The 13th Hour

CHAPTER 5

2:00 P.M.

JULIA SAT IN HER SUV in the driveway of a modest split-level colonial in the town of Pound Ridge. Like so many of the people in Byram Hills, once Julia learned of the crash, she had rushed to the site to help. But when her eyes fell on what remained of Flight 502, and she realized it was the flight she was supposed have been on, she couldn’t stop picturing the faces of the passengers she had been sitting next to and how close she had come to sharing their fate.

Instead of working at the scene, she agreed to go pick up a doctor who had been called out of retirement to help with the emergency effort. She had driven up to Bedford a half hour earlier to get gas and now waited outside the doctor’s home while he gathered his things.

As she sat alone, her mind a whirlwind of thoughts, the full impact of what she had escaped finally fell upon her: She was not the only one who had escaped death; Julia placed her hand on her belly, knowing that two lives had been saved today.

The irony was she was on the plane heading up to Boston not for a meeting as she had told people but rather to see her doctor.

She and Nick had lived in Winthrop, Massachusetts, a year after being married. He had been transferred up there and she followed him, finding a job with a small firm in Boston. A colleague had recommended a doctor by the name of Colverhome, a man who not only maintained an impeccable reputation, but had a manner that was both gentle and humorous.

After moving back to Byram Hills, she never changed doctors, finding it easy enough to schedule her annual exam to coincide with a business trip.

She had called him earlier in the week to tell him of her suspicion, and he had arranged for a local doctor to give her a pregnancy test. The test was positive-six weeks pregnant. It filled her with an elation she had never known. She was bursting to tell Nick but had wanted to make it special. So she had arranged with Colverhome to fly up for a prenatal exam and a sonogram of the small beginnings of their child that she could frame and surprise Nick with over a romantic dinner this evening at La Cremaillere. It was the restaurant where he had asked her to marry him, it was the beginning of their life together, a monumental occasion, and she wanted the same gravitas for this most blessed-and surprising-of events. Their morning argument, the one that sent Nick into such a foul mood, had been over a dinner that would never happen. Their plan with the Mullers was a ruse to throw Nick off what would be one of the most profound moments in their sixteen-year relationship.

While they had planned on children, she didn’t intend to get pregnant until next year. Their lives were so structured, with their careers, with building a nest egg to allow them to comfortably raise children, that the actual thought of pregnancy had been far from her mind. She realized now that they had spent so much time planning, working to achieve a level of success before having kids, that the thought of actually carrying a child had become foreign.

The news of her pregnancy had taken her by surprise, and she knew it would absolutely floor Nick.

She had been so absorbed in her career as an attorney hoping to make partner that she had lost countless friends who had journeyed into motherhood leaving their aspirations behind. But the moment the pregnancy was confirmed her focus changed entirely. She knew it wasn’t hormones, it wasn’t some false sense created by the fantasy of not working. It was simply love.

She and Nick had been together for half of their lives now. They had more money then they needed, they had bought and renovated their dream home, traveled and enjoyed life. And yet, there was a void. A void that was acutely felt at the holidays. She longed for the return of Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy and Halloween candy.

AS JULIA THOUGHT of the plane crash, of all the lives lost, of the kind, older woman whom she had been sitting next to, tears filled her eyes. She had been called off the jet by an automatic text message that stated that Shamus Hennicot’s Washington House had been breached. It was that call that had allowed her to live another day. But not just one life had been saved. Two lives had been rescued from death’s grip.

She took it as sign that this child was meant to be. As far as she was concerned it was a miracle.

Initially annoyed, thinking it to be a false alarm, she had exited the plane, hopped right into her car, and gone to Washington House. She walked the perimeter, checking all the doors, all the windows, finding them all secured.

But upon entering, she knew something was amiss. She had been inside for all of thirty seconds when a rumble shook the house. The china in the cupboards rattled, the glasses in the bar clinked as if an earthquake had hit the area. While there was a deep fault under the New York granite mantle, earthquakes were as few and far between as snowball fights in Bermuda. The lights flickered, fighting to stay on, and went out. The emergency lights quickly flashed on, illuminating the stairwells and exit doors. Intermittent beeps sounded from the computer battery backups signaling the power failure and shutdown protocol. She looked at her watch: 11:54. She should have been on her way to Boston instead of walking about in a power-deprived vacant house that shook from the slippage of some fissure deep beneath the county.

She headed to the kitchen, ran her security pass card over the reader, knowing it had a twenty-four-battery backup, and opened the heavy fire door to the basement. The overly bright halogen emergency light guided her down the stairs, its glow abusing the expensive fleur-de-lis wallpaper that Hennicot had had shipped from Paris. She punched her Social Security number in on the keypad and waved her magna-card over the card reader three times. She pulled out the octagonal security key, inserting it, with the letter D on top, into the large brushed-steel vault door.

With a forceful turn, she opened the door and was greeted by darkness. Pulling a chair over, she propped the door open, allowing the bright wash of light to pour forth.

Her eyes immediately fell on the broken display cases in the center of the room, the out-of-place red-domed box on the wall. An anger instantly rose in her, as if she herself had been violated. She walked about opening doors, poking her head in. An emergency light was lit in the climate-controlled storage room; it didn’t appear any of the crates had been disturbed. She walked back through the main room, through the shaft of halogen light pouring out of the stairwell, and opened the door to Shamus’s office. She stepped right to the hidden wall panel door, seeing it cracked open, and pushed it in.

The room was almost completely dark. Slight reflections of the outer room’s light danced about, but not enough for any clear vision.

She knew there were only two items in the room. In the center. She took two cautious steps forward, her eyes desperately trying to adjust, and came upon the safes. She ran her hand over the first, finding it closed, but the second… she didn’t bother with any tactile investigation. She could just make out the shadow of the thick open door.

And all at once, she felt fear wash over her.

She had entered the house and come down here instantly to confirm the robbery, her anger blinding her to the danger as she ran about in the darkness, foolishly tempting fate. Julia had never been stricken with claustrophobia, but now she felt the darkness closing in on her. She didn’t know if anyone was in here, if someone was hidden behind a doorway, feeling trapped like a wild animal, prepared to kill her in order to make his escape.

This was not a good day to die.

She charged out of the room and up the stairs. She pulled out the octagonal key and opened the hidden security room behind the false wall in the pantry. Her eyes fell immediately on the broken computer servers, the hard drives torn out and missing. Whoever pulled this off knew exactly what to do, knew exactly how to erase their tracks.

Julia was thankful for the redundant backup in her office, resident not only on her computer but also on the company server. Whoever pulled this job would never think of looking there.

Stepping from the security closet into the pantry, Julia’s fear abated. Whoever had pulled this theft was gone. This inside job had probably been pulled off in a matter of minutes, without leaving a trace.

She grabbed a flashlight off the pantry shelf and a digital camera from her car and re-entered the basement. She took an inventory of what was missing, snapping pictures of the broken case, the open safe. There was a specificity to the robbery, the storage room surprisingly untouched, despite the crates containing tens of millions in paintings. The thieves’ only focus had been the armory items and the simple safe.

While Julia had possession of the inventory on all the art, antiques, and gems that Shamus updated a few times a year, she did not have the specifics on the safe. Other than the fact that he stored several pouches of diamonds and some personal effects, the contents of the two safes remained a mystery.

Once back upstairs, she called Shamus Hennicot at his summer home in Massachusetts to give him the bad news. She didn’t hesitate as she dialed the number-she had learned early in life that bad news couldn’t wait.

When his assistant, Talia, told her Shamus was unavailable, handling some family emergency, Julia simply asked Talia to have him call her as soon as possible and to tell him there had been an incident at Washington House. Julia followed his directions concerning incidents to the letter. He didn’t want the police involved on any matter until he knew the facts and could decide the best course of action. That was his decision and she would respect his wisdom as she had done for the last three years.

Shamus had been sick for the last few weeks, but for a sick man of ninety-two, he still had more energy than she could muster at the age of thirty-one. They had spoken two weeks earlier regarding a loan of some of his Monet collection to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, but as was so often the case, their conversation had veered to matters of family and life. She had such respect for Shamus and his accomplishments, she so trusted his advice and counsel, that she often found herself confiding in him, seeking his perspective on matters far beyond business.

Though he had no children of his own, Shamus always spoke of what was truly important in life: love and family, the true legacy of success, the true key to happiness. As anxious as Julia had been to tell Nick her news, she was equally looking forward to telling Shamus, knowing the genuine joy he would feel for her. Julia’s parents were older when they had her and had passed away several years earlier. In an odd way, Shamus Hennicot had filled that empty space in her heart, becoming like a surrogate grandparent, praising her achievements, sharing wisdom, imparting guidance with a warm smile and cheer in his voice.

She was genuinely touched by the man’s selfless spirit, his charity and nobility. He was a gentleman in a world where that word had become forgotten. He was a man who still cherished the written word, sending her letters in his impeccable cursive handwriting, avoiding the impersonal world of email.

It troubled her to have to tell him of the burglary, of the theft of his family’s valuables that had been passed down through the years. While she knew he would simply say, “Not to worry dear, pieces of metal and rock and canvas are not the true valuables in my life,” she wondered if he would be troubled by the incident, if there was something more to the collection he possessed that was not in the inventory.

As Julia exited the house, her PDA began humming with an incoming email from her office. Surprisingly, it was the Hennicot files and security data. She realized it was the download protocol when a power failure hit: Her offices were obviously under the same blackout that had hit this part of town.

As she drove out of the driveway, police and fire trucks flew by. The traffic lights were out, and people milled in the streets, all looking south. And as she finally turned her head, she saw the giant plume of black, acrid smoke.

Now, sitting in her Lexus, fifteen miles north of the crash site, Julia could see the dissipating smoke hovering on the southern horizon. She looked at the clock on the dash of her SUV. It was just after two and she had yet to speak to Nick. She had picked up her cell phone to try him again when the passenger door opened and an old man climbed in.

“Thank you for the ride,” the man said as he fastened his seat belt. “I’m Dr. O’Reilly.”

“Julia Quinn,” Julia said as she extended her hand.

As they shook hands, Julia looked more closely at the old man. Though his hair had gone to white, his eyebrows were as black as night and seemed to imbue him with a touch of youth. Tilting her head in curiosity, she asked, “Have we met before?”

“I don’t think so.” O’Reilly shook his head. “Unless you had business with the medical examiner’s office more than five years ago. Sadly, my retirement has been ended by today’s tragedy.”

The doctor looked out the window, ending the conversation, becoming lost in what could only be horrible thoughts about what he was heading off to see.

Without another word, Julia started the Lexus, drove out of the driveway, and headed back to Byram Hills.

NICK SAT IN his leather office chair behind the desk in his library. He was soaked, heaving for breath, his mind a jumble in its disorientation. He had thought himself dead as his mind went blank on the bottom of the lake, his last thought that he had failed Julia.

Calming himself, he looked at the wallet clutched in his hand. It was calfskin leather, black, Gucci. He had taken it from the pocket of the dead man on the bottom of the Kensico Reservoir. He opened it, finding it filled with hundred-dollar bills. There was a black American Express Card and a Gold Visa, but he bypassed it all, finding the driver’s license, the object of his search, right on top.

But identifying the dead man was not a eureka moment; it instead created more questions than Nick had had an hour earlier. He reread the license once more: 10 Merion Drive, Haverford, Pennsylvania. Born May 28, 1952. Five feet ten inches tall, brown eyes, the organ donation box checked. Paul Dreyfus, the owner of the security company that did the installation on Shamus Hennicot’s building, was dead, drowned, his body at the bottom of the Kensico Reservoir.

Nick ran upstairs and tore off his wet clothes, quickly throwing on another pair of jeans and a white shirt. He grabbed another dark blazer from the closet and emptied out the pockets of his drenched pants and jacket. He found Marcus’s letter to Marcus, along with the letter from the gray-haired man he’d received in the interrogation room, the ink on the exterior envelopes only slightly running. He picked up the watch and flicked open the watch cover. The timepiece was well crafted and watertight, seemingly unaffected by its submersion, as the second hand swept past twelve to read 2:05. His phone was another matter, shorted out. He was actually glad it was ruined, as that had erased Julia’s death image from the world. He grabbed his wallet and keys, the St. Christopher medal, Dreyfus’s wallet, and the letters and tucked it all in his pockets.

He ran downstairs, back to the library, and opened the safe. He let out a wide grin as he found his gun sitting there along with a supply of cartridges. This wasn’t some kind of magic. It hadn’t leaped here through time from Dance’s car. As it was now 2:05, it simply had not yet left the safe.

Nick grabbed it, along with several cartridges, and tucked it in his waistband, at the small of his back. He moved the stack of papers on his desk aside and found his personal cell phone sitting there dry as a bone, ready for use. He momentarily laughed, but the humor quickly faded as he became angry with himself. He had almost died, and in so doing, he would have taken Julia along with him. He had been foolish and arrogant, thinking he could simply ride backward in time and easily save Julia.

He had not used anything he knew of the future to change the past. This was like a game, a game he was playing very poorly, running around relying on chance-met strangers for help. He had to effect change and he had to effect it now. Time was ticking down; the time to save Julia was running out.

He picked up the wet wallet he had plucked off the corpse and slipped it in the pocket of his blazer.

He would no longer passively let things play out by chance. He had a plan now.

He was going to see Paul Dreyfus.

NICK PARKED HIS car just outside the roadblock at the crash site, right behind the blue Chevy Impala, the car that would carry Julia’s killer, the car he would chase down hours from now, forcing it off the road and into a tree.

He walked briskly toward Private McManus, the same National Guardsman who had stopped him from entering when he came and met Shannon.

“May I help you?” the young man said.

“I’m bringing evidence concerning the plane crash to Captain Delia.” Nick held up the wet wallet without stopping.

The young guard didn’t question Nick’s authoritative tone or manner and nodded as he passed.

NICK STOOD LOOKING at the crash site. Firemen were rolling up their hoses, not yet able to sit on the running boards of their trucks for a rest. Family members were being bused to the locker building to be close to the remains of their loved ones, to hear any updates on the cause of the crash or even, possibly, word of a miracle survivor.

The devastation was like nothing Nick had ever experienced. Though he had seen it an hour earlier in his time, he had not grown accustomed to the sight. The tragedy was on a grand scale. But for the tail of the plane, he couldn’t see any piece of debris larger than a door. He looked at the hundreds of volunteers assisting the emergency crews, helping the grieving families. It was humanity at its best and life at its worst.

And somewhere in here, among the sea of people, was Paul Dreyfus.

Nick pulled out Dreyfus’s still-wet wallet, found one of his business cards, and dialed the cell phone number on it.

“Hello,” a deep voice answered.

“Mr. Dreyfus?” Nick asked, looking around at the sea of volunteers.

“Yes.”

Nick looked among the crowd by the locker, by the situation tents. “My name is Nick Quinn.”

“Yes,” Dreyfus said, with no emotion, no formality.

Nick scanned the field, surrounded by miles of police tape, and finally saw him, cell phone to his ear, standing in the open field of death. Nick hung up and headed straight for the man, never taking his eye off him.

Dreyfus was heavier than Nick had thought, a man who had once been built like a rock. His weight had shifted about but he still appeared strong. His gray hair was neatly parted, unlike the mussed, drifting locks Nick had seen on his corpse at the bottom of the Kensico Reservoir.

The man wore rubber surgical gloves, his shirtsleeves rolled up as he lifted sheet after sheet, examining the bodies underneath.

“Mr. Dreyfus?” Nick said on approach.

Dreyfus didn’t stop looking under the white sheets, as if Nick was a nuisance.

“My name is Nick Quinn,” he said as he extended his hand.

Dreyfus ignored it. Nick was unsure if it was because of the gloves or out of rudeness.

“You flew up here today?” Nick asked.

“I’m supposed to know you?”

“I don’t know how to tell you this-” Nick paused, unsure how to proceed.

“I don’t have time for mind games; get to the point.”

“They’re going to kill you,” Nick blurted out.

“Who?” Dreyfus didn’t look up from his task, as if he didn’t hear or didn’t care.

“Your partners.”

“Partners?” Dreyfus asked, finally looking up. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Nick grabbed the man by the shoulders, spinning him around to get his attention. “Then they are going to kill my wife.”

The man’s face softened for an instant. “Then I suggest you go protect her instead of harassing me.”

“Do you know Ethan Dance?” Nick pressed him.

“Are you a cop?”

“He’s going to drill you in the eye and the mouth. He’s got a mean right hook.” Nick rubbed his lip. “Then he’s going to tie a heavy iron plate to your ankles and drop you into a lake.”

“Are you trying to scare me?”

“Yeah, I am,” Nick said in earnest.

“After seeing all this,” Dreyfus waved his gloved hand around, “you’ll excuse me if I ignore you. I’ve got bigger issues to deal with.”

Dreyfus glared at Nick before walking off. Nick stood there a moment, not sure how to crack the man, how to get him to talk.

Nick caught up to Dreyfus, walking beside him along the charred ground, every step avoiding pieces of what had once been an AS 300 jetliner. Dreyfus would pause before a white sheet, bowing his head as if in reverence, and then slowly lifting it by its corner.

Hastily brought in from Northern Westchester Hospital, the sheets were serving a purpose they were never designed for. While Nick knew they covered bodies, he hadn’t realized what was actually under the sea of white cloth that dotted the hellish landscape. There were no people lying in elegant repose. The bodies were broken, dismembered, burned beyond recognition. Some sheets covered torsos, others limbs, visions Nick had never borne witness to, sights that turned his stomach and wrenched his heart. How Dreyfus could search, how he could look at each face was something Nick couldn’t understand.

“What are you doing here?” Nick asked.

“I was an army medic, Vietnam. I thought I’d never see anything like this again.”

“You think coming here,” Nick said, “volunteering will clear your soul?”

“You have no idea what you are talking about. I’m going to tell you once, get away from me before I call the cops over.”

“Trust me, you don’t want to do that.” Nick paused. “What are you hoping for, redemption?”

Dreyfus stopped, turning to Nick with a mix of anger and pain in his eyes. “I’m hoping to find my brother.”

Nick stared at the man, so sure of a darker side, only to be floored by the fact that Dreyfus’s brother had been on the plane.

“I’m sorry,” Nick said. “I didn’t realize.”

“Now, will you let me be?”

“There was a robbery this morning of Washington House, the Hennicots’ place. You did the security.” Nick reluctantly pressed on. “They stole a bunch of diamonds and swords, some daggers and guns. They’re covering their tracks and I know for a fact they are coming for you. You need to get out of here. I’ll help you do that, but you’ve got to tell me who was involved in the theft. I need to know every name to save my wife.”

Dreyfus finally looked at Nick with different eyes, sympathetic eyes. “I’m sorry about your wife.” And his sympathy slipped away. “But she’s still alive. That’s more than I can say for my brother. Now, if you’ll excuse me.”

Dreyfus leaned down and lifted another sheet.

“Mr. Dreyfus?” a voice called from behind them.

“Great, now who are you?”

“I’m Detective Ethan Dance.”

Nick turned to see four uniformed police standing beside Dance.

“You need to come with us.” Dance took him by an arm as one of the uniformed cops took the other. Nick quickly looked at the patrolmen, checking whether any of them were the police officer he had seen bound, floating dead in the bottom of the Kensico Reservoir, but none had red hair and all four were far from skinny.

Nick felt the gun at the small of his back but knew if he drew it he’d be either dead or in handcuffs.

“Let him go,” Nick called out, not knowing why.

“Who the hell are you?” Dance said.

“My God, don’t you have any compassion?” Nick said. “The guy’s looking for his brother.”

“That’s not all he’s looking for out here,” Dance said as he turned and led Dreyfus away.

NICK STARED OUT at the white-draped bodies, all of the men, women, and children, his mind puzzling over why the innocent had to die. What purpose did it serve? How many loved ones were left behind to grieve? He knew what it felt like to lose the one you love most in this world.

He wished he could stop it, take it all away. He wished he had more than five hours. If it took twelve hours to save Julia, to solve a crime, how long would it take to save 212? Could he ride time backward and tell each one not to get on the plane, could he find and stop the cause of the accident? His heart broke when he knew he couldn’t end all the suffering.

But Dreyfus had not shed any new light on the robbery before he was whisked away by Dance to what would inevitably be his death. He was searching for his brother’s body. Nick never realized, never thought there was the possibility of something other than the robbery that Dreyfus was dealing with.

And what did Dance mean, he was not just searching for his brother’s body, he was searching for something else?

Nick was actually surprised. Though Dreyfus was filled with grief, Nick felt he could actually like the man. He had served his country, he was medically trained, he’d built a huge business.

And Nick realized he didn’t have to die. He might not be able to save the passengers, but he might be able to save Paul Dreyfus, and by so doing maybe he would get some answers.

Nick knew where they were going; there was still time.

PAUL DREYFUS WAS thrown in the back of a green Taurus while Dance spoke to and dismissed his underling cops.

Dance slid into the backseat beside him, drew his gun, and pressed it into Paul’s stomach. “How’s it feel to be the brother of the murderer of over two hundred people?”

Dreyfus stared at Dance but remained silent.

“He double-crossed us. Was that your plan all along? I want to know where the box is.” Dance paused, his agitation and anger growing. “And I want to know now!”

Dreyfus wasn’t about to answer his questions. No one would get him to talk, especially not this corrupt cop.

On the Laos border in ’72, while treating what was left of Lieutenant Reese’s platoon, Paul Dreyfus had been captured by the Vietcong. He was thrown into a pit, a makeshift holding cell, and they had questioned him for five days. No food, just water. They beat him over the back with tree switches and rifle butts, but he never said a word, not even name, rank, and serial number. On the sixth day, a team of Navy SEALs liberated him but not before he had snatched a rifle off a dead Vietcong solider and shot his interrogators’ heads off.

Dreyfus hadn’t answered questions then and he wasn’t about to answer questions now.

Arriving back in the United States in ’75, Paul Dreyfus started his security company-a small shop at first. Door and window alarms for friends’ homes gave way to video surveillance for local mom and pop stores, which gave way to sophisticated corporate security designs. With a combination of luck, sweat, sleepless nights, and stressful days, Dreyfus built his company into one of the finest in the country.

Samuel Dreyfus ran a far different path than his older brother. Where Paul went to college to pursue a career in medicine, Sam dropped out of high school to pursue girls. Where Paul enlisted, Sam protested. Where Paul flew off to Vietnam, Sam ran off to Canada.

Paul, an athlete since childhood, had built his body through exercise and diet into a machine that tackled quarterbacks as a Georgia Bulldog and carried the wounded off the battlefield in Southeast Asia. Sam, on the other hand, preferred to pour chemicals in his body to find enlightenment and truth.

Forgoing a career in medicine after seeing too many battlefield wounds and too much blood, Paul Dreyfus followed a path he could never have imagined. Success provided him a Georgian colonial mansion outside Philadelphia, Ivy League educations for his two daughters, a life of luxury for Susan, his wife of thirty-five years, even his own modest boat and plane, both of which he preferred to four-wheeled vehicles. He loved flying, embracing his father’s passion at the age of fourteen. Twice a month their dad took him and Sam on little excursions around the Lehigh Valley, letting them each handle the controls, planting the seeds of a lifelong passion, imparting that feeling of flight that was unlike anything he had ever experienced.

People viewed everything in his life with envy. Everything except his brother. Back in the United States after President Carter’s amnesty for draft dodgers, Sam returned to the States thinking the world owed him a living. Or if not the world, at least his brother, Paul.

Sam might have been many things, but he was still Paul’s brother, he was still family. Draft dodging and drugs were the extent of his crimes, and they were all in his youth. Being obnoxious, rude, and self-centered were not felonious acts. If they were, Sam would have been in jail long ago.

Paul had employed his brother off and on for the last twenty years, paying him a salary that grew to over a million dollars a year for doing absolutely nothing. He actually gave him a small piece of the firm out of sympathy, so there would be something to leave his kids. He’d hoped it would spur some pride, some drive, but like so many efforts before, it proved useless. Sam made few contributions, brought in not a single contract, and seemed uninterested in the business. It had gotten to the point that Paul was seriously considering giving up on his brother altogether.

But during the last year, Paul had seen a change. Sam was at his office by 8:00 every morning, working full days. He gradually began showing up at the main office with ideas, treating employees with respect. It took Sam Dreyfus forty-nine years, but he had finally grown up. With increasing responsibility Sam grew into the family name, trust was restored, their families reconnected. Paul proudly introduced him at presentations. He landed three major multi-million-dollar contracts in six months. Sam wasn’t just working, he was earning his keep.

But then the world spun on its head.

Paul had entered his office at 6:45 this morning to find a receipt for one of his patented octagonal keys lying on the floor. He picked it up quietly, cursing the fool who dropped it, and saw the signature on the bottom. He suddenly realized what Sam had done.

Paul was apoplectic when he found their own security system breached, the Hennicot files and plans gone. Pass codes stolen, combinations to safes and locks accessed, security cards initiated and authorized.

He tapped into Sam’s computer. Though his brother had renewed his faith and trust with his exemplary performance over the last year, Paul kept a back-door access to his files in case his brother ever had a relapse to his former self. Paul felt horrible for his lack of confidence in him, but the guilt was washed away by what he found as he opened his brother’s personal files. His heart broke as he printed out and read through Sam’s notes, as he came to terms with the extent of the betrayal.

Without a word even to his wife, Paul grabbed his emergency briefcase, filled with pass-code resets, five hundred thousand in cash, and his Smith and Wesson. He tucked the three pages he had printed off his brother’s computer inside and raced to the small airfield where he kept his Cessna 400. He paid Tony Richter, the air traffic controller he had known for twenty years, ten thousand dollars to forget he ever saw his plane take off at 7:15, asking him to say that his plane was still tucked in its garage. He didn’t want anyone to know he had left, didn’t want anyone to know he was coming, didn’t want Sam to find out what he was about to do.

Dance’s fist caught Paul square in the right eye, shocking him out of his thoughts, pulling him back to the present moment.

“Where’s the box?”

Paul stared at the man, laughing at his punch. “He said you were going to do that,” Paul taunted Dance.

“Who?”

“He said he knew all about the robbery,” Paul added, reveling in the destabilizing effect it had on Dance. “Said you were going to throw me into a lake, I should have listened to him.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know, but he looked pretty pissed.” Dreyfus paused. “Murderously pissed.”

“The guy you were with?”

Paul just smiled back.

And without warning Dance drilled him right in the mouth. “Did he say I was going to do that?”

And then he punched him in the stomach. “Or how about that?”

Without another word, Dance jumped out of the car and into the front seat, turned on the engine, and turned into the constricted road.

“Let’s see if you know how to swim.”

NICK RAN AT a full clip, faster than he had ever run before. He cut down the field, past the locker house, out across the lacrosse fields, and into the woods. The access road wrapped around the entire complex. If he ran fast enough, with the slow-moving traffic and the far shorter distance by foot, he could intercept them.

Cutting into the small forest on his right, he drove his legs harder, lactic acid pouring through them as if he was in the final kick of a marathon.

Through the woods, he pressed on under the low green canopy of leaves, thinking only of Julia as he leaped logs and bushes. Hurtling out of the brush and trees, his legs pistoning even faster, he emerged into the high grasses that abutted the access road.

Without breaking stride, he reached behind his back and drew his pistol, thumbing off the safety as Dance’s car came into view.

It was traveling slowly, a quarter mile up the road, on approach to the place where Private McManus was standing guard to prevent anyone from trying to enter, never thinking he would have to prevent someone from leaving.

“McManus! Private McManus,” Nick shouted through heaving breaths as he ran toward the National Guardsman.

McManus turned toward him, the confusion in his eyes evident even from this distance.

Nick pointed at Dance’s approaching car.

“Stop him,” Nick shouted at the young Guardsman.

“What?” McManus shouted back as he turned and saw the approaching green Ford Taurus.

“They stole from the wreckage,” Nick screamed, knowing that would get his attention.

“How do you know?” McManus shouted back.

“You were top of your class in riflery, prove it.”

“How the hell did you know that?” the private yelled as he looked toward the approaching car.

“Raise your rifle, don’t let them by.” Nick was less than one hundred feet from the Guardsman.

And suddenly the Taurus accelerated, the large police engine roaring as it sped up.

Blocked by barriers, the open lane was only wide enough for a single car. McManus stood in the gap and raised his M-16, playing chicken with the three-thousand-pound vehicle.

Nick came running up alongside him, his gun drawn, aiming at the driver.

One hundred yards off, still accelerating.

“You can hit the tire, just focus,” Nick said.

“Are you sure about this?” McManus held his gun high, aiming…

“You can do it, just like the range.”

Fifty yards.

“Take the shot,” Nick said.

McManus flexed his finger, focused, and fired off one round from his rifle.

The rear tire of the Taurus exploded in a shredding hail of black rubber, the spinning aluminum wheel falling on the roadway, sending up a shower of sparks.

Nick aimed at Dance. McManus held his ground beside him, his finger beginning to depress for another shot, when the brakes locked up, the car spinning into a sideways skid, grinding to a halt as the tires and bare wheel screamed in protest.

Nick and McManus both focused their guns on Dance, who reached for his weapon but thought better of it.

“What the hell is going on?” McManus asked through gritted teeth, his focus never leaving Dance.

“Look at the guy in the backseat, look at the blood.”

McManus glanced over, and upon seeing Dreyfus’s condition, aimed his rifle with even more purpose at Dance’s head. “Out of the car, now.”

“Son,” Dance said as he opened his door, raising his hands to half height. “You are making a life-changing mistake.”

Nick reached into the car, thumbed the door locks, and let Dreyfus out of the vehicle.

“Don’t listen to him. Wait till you see what’s in his trunk. This so-called cop here just stole two bags of antiques from the wreckage. Antique swords and daggers and diamonds. These were someone’s belongings, someone who just died.” Nick knew the lie would be much more convincing, much more vile than the truth.

“He’s lying,” Dance shouted as he glared at Nick.

Nick answered by flicking the trunk latch. “You’ll also find some iron plates and bicycle cables he was going to tie to Mr. Dreyfus when he dropped him into the Kensico Reservoir.”

Dance’s head snap-turned to Nick in surprise.

The trunk lid rose slowly to expose the two duffel bags and the iron plates. Nick reached in and unzipped a bag to reveal an explosion of golden color-Daggers, swords, three gold-inlaid pistols. Nick pulled out the coup de grace: a black velvet pouch, which he opened, the diamonds rolling about in a brilliance of color.

“Son of a bitch,” McManus said as he jammed his rifle into Dance’s head. “Up against the car.”

Dance reluctantly complied.

With McManus holding his rifle head-high, Nick took Dance’s gun, handcuffs, and keys and patted him down, finding a small revolver in an ankle holster. He cuffed Dance’s hands in front of him.

Nick walked over to his Audi, opened the door, and threw the detective’s guns on the seat. Dance’s gaze remained fixed on his every move.

“You have no idea what you’ve done,” Dance said to Nick, his eyes on fire as he stared. “We will find you, and understand this, I’m coming for you, I’ll cut the beating heart right out of your chest-”

The butt of the rifle slammed into Dance’s stomach, doubling him over. “Shut the hell up.” McManus raised his gun again, but instead just pushed him in the car. “And get in there. You talk a lot of smack for someone going to jail.”

Dance rolled about in pain in the back of his own car.

“Do you have keys for those?” McManus asked Nick, pointing at Dance’s handcuffs.

Nick passed them to the private, who stuffed them in his pocket.

“This wasn’t in the National Guard brochure when I signed up.”

“What do you do in your real life?”

“I just got my MBA, but with this economy, it doesn’t seem to matter much. I’m still flipping burgers.”

Nick nodded, rushing the conversation along. “Look, I’ve got to get him to a doctor,” Nick lied to the private as he pointed to Dreyfus. “You’re a good man, I appreciate your help. If you ever need anything…”

“Yeah,” McManus said with a dismissive smile sensing a hollow promise.

“I’m serious,” Nick said, seeing the doubt in the private’s eyes. “Give me your cell phone number.”

“It’s 914-285- 7448.”

Nick punched it into his own cell as he listened. “You have my word, I’ll hook you up.”

McManus smiled, beginning to believe Nick’s offer.

“You need to get some people from your unit over here,” Dreyfus said, wiping the blood from his mouth. “Don’t call his police buddies in on this. They’ll pull a blue code on you, saying he’s innocent.”

“I’ll radio Colonel Wells, my CO. Let him deal with this.” He looked more closely at the blood on Dreyfus’s face. “You all right?”

Dreyfus looked at Nick and nodded. “Yeah.”

NICK DROVE HIS Audi up Route 22 with Dreyfus in the seat beside him, his briefcase in his lap, having grabbed it from the trunk of the blue rental car, still parked on the access road.

“Thank you,” Paul Dreyfus said. “I owe you my life, I think.”

“You’re welcome.” Nick nodded as he cracked the ice pack he had pulled from the car’s emergency kit and handed it to Dreyfus. “Again, my condolences on the loss of your brother.”

“You knew almost exactly what that guy Dance was going to do to me.”

“It’s kind of his MO.” Nick thumbed his swollen lip, hoping to avoid further questions about his foreknowledge.

“Listen, I don’t have much time, but I really need to know what’s going on,” Nick went on. “I need to know if you know anything about this robbery.”

Dreyfus looked out the window at the vacant town of Byram Hills.

“They’re going to kill my wife.” Nick’s tone was pleading, heartfelt.

Dreyfus pressed the ice pack to his eye and nodded. “My brother was responsible for the theft. He pulled all the info from my private files. He was the brains, for lack of a better term, of everything that happened. I only found out this morning what he planned. He took a flight up, got here at 10:15. Dance picked him up at the airport and they went to Hennicot’s place to rob it. I flew up here hoping I could stop him before he made the worst mistake of his life.”

“I’m sorry.” Nick couldn’t imagine how Dreyfus was feeling about this betrayal by his own flesh and blood.

“There were five of them, including my brother, who led them down into the candy store. They got in fine, got what they were each there for, but then the whole thing dissolved into disaster. Dance and his crew thought my brother was trying to screw them, my brother accused them of being ungrateful. A textbook meltdown of power and greed.”

“There’s hundreds of millions down there,” Nick said.

“Yeah, and nobody was really aware of that except for Hennicot, his attorneys, myself and, eventually and unfortunately, my brother. The people who helped him, that guy Dance and the others, wouldn’t know value if it smacked them in the face.”

“Why would your brother involve anyone else if he had the keys to the place?”

“You always have a backup security protocol. Sadly, my brother was a fool. Thinking some alarm might ring at the police station, he figured he needed them on the inside if he was going to pull this off, so he got Dance to put together a team. They planned it out, watched the place for activity, stood guard, and hauled the stuff out. My brother promised them, lured them really, with shiny gold and diamonds. He never told them what he was going for, thought it was none of their business. He let Dance and his men take the daggers and swords while he went for the safe.”

“They couldn’t just take the Monet on the wall?”

“Nice to see someone knows their art. The idiots he hired probably thought it was a finger painting. My brother, on the other hand, knew exactly what it was but he wanted something more.”

“What do you mean, more?” Nick asked.

“There was something else besides diamonds in the safe.” Dreyfus paused.

“What?”

Dreyfus was slow in answering. “He wanted Hennicot’s mahogany lock box.”

“What box?”

“My brother didn’t even know what was in it. He had only heard rumors but thought it worth the risk.”

“He wanted that more than the Monet, all the gold and diamonds?” Nick said with confusion. “What was in the box?”

“Did you ever hear of the concept of the perception of value?”

“No,” Nick shook his head.

“If I were to hold a box in my hand that I would desperately not part with, you would be curious about its contents. If I wouldn’t sell it to you for a million dollars you would have confirmation of its value. But that value may be only personal. Maybe it’s my father’s ashes in the box. Mere dust that would float away on the wind. Worth nothing to you. But to me… its all that I have left of my father. It’s priceless.”

Dreyfus turned away from Nick. He reached into his pocket, fumbled around, jingling his change for something, and then turned back.

He held out his two hands, one clinched in a fist, the other, palm up, with a quarter resting in its center.

“Look at my hands,” Dreyfus said. “Choose one but only one.”

Nick looked at the quarter, then at Dreyfus’s closed hand, and quickly touched it.

“That is what nine out of ten people do. They choose the mystery. Why?” he asked rhetorically. “For a host of reasons. To learn what is there, always thinking the unknown is more valuable than the known.

“How many people live in the moment? A few? How many people live for tomorrow at the sacrifice of today?” Dreyfus opened his fist to reveal it to be empty. “… When tomorrow is never a guarantee.”

Dreyfus’s words hit Nick hard as he thought of Julia, as he realized they were always looking toward the future at the expense of the moment.

“That is the box. That is why my brother is dead, that is why they will kill me if I don’t help them find it. Your wife will be killed to cover their tracks. And they don’t even know yet what it contains.”

“Dance had a trunk full of gold and yet would trade it for this box, and he has no idea what’s in it?”

“The whole thing went bad. Dance and his men were going for the antiques and the diamonds, which would have made them very happy. Then they saw the box. Not knowing what it was, and seeing my brother wanting it so badly, they thought its worth far exceeded what they were taking and thought they were being ripped off. Paid cheap for their help.”

“All over a box?”

“We all have a special box, something we hold dear. Something we dare not part with for any price. Yours is your wife, mine is my children. Shamus Hennicot’s was in a box; it weighed twenty-five pounds and was passed down from father to son to son. It was said to contain their philosophy, their family secrets.” Dreyfus took a deep breath. “We cling to our hearts, to what warms them, to what gives us hope, to things we can look upon and know the world will someday be okay again.”

“What could weigh twenty-five pounds and be held most dear?” Nick asked.

“Curiosity is infectious, isn’t it? You haven’t even seen the box and you want to know what’s in it.”

“Do you know what’s in the box?” Nick asked.

Dreyfus smiled a knowing smile. “You didn’t think this whole thing was about a handful of diamonds and some old swords, did you?”

THE REAR DOOR of the Taurus was open, Dance sat in the backseat, his hands cuffed, barely able to contain his anger.

The young National Guardsman stood outside the car, his M- 16 in one hand, his cell phone in the other pressed to his ear, waiting for his superior officer to answer.

Dance’s mind was working on overtime, looking about, weighing his options before a contingent of weekend warriors came to haul him away. He hadn’t come this far to fail.

Dance looked at his missing ring finger: They called it a down payment on his life.

No one knew it, but he had until midnight tonight or he would be dead. And that just didn’t fit into his schedule.

Dance had moonlighted on many jobs that were contrary to his profession. The sixty-thousand-dollar salary of a detective wasn’t enough to live on, not in Westchester, among the wealthy who looked to the police for protection but treated them as second-class citizens.

Little jobs supplemented his income-the thefts here and there, the shakedown and blackmailing of the young drug dealers, the kids whose millionaire parents would disown them if they knew what Biff and Muffy were selling to fourteen-year-olds.

Dance had robbed, stolen, committed arson for hire, and on two occasions, killed. Ten thousand a head, drug-related hits down county. He wrapped the bodies in nylon reinforced feed bags, wrapped them tightly in chains, and with hundred-pound iron weights strapped to the corpses, tossed them into the East River beside Manhattan. Secured tightly, they wouldn’t be found for years, if at all.

No one was wise to his dealings except for Shannon, who knew better than to talk, and Horace Randall, his mentor, who was three months from retirement. Goods were quickly fenced, evidence never found, and if legal suspicions arose, he would use his police knowledge to direct investigations in another direction.

But not all jobs went smoothly.

Fourteen months ago, he had been running a small crew of punks, teens he had arrested and blackmailed into working for him in order to avoid jail.

Two of them had hijacked a panel trunk filled with computers on East Tremont in the Bronx and had driven it to a warehouse in Yonkers where Dance was waiting. The buyer of the stolen notebooks and high-end desktop models paid him forty thousand in cash, five of which he gave to the two teens, ensuring their silence and loyalty until the next job.

A week later the two punks were found dead in an alley, shot through the head, execution style.

The following day, two wide-shouldered enforcers grabbed Dance as he exited his car in the driveway of his two-family house and drove him to a machine shop in Flatbush where they tied him to a heavy wooden chair.

He sat there in the darkened shop for three hours under the silent gaze of the two enforcers before he heard someone enter.

“You stole my truck.” The heavily accented voice came from behind him.

Dance sat still, staring straight ahead. He didn’t need to see the man, he knew his voice.

“You of all people should know better.” The short, black haired man circled Dance’s chair, finally stopping in front of him and leaning down into his face. “Now children are dead.”

The Albanian had a dead left eye and a horrific scar running down his cheek, an appearance that struck fear into his victims, particularly at night. Ghestov Rukaj was one of the new wave of Eastern European crime lords who preferred using the tactics of terror to control his territories and victims, and did not understand honor or the old Cosa Nostra ways of criminals.

“Wasn’t your truck.” Dance glared into Rukaj’s one good eye.

“I had scoped it out, it was in my territory, my two associates here were just about to grab it when your children beat us to the punch.”

“Do you have any idea the line you have crossed or what will happen to you? I’m a police officer.”

“Do you have an idea what will happen to you, Mr. Police Officer? I didn’t realize the law was in the business of stealing and fencing goods.”

At a nod from Rukaj, the two granitelike men stepped forward and stood on either side of Dance. Each took hold of a shoulder, and they pressed him down into the seat. Each grabbed a wrist and pressed it to the wooden armrests.

Rukaj sat on the table in front of Dance, reached into his pocket, and withdrew a large switchblade, flicking it open.

“There is a price for the life we have chosen to lead.” Rukaj ran his finger down his left eye and trailed it along the thick scar on his cheek. “Our egos, our invincibility, sometimes need a reality check.”

Rukaj laid the blade against the second knuckle of Dance’s right ring finger.

“Do you have one million dollars, Mr. Policeman?”

Dance remained silent, his face impossible to read, though sweat had begun to appear on his brow.

“You cost me fifty thousand dollars and I would like it back, plus damages. You have access to drug money, to drugs, stolen merchandise,” Rukaj said with his slithering accent. “This is not a question.”

Dance’s eyes were on fire as he stared defiantly at Rukaj.

Without another word or a dramatic pause, Rukaj pressed all his weight onto the blade, severing Dance’s finger with a single slice.

Dance’s head snapped back in agony and he roared in pain.

“It’s okay to scream, there is no shame. I promise to tell no one.”

Rukaj wiped the blood-soaked blade on Dance’s pants, folded it back up, and tucked it into his pocket.

“You are a valuable man, Ethan Dance, so I will trade you one million dollars for your life. Now before you get all nervous, I’ll give you one year. That will give you time to find the right situation to take advantage of. Pay in installments or in one lump sum, whichever you prefer.

“Consider this”-Rukaj held up his severed finger-“a down payment.”

It had been fourteen months. Dance heard from Rukaj daily now, reminding him that there would be no more extensions, no more leeway. “Time is up. Time to pay or time to die,” Rukaj said every morning.

Now, as Dance sat as a prisoner in his own car, with its trunk full of antiques and diamonds-a fraction of which would pay for his life-he was filled with an anger and rage such as he had never known. He had been betrayed by Sam Dreyfus, who had run off with a box of untold value, he had been arrested by a nine-to-five soldier, and someone else was looking forward to removing the rest of his body parts.

Dance glared at the young private who was playing policeman, who would go back to his real job come Monday and talk about how he arrested a dirty cop and recovered-

“Hello, Colonel?” McManus said into his cell phone, turning his back to Dance as his superior finally came on the line.

Dance leaped out of the open door of the Taurus, threw his hands over the unsuspecting McManus, and violently pulled his cuffed wrists back, crushing McManus’s trachea.

McManus dropped his cell phone and released his hold on his M-16, his hands going straight to his throat. He had been trained in combat, trained with a rifle, but as a National Guardsman, he had never seen or tasted anything close to war. The young private had never even been in a bar fight.

Dance leaned back with all of his two-hundred-pound weight, grinding the handcuff chain into McManus’s broken throat, driving the broken cartilage of his trachea into the soft inner flesh of his windpipe while cutting off the flow of blood to his brain. He fell back into the Taurus, pulling McManus off his feet and into the car with him, the young man’s arms desperately tugging at the chain about his neck, legs flailing, seeking purchase, as a wet gurgling sound of death escaped his now-blue lips.

McManus’s struggle finally abated, his arms falling limp. A spastic twitch began in his right leg.

And he died.

On the side of the road that led to a disaster, Private Neil McManus became the 213th death at Sullivan Field.

Dance reached into the dead private’s pocket, pulled out the cuff keys, and freed himself.

He threw the dead body into his backseat so as not to draw attention, pulled the jack and spare from his trunk, and changed his tire as if he were on pit-crew time. Two minutes later he picked up McManus’s M-16 and his cell phone and threw them into the car. He hopped in the front of his unmarked police car, started up the engine, and peeled out, leaving the jack and the wheel in the middle of the road. He’d dump McManus’s body in the reservoir when he had time, but for the moment, there were more pressing matters.

Before he hit sixty miles per hour, he flipped down the keyboard on his police computer and punched in the license plate he had memorized. The owner of the Blue Audi A8 popped up. Nicholas Quinn, 5 Townsend Court, Byram Hills. The picture was a spot-on match to the man who had just run out of the woods to stop him, who had cuffed him and left him to be hauled off to jail. The man who somehow knew the exact contents of his trunk.

He looked down at the address on the Post-it stuck to his dash, the address for Hennicot’s attorney, whose offices contained the security video, who had probably viewed it.

Dance had already spoken to her. He had already gained the trust of Nicholas Quinn’s wife.

NICK DROVE DOWN Route 22. As he headed onto the overpass of Interstate 684, he saw the uninterrupted flow of traffic below. It was like another world, cars filling the roads, people chatting within their vehicles, unaware of the disaster just a mile off the highway. It was as if Byram Hills were a dead town, under quarantine, the disaster already pushed from the minds of the world beyond.

Nick continued into the vacant town and pulled into the empty parking lot of Valhalla, his friend’s restaurant.

“You sure you don’t want to go to the hospital?” Nick asked, as put the car in park.

“I’m fine,” Dreyfus said. “I’ve gotten more banged up from hits in a flag football game.”

“Well, where do you want me to take you?” Nick asked as he looked at his car’s clock. “I have to be somewhere at three.”

“I can’t go back to the airfield, yet.” Dreyfus said.

“Tell you what,” Nick said. “You drop me at my house, take my car.”

“I can’t do that.” Dreyfus shook his head.

“Yeah, you can. It’s not like you’re going to keep it. Just call me when you’re done with it. With the loss of your brother and everything else going on, you need it more than me.”

Dreyfus nodded in thanks.

“Besides, I’ll have another car just like this one at my house in ten minutes,” Nick said, with an irony no one could ever understand.

“I appreciate it.”

“But you need to help me in return.” Nick looked at Dreyfus. “One of Dance’s men is going to try to kill my wife, I just don’t know who.”

“You know, I didn’t realize… I didn’t make the connection between you and your wife, Julia. I met her, Nick, on more than one occasion. She’s terrific. Hennicot really cares for her, thinks the world of her, and in my book, nobody is a better judge of character than that old man.”

“Yeah, well, if I don’t start getting some help,” Nick said, “she’s not going to live through the day.”

Dreyfus pulled his briefcase up on his lap, opened it, and pulled out three sheets of paper.

“I only figured out what my brother was doing this morning. I tore through his files and found this.” Dreyfus handed the paper to Nick.

Nick read quickly. It was a haphazard checklist and hastily typed notes on the planned robbery.

“It’s not much, just his notes, but it gives the names.”

Nick skimmed the details of the mechanics of the break-in but paid close attention to the bullet-note bios Sam had compiled:

DROP DEAD-7/28

Dance-Ethan Dance. 38. Detective. Dirty. Two-faced.

His three:

Randall-Cop. 58. Fat

Brinehart-Cop. New guy. Kid. Punk.

Arilio-Cop. 30s.

Fence-Confirmed-Chinese national, five million cash for weapons.

diamond price t/b/d upon inspection.

Rukaj-Not a cop. Who is this? Called Dance at lunch, unnerved him,

scared him. Dance in debt? Owes him?

“If someone’s after your wife,” Dreyfus said, pointing at the names. “It’s got to be one of these.”

“Drop dead?” Nick said, looking at the top note.

“That’s today’s date.”

“Who’s this Rukaj?”

“Not completely sure, but I believe it may be Ghestov Rukaj, an Albanian who has been staking claim to organized crime in New York. But I’ll tell you this, if he scared Dance, he can’t be all bad.”

“Or maybe,” Nick said ominously, “he’s far worse.”

“I’d keep my focus on Dance,” Dreyfus said.

“As insane as he is,” Nick said, “I don’t think it was him.”

“Did you say, was…?” Dreyfus asked in confusion.

“Is.” Nick quickly corrected himself. As much as he agreed with Dreyfus, he held the evidence in his pocket. Without doubt, the St. Christopher medal hung on the neck of Julia’s killer, and Nick had seen Dance’s neck, his exposed chest: There was nothing hanging there. Randall, the fifty-eight-year-old fat cop on Sam’s list, wasn’t the trigger man, Nick was sure of this, as he had seen him getting in the blue Chevy Impala at the moment Julia was shot. It had to be one of the other three who pulled the trigger: Brinehart, Arilio, or Rukaj.

“After the robbery this morning, Dance came after my brother. If he hadn’t died in the plane crash, they were going to kill him. Dance was relentless looking for this box, thinking it was worth a fortune. I’m sure he is just as relentless in making sure that he covers his tracks, that he never gets caught,” Dreyfus said, confirming the danger to Julia.

“How do you know so much about what happened during the robbery?” Suspicion leaked into Nick’s voice.

Dreyfus paused as if he were about to reveal a death.

“After the robbery, I tracked down my brother, I saw the box he took from Hennicot’s safe. I tried to convince him to let me help him, that the box didn’t contain what he thought, that it couldn’t fill whatever hole he had in his life. He said it was too late, that Dance was after him and would kill him on sight.”

“Where did you see him last?” Nick asked.

“At the airport.”

“My God, I’m sorry.”

Dreyfus looked at Nick. There was a look in his eye, something he was not saying.

“Nick, my brother died in that plane crash, but he wasn’t on Flight 502.”

“What do you mean?”

“He showed up at the airport in a stolen police car, the wooden box under his arm. I tried to tell him…”

“Tell him what?”

“I tried to stop him.” Dreyfus’s voice filled with a painful regret.

“I had no idea,” Nick said.

“He stole my plane,” Dreyfus continued, looking out the window, unable to meet Nick’s eye. “He held a gun to my head, took the keys, and stole my plane. If I had any idea, I would have stopped him, I would have killed him to prevent what happened.”

Nick stared at Dreyfus as he struggled to speak, confused about where the conversation was going.

“I watched him fly my plane right into that jet, into Flight 502. I watched them fall from the sky to their deaths.”

Nick sat there in stunned silence, never having imagined that the two horrible events in Byram Hills were related.

“I’m sorry,” Nick finally said. He realized the look in Dreyfus’s eyes was not a feeling of betrayal but one of anguish and sorrow, of overwhelming guilt, for his brother was responsible for the deaths of 212 innocent people.

Not another word was spoken as Nick pulled out of the parking lot and drove the mile and half home.

Nick pulled in front of his house. He and Dreyfus got out of the car and solemnly shook hands. “I appreciate the loan of the car.

“And Nick,” Dreyfus continued with a serious look. “If they think your wife can identify them, if she has a video of the robbery, they won’t stop until they silence her. If I were you, I would get her away from this town now. If you’ve got friends you can trust, I’d find them. Because I wouldn’t trust anyone in that police department if I were you.”

“I agree,” Nick said.

Dreyfus nodded in appreciation as he climbed in the driver’s seat of Nick’s Audi, closed the door, and rolled down the window. “Good luck, Nick.”

Nick watched Dreyfus pull out of the driveway and disappear around the corner. He pulled the watch from his pocket and checked the time: 2:57. Julia’s Lexus wasn’t in the driveway. He didn’t know where she was at this moment but this moment would soon be over.

He pulled out his cell phone and dialed McManus, glad that he had taken the young private’s phone number. He looked at the sheet of paper from Dreyfus with the names of the other cops on it.

“Hey, Private McManus.” Nick said as the call went through. “It’s Nick Quinn.”

“Yes?”

“There are three other cops involved with Dance: Randall, Arilio, and Brinehart. Tell your commanding officer to pick them up. Again, the names are Randall, Arilio, and Brinehart.”

“Mr. Quinn, to be honest with you, Mr. McManus is no longer of this world.” Nick recognized Dance’s voice.

“Where are you? Are you home?” Dance paused. “Understand something, I’m coming for you, I will find you, and when I do, I’m going to snap your neck.”

“You listen to me-” Nick began, but was quickly interrupted.

“No!” Dance exploded. “You listen to me. Your wife? Julia? Can you picture her dead? Can you do that?”

Nick froze in shock. He tried not to conjure up the image that he knew so well but couldn’t avoid it.

“A bullet to the head,” Dance continued, “or how about a knife, drawn across her belly so she can watch her insides spill out?

“My men are already looking for her, and when they find her-well, why don’t you just let your imagination run wild on that?”