, and made the turn less than an eighth of a mile behind what he now identified as a blue Chevrolet Impala. He pinned the gas and raced up to within thirty yards of his prey, but Julia's killer wasn't about to give up so easily; he accelerated down the hill, his car going airborne several inches as he negotiated the sudden dips and descents of the hilly road.

Nick drove harder. They were less than half a mile from Route 128, a road filled with too many choices to count, too many ways out, too many chances for the killer to escape before Nick could identify him.

Ten yards away now, he saw the license plate--Z8JP9--committing it to memory. Nick was thankful for the heavy-duty engine of the Lexus as it roared toward the Impala. Like most SUVs, it was designed to be pushed, to be driven off-road in more extreme conditions than a normal car, but usually they were only driven by housewives on trips to the market or soccer games. But despite its design, it was never meant for a high-speed chase like the one Nick was in now, where tipping over was a real possibility.

And all at once, Nick was upon them, the Impala just inches away, but he didn't stop, he rammed the back of the car at full speed, jolting himself forward. He braked for a second, easing off, and hit the accelerator again, this time pulling up alongside and ramming into the rear fender of the Chevy. Nick eased off a moment before his next charge.

A sharp turn was approaching. On its far side, less than a quarter mile away, was the access onto Route 128. He had only one more chance.

Nick turned into the oncoming lane--the inside of the sharp turn--praying to God no one was coming the other way or he would no doubt be killed and Julia's life would truly end on the floor of their mudroom.

Nick accelerated through the turn, the Impala right alongside him. He didn't look inside, he didn't risk losing focus on his driving. He threw the wheel hard right, slamming the assailant into the stone wall on the right side of the road. And the driver lost it, his car, traveling over sixty, began to fishtail, and both rear tires blew out, sending the Chevy into a spin. The car jumped the curb, crashing into a tree, its front end wrapping around the trunk.

Without thought, without care, Nick hit the gas and rammed the rear end of the car for good measure, his airbag exploding in his face, sending him hurling back against his seat.

He quickly pushed the deflating bag aside, ignoring the small burns on his face from its deployment, and rolled out of his car onto the ground, gun in hand, the safety off. He crawled toward the Impala, which was wedged at an angle into the tree and wall. Fuel was leaking, coolant hissed, steam poured from the hood.

From his vantage point on the ground, he peered up into the car. While he wanted to kill the driver, lay the pistol up against his head, exacting revenge as judge and jury, unloading his remaining bullets into this killer's brain, he remained focused on what he really needed to do. He needed to identify this man if he was to have any chance of stopping him in the past.

On his belly, Nick crawled up to the passenger side, next to the stone wall. Peering up, he saw the deployed airbags, the fat older man unconscious in the passenger seat. Nick slowly rose up on his knees, looking at the steering wheel, at the driver's-side airbag, but finding the driver's seat empty.

Gunfire exploded in his ear, ricocheting off the tree. Nick rolled down and scrambled to the destroyed front end of the car, where billowing steam rolled up into clouds, obscuring his position.