the 13th Hour (3 page)

Nick looked at the two-way mirror.

"Don't worry." The man smiled. "No one is watching."

"How do you know?"

"They're busy with the plane crash. Two hundred and twelve dead. This town, like your life, has been turned on its head."

Nick felt his world spinning, as if he were in that twilight between waking and sleep where the mind is peppered with incongruous images and thoughts that desperately try to coalesce into a coherent notion.

He looked down at the envelope and slid his finger under the glue flap--

"Don't open that now." The man laid his hand upon Nick's.

"Why?"

"Wait until you're out of here." The man withdrew his hand as he leaned back in the chair.

"Out of here?"

"You've got twelve hours."

Nick looked at the clock on the wall: it was 9:51. "Twelve hours for what?"

The man pulled a gold pocket watch from within his jacket and flipped it open to reveal an old-fashioned clock face. "Time is not something to waste, a particularly true statement in your case." The man closed the watch and handed it to Nick. "Seeing you're short one timepiece, and the pressure you're under, you'd best hold on to that and keep an eye on the hour hand."

"Who are you?"

"Everything you need to know is in that letter. But as I said, don't open it until you're out of here."

Nick looked around the room, at the two-way glass, at the decrepit steel door. "How the hell am I supposed to get out of here?"

"You can't save her life if you're in here."

"What are you saying? I don't understand, where is she?"

The man looked at the clock on the wall as he stood up. "You better start thinking how you're getting out; you've only got nine minutes."

"Wait--"

"Good luck." The man tapped the door twice. "Keep an eye on that watch. You have twelve hours. In the thirteenth hour all will be lost, her fate, your fate will be sealed. And she'll have died a far worse death than you already think."

The door opened and the man slipped out, leaving Nick sitting alone. He stared at the envelope, tempted to open it. But he quickly tucked it, along with the gold watch, into the breast pocket of his jacket, knowing that if they were found he would never know what the man was talking about.

The man had offered no other information, no name, no explanation for how Julia could be alive.

Nick had seen her body, though he had not looked upon her face, as Marcus had held him back, protecting him from her image, her beauty stolen by the gunshot that ended her life. But he had held her leg, seen the clothes she'd worn when she left for work this morning.

There was no question it was Julia. She had called to him when she'd arrived home, but she didn't enter the library where he worked, knowing not to disturb him, knowing he was trying to finish a major acquisition analysis stemming from his week's travels and that if he didn't finish before they went out for dinner, he would be working the weekend.

He could still hear her voice; it was the last time she called his name. And the guilt rained down on him: He had ignored her not just because he was immersed in work but because he was still angry about having to go out for dinner.

Nick reached into his pocket and drew the letter halfway out, but the words of warning echoed in his head. He tucked it away and thought of the man's eyes, filled with such conviction, such honesty, such sense of purpose.

Where all hope had been wiped from the world, this man had reignited it. Nick couldn't imagine how Julia could be alive but . . . if there was even a glimmer of hope. If there was any chance of saving her . . .

. . . he would have to find a way out of this locked room and station.

Grief and confusion had been replaced with possibility and purpose. Escaping from an interrogation room, a police station, was an inconceivable, improbable, foolhardy task, but . . .

Not impossible.

Nick looked at the door, two inches thick, a heavy dead bolt as a lock. There were no windows or other doors. He looked at the white board, the clock on the wall ticking toward 10:00
P.M.
, and then his eyes fell on the ominous two-way mirror. He stared at his reflection sitting alone in the bleak, humid room in the uncomfortable metal chair, the deadly Colt Peacemaker in the center of the table, and he smiled . . .

The window was made of glass . . .

D
ETECTIVE
E
THAN
D
ANCE
stepped back into the interrogation room. The thirty-eight-year-old detective's perpetually sleepy eyes stared at Nick as he threw a file on the table. His white JC Penney shirt was half untucked, while the bulge of his holstered pistol distorted his off-the-rack blue blazer.

"Before Shannon comes back into the room, you want to tell me what really happened? I mean"--Dance opened up the file with his latex-gloved hand and looked inside, staring at a photo, which he concealed from Nick's eye--"what drives someone to do this? Was it the money?"

"Money?" Nick asked in genuine confusion. "How dare you."

"Well, I'm glad to see you have a voice."

Nick glared at Dance, his eyes falling on the bulge in his jacket where he could just see the butt of Dance's gun poking out.

"I'm sorry." Dance paused in sympathy. "She was a beautiful woman. May I ask when you spoke last?"

"We had a fight this morning," Nick said, his eyes briefly looking at the clock.

"About?"

"Dinner with her friends."

"Mmm, I know how that goes. You sit there, she and her girlfriend are lost in conversation while you're left with the husband, who you have nothing in common with. My ex-girlfriend dragged me to the Jersey Shore for a weekend at her friend's house, rained the whole time, I was stuck in the house with an asshole while they went shopping, felt like arresting him for subjecting me to his boring life. I've hated the Jersey Shore ever since."

Dance was good, trying to win Nick over with sympathy and commonality, but Nick wasn't so stupid as to fall for it.

"Did you talk after that?" Dance continued.

"No, I was busy all day; conference calls and paperwork pretty much consumed me. And I know she was up to her ears in issues."

"She was an attorney?"

"Why do you ask a question you already know the answer to?"

"Sorry, force of habit." Dance closed the manila folder and laid it ominously on the table, next to the Colt Peacemaker. "Was she in her office all day?"

"Not sure," Nick said abruptly.

"You didn't speak?"

"She called a few times but I ignored the calls."

Dance said nothing as he looked at Nick.

"Childish," Nick said. "I know, but Jesus--Why are we talking about this? Someone killed my wife, dammit, and it wasn't me!"

Nick's voice echoed in the room, seeming to linger for minutes as the conversation changed direction.

"So it says here," Dance tapped the manila folder, "you have a license for a nine-millimeter Sig-Sauer."

"Yeah."

"Where might that be?"

"In my safe, where it has been for the last six months. Julia hates guns." Nick hated the irony.

"So you do know how to shoot?"

"You don't buy a car unless you're licensed to drive."

"No need to be a smartass."

"No need to treat me like an idiot, like I killed my wife."

"I'm trying to help," Dance said.

"Listen, if you were trying to help me you'd be out looking for the real killer."

"Fair enough. If you didn't do it, you've got to talk to me, if we are to have any hope of catching who did do it."

"So you believe it wasn't me?" Nick said with a sense of hope.

"Well, the thing is this," Dance said, pulling over the gold- and brass-plated Colt Peacemaker, "this gun here is covered in fingerprints."

"But no one has taken my prints yet," Nick said, his voice thick with confusion as he threw his hands up.

"Actually, we got them off your wallet and cell phone, I did it myself." Dance paused. "And they were a spot-on match. So you're going to need to be real clear as to how your fingerprints and only your fingerprints are on this gun."

Nick sat there, his mind spinning. He had never seen this gun, let alone touched it. In fact, he hadn't picked up his own gun in six months, and that was with his friend Marcus Bennett at his buddy's shooting range. He hated guns for the incredible power they placed in one man's hand, the power of life and death at the fingertip of anyone capable of pulling the trigger.

"I should also add," Dance continued, "ballistics isn't back yet, probably won't be for a few days with everyone working the plane crash, but your watch had explosive residue, gunpowder consistent with bullets. So if your story is factual, lay it on me, and if you're about to make something up, it's time to get real creative."

Shannon stepped into the room, locking the door behind him. "I would suggest real creative." His high-volume words laid bare the fact he had watched the whole exchange from beyond the two-way glass. "And feel free to look at the center of the mirror, right into the camera. It's always so much better at helping relate to the jury."

Nick was once again lost, the brief hope he had thought he saw in Dance obliterated by Shannon's entrance. He glanced up at the clock: 9:56.

With volatile force, Shannon slammed his billy club onto the table, shocking not only Nick but also Dance.

"Cold-blooded murder," Shannon said. "Plain and simple. You don't need to tell us a thing. We've got it all in that folder, everything we need for a quick and easy conviction--"

"Let's take a break," Dance interrupted, trying to calm Shannon. He leaned back on his chair, raising it up on two legs.

"No. A woman is dead," Shannon shouted. "She didn't get to take a break. I don't care if she was your wife or not. I want answers. Was she fucking someone else and you found out? Were you fucking someone else and she found out?"

Nick's eyes went wide with rage.

"Yeah, I see the anger rising up in you. Come on, do something," Shannon taunted him. "Use the same fury you struck out at your wife with. All this spit and polish, Italian clothes, foreign cars, minimansions in suburbia, it's all just window dressing for your dark heart. You're no different from the bum in an alley who guts a hooker."

Nick was doing everything he could to restrain himself, his muscles tensed, his blood racing.

"She was fucking some guy and you killed her." With a sudden crash, Shannon again smashed his billy club onto the table.

But this time the force startled Dance, to the point where he lost his balance on the two legs of his chair, falling backward while desperately trying to grab the table.

Shannon's outburst, the loud, shocking crash of the club against the table, pushed Nick over the edge. His wife was dead, he was being accused of her murder, and this Detective Shannon questioned his and her honor.

In the heat of confusion as Dance continued to fall backward, his sport coat flopped back, exposing his nine-millimeter in his shoulder holster, the butt of the gun protruding. Nick stepped past the point of no return and snatched the gun from Dance's holster with lightning speed.

Nick thumbed off the safety of the Glock as his finger wrapped the trigger; his muscle memory ran true and on reflex. That he hated guns didn't mean he'd forgotten how to use one. He spun the off-balance, tumbling Dance into a headlock and jammed the barrel against his head.

Dance's gloved hands flew up in panic, desperately grabbing hold of Nick's forearm.

And the moment spun out of control.

"Drop it," Shannon screamed, as he drew his gun, fell to a knee, and pointed it straight at Nick's head.

"You don't understand, neither of you understand, she's alive," Nick yelled, sounding like a madman, his eyes jumping back and forth between Shannon and the clock. "My wife is alive."

Shannon and Dance exchanged a quick look.

"Listen," Dance said calmly, despite the gun at his head. "Put down the gun. I know what you must be feeling--"

"Bullshit," Nick shouted over Dance. "You have no idea what I'm feeling."

"--losing her and all. Let us listen to your story. If someone else killed her, let us catch him. All this is going to do is send you to the morgue. There's no death penalty for killing your wife, but for killing a cop . . . it's a capital offense, they'll execute you for that."

"You don't understand, my wife is alive. I've been set up. I need to get out of here." Nick dragged Dance backward toward the two-way mirror.