The 13th Hour

CHAPTER 3

NOON

NICK FELL TO THE floor of his library, howling in agony at his best friend’s death, at leaving Julia behind to die once again.

It was no longer just about saving her from her death at 6:40 P.M. It was about saving her at 1:00 from the future he had just created for her, in which he left her alone to perish at the hands of Dance. It was about changing the future he had created for Marcus, his best friend who helped him without question, who believed him when he spoke of impossible scenarios and gold watches, who gave his life to save Julia’s, a sacrifice that had proved in vain.

Nick had been playing God and was now reaping the consequences.

Lives are set, actions irrevocable, yet Nick was playing chess, running about, moving the pieces on the board of a game already lost. He couldn’t reach forward and save his friends, constantly tossed backward as if he was a character in a Greek myth with Zeus and Athena playing with his life. Only this time Zeus wore a double-breasted blue blazer and gave out mysterious watches that Einstein had never heard of.

Every ripple, every misstep of the last nine hours had led to consequences that compounded his initial situation. His life had been torn apart bit by bit.

Who can predict the paths our lives will take, what fateful detours will steer us either into or away from disaster, what unselfish deed will provoke a war.

Nick had to stop it all from happening, if he was to have any chance of putting things right, but with each step he took, each change he made, he was creating a future that was far worse than the one he had originally been faced with.

Marcus was right, he realized. The unintended consequences of our actions change not just our own future but the future of all of those around us, all those we care for.

NICK RACED DOWN Sunrise Drive, pushing the Audi as hard as he could. He had grabbed his personal cell phone from his desk, having left it in Marcus’s car in the future. He did likewise with his car keys, finding them in the red rooster key box in the mudroom. He had pulled the pistol from his safe and now felt its cold steel at the small of his back. He was amazed when he spun the dial left, right, left and opened the safe to see it sitting there. He had once again left it behind in the future only to find it here in the past. He tried to wrap his mind about the paradox. He thought of the consequences of pulling it from his safe so many times, each removal eliminating it from the possibility of its being there in the future. But as far as he was concerned there was no future if Julia wasn’t alive.

As Nick hit town, he drove right into the center of mayhem. The sidewalks were packed, the streets were filled, traffic was jammed in gridlock, drivers standing beside their idling cars. All eyes were cast skyward at the thick black plumes of smoke, the fiery explosions that lit the dark underbelly of the jet-fuel-created clouds, their ground-shaking rumbles pouring in three seconds later.

It was as if war were being waged in Byram Hills, or as if there was a giant creature on the horizon that would reach out and swallow them whole. Panic filled the air as shopkeepers locked their doors, as parking lots emptied.

Men and women frantically dialed cell phones with shaking hands, forgetting what flights their loved ones might be on. Kids looked up in wide-eyed wonder, unaware of what they gazed upon.

Death had come to Byram Hills.

There were shouts, and screams, and gasps of awe, all directed at Sullivan Field. People raced down the sidewalk, pedestrians jumped into cars. The scream of fire engines en route filled the distance. Police cruisers raced through side streets, their chirping, intermittent wails clearing a path. All were converging on disaster.

Prayers were said, mundane problems forgotten, all concern directed toward the victims and the families left behind.

Nick inched his car forward, caught within the panicked masses. His eye was drawn to the clock on the dashboard, the sight of which made the watch in his pocket feel like a piece of lead: 12:05.

Less than three hours before time ran out.

As the traffic finally abated, Nick turned onto Maple Avenue, heading for Washington House. He flipped on his blinker but quickly flipped it off and hit the accelerator.

He had forgotten about time.

Julia’s Lexus sat parked in the side lot of the building owned by Shamus Hennicot. Julia was alive somewhere inside, coming to grips with the fact that her client had been robbed, entirely unaware of the consequences the burglary would have on the future that awaited her.

He thought of running in, wrapping his arms about her, and holding on forever, but the robbery had already happened. Paranoia was already setting in on Dance and his team. Their search for witnesses, security video, and ultimately Julia had already begun.

He thought of re-enlisting Marcus in his quest, but he had already led him to death once. He thought of whisking Julia away but knew that somehow she would be found, her death inevitable, as he had seen twice already. McManus had yet to arrive on the scene and he had no idea where Paul Dreyfus was.

Nick pulled out and looked at the St. Christopher medal, pulled from the neck of Julia’s killer. He had initially thought it would be the talisman that would lead them to Julia’s murderer, but it had been just another piece of metal weighing down his pocket, a clue that proved useless. He had been so convinced it was Dance’s, but Dance wore nothing about his neck.

He had seen Shannon in his sweat-covered tank top, but again there was nothing there. Brinehart had been killed by Dance before Julia was shot, Randall was the overweight accomplice who had distracted him at his front door. That left Arilio, whom he had yet to see, and Rukaj. It could be either of them, or even someone who had yet to be revealed to Nick. He would remain diligent but had abandoned hope in the necklace’s power of identification.

Nick realized that the St. Christopher medal, the mahogany box, the gold swords and daggers, every hour, every death all pointed back to a single point of origin. All things converged on the robbery of Shamus Hennicot.

Everything, saving Julia, saving Marcus, it would all come down to preventing that singular incident, to seeing that Dance never pulled a job that he would have to cover up. But to do that, he could not impede it now, not after it happened. He would have to wait until 11:00, before they went into the building. Which would give him forty-five minutes to put the pieces together, forty-five minutes to formulate a plan for taking on a team of armed men, a team lead by Detective Ethan Dance, a man who took lives as easily as he took a breath.

THE BYRAM HILLS police officer sat in his unmarked car, his eyes fixed on the white building fifty yards ahead as he nervously drummed his fingers on the wheel. His dark-brimmed hat sat on the seat beside him. He hated that hat, how it flattened his red hair, how ridiculous it looked, wondering why the pillbox, patent-leather-brim style was still in use seventy-five years after its design when the rest of fashion lived in the present.

Nolan Brinehart had longed to be a detective since he was a child, dreaming of being one of those brilliant TV heroes who rights the wrongs, who figures out the impossible crimes from vague, inadequate clues. But he had trouble with figuring out quadratic equations and algebra, not to mention that he could barely do jigsaw puzzles as a kid.

He had gone to Byram Hills High School and had a fair amount of experience with the police as a youth. Of course it was from the other side of the law. Never charged with or convicted of anything, he was your typical delinquent, drunk and disorderly, causing fights, but nothing beyond the wildness of male youth.

Hoping for the fast track so he could begin to earn a decent wage and leave the ridiculous hat and blue uniform behind, he had cozied up to Detective Dance. He knew Dance had helped Detective Shannon along, had taken an interest in the fellow Brooklynite several years earlier, helping him to achieve his promotion in one-third the usual time.

And now, as with all masters and apprentices, Brinehart had found his opening. He was a willing pupil and Dance was a teacher in need of a new student.

Dance told him the romanticized world of detectives, the one that everyone knew so well from movies and television, did not exist. Crimes were usually easily solved or impossible to figure out, and the pay was underwhelming. But if Brinehart was willing to walk a slightly different path, he could not only achieve detective status in a year’s time but have a bank account that would allow him a lifestyle impossible to attain on a detective’s abysmal salary.

So Brinehart became a last-minute addition to Dance’s crew, acting as a lookout, as a gofer, as whatever Dance needed to pull off the job.

He was looking forward to his share-a million dollars promised, money to be spent gradually, money that would allow him to be everything his wife wanted him to be. It was money Dance convinced him he deserved, taken from a man who would not even miss it, whose wealth he could never conceive.

He was counting on Dance’s talent and experience to make their crime impossible to solve. He had been told it would be an easy job, with inside information. All he had to do was keep an eye out for anything suspicious, any problems or people that might approach the house while they were inside.

He had watched as Sam Dreyfus led Dance, Randall, and Arilio into Washington House, remaining outside on lookout. He watched as Randall and Arilio carried the two duffel bags out and put them in the back of Dance’s Taurus before heading back inside.

Sam emerged two minutes later carrying a brown wooden box under his arm. The middle-aged man spoke to him briefly about the success of the operation and the easy money they just made before he hopped into Randall’s Chrysler and drove off.

Moments later, Dance exploded out the door like a wild animal, diving into his car and tearing off after Sam.

Brinehart had never realized that the problem to watch for would come from within the house, from within their group of five. He was the last-minute guy; he thought they were all connected, friends, partners. He had never thought that their inside man had issues, issues that could throw their entire scheme into disarray, sending it skidding into disaster.

Dance called from his car ripping into Brinehart for letting Sam get away, for being so stupid as to let him get into Randall’s car and drive off without even challenging him. Dance went on to tell him to remain and watch the house for anything suspicious and to report anything he saw. And to not continue on the path of stupidity.

Brinehart watched the woman in the black Lexus drive in at 11:50. Her car had been sitting in wait for twenty-five minutes now. He had run the plates. Julia Quinn, a name they had thought might arise, the attorney for Shamus Hennicot.

He had ignored the all-hands call to the plane crash, sitting in his unmarked patrol car under the hedges of Wampus Park, watching as his police brethren, along with every fire truck and volunteer fireman, raced to the scene. He heard the cries over his radio of a disaster like nothing that had ever been witnessed. His curiosity constantly baited him to leave his post, but he had been posted here by Dance, told to watch any activity and to keep an eye out for anything out of the ordinary.

The Audi had circled three times now, which would not normally be too suspicious for someone who was lost, but with black smoke and flame filling the air, the streets clearing, and emergency vehicles racing off, no one who is lost circles about three times.

He ran the plates, finding the car belonged to Nicholas Quinn, who resided at the same address as Julia Quinn. His heart beat a bit faster as his suspicion rose; it was almost as if Quinn didn’t want his wife to know he was there.

Brinehart watched Julia Quinn emerge from Washington House and look up into the sky. She pulled her cell phone from her purse and dialed as she got into her Lexus, quickly pulling from the driveway and heading off.

And as she disappeared down the road, the Audi returned, slowing as it approached Washington House, finally pulling into the driveway.

That was all the confirmation Brinehart needed. He started his car, drove across the street and blocked the driveway.

NICK HAD DRIVEN around the mile-square block, circling back to Washington House three times now. On each round, the mayhem grew. A panic was overtaking people, as they were unsure what was going on. Crawling through the traffic, he could hear the murmur of the crowd, feeling the anxiety of the people, the shouting about a plane crash, a pipeline, a terrorist attack.

And there was Larry Powers standing in front of his wife’s gift shop. People circled him, surrounded him as if he was the town crier who had all the answers.

Nick heard people talking in amazement.

“… I saw it. I was looking up, it was horrible. It was two planes-”

“-Two planes?” someone yelled. “What kind?”

“One slammed right into the other, like two birds crashing into one another, both falling dead out of the sky…”

Caught in the flow of traffic, horns blaring behind him, Nick drove on as Paul Dreyfus’s words floated up in his mind. It was his plane, his brother at the controls. The fateful robbery of Shamus Hennicot did not just result in Julia’s death, it also caused the crash of North East Air Flight 502, killing 212 passengers. So many innocents killed by greed.

Nick’s focus throughout this upside-down day had been so trained on Julia that he hadn’t thought of what was truly behind the crash, what had caused the AS 300 to drop from the sky on a cloudless summer morning.

Nick thought of calling what he knew in to the NTSB so efforts could be focused on things other than the cause of the crash, but they would learn the truth soon enough.

And then Nick realized that, if he was truly successful in stopping the robbery, if he was to halt Sam Dreyfus and Ethan Dance from carrying out their plan, not only would Julia be saved…

AS NICK MADE the turn onto Maple Avenue, he saw Julia’s Lexus in the distance, driving away toward Route 22. He slowed and scanned the area again. On each pass he looked about for Dance, but he was nowhere to be seen, the roads filled with cars exiting town, everyone escaping as if another plane or a house would drop out of the sky landing atop their heads. Byram Hills was awash in the survival instinct of fight or flee; while many were heading home, just as many were heading across Route 22 onto the access road to Sullivan Field. Some went out of morbid curiosity, most went to help, some drove, others ran, and it all grew to a steady stream of townsfolk rushing to the rescue.

And he realized it was true: Mankind is at its best when things are at their worst.

He wished there was something he could do, that he could join the effort, but if Julia was to live, he needed every second of every minute devoted to figuring out how to stop the robbery. Only fifty minutes left in the hour. Fifty minutes until he was thrust back to the time when the robbery of Washington House would occur, when all the wheels would be set in motion and all paths would lead to Julia’s death, Marcus’s death, the loss of everything and everyone he cared about.

Nick turned into the driveway of Hennicot’s Washington House. A tinge of excitement entered him as he felt the hope growing inside his heart. His plan was coming together; what he had once thought to be the fantasy of a broken man, of resurrecting his wife from the dead, was coming to fruition.

Then, as he pulled into the driveway, stepping from the Audi, the unmarked police car pulled in behind him.

BRINEHART STEPPED FROM his vehicle, putting on his police hat, his hand resting on his holstered pistol, and approached the Audi.

Nick stared at him, knowing full well this was not a traffic stop. He had seen Brinehart play the innocent, had seen him lie to everyone, planting the diamonds in Marcus’s Bentley, which resulted in their arrest and Marcus’s death.

He had actually seen Brinehart before that meeting in the high school parking lot but… Brinehart hadn’t seen him, he was already dead at the bottom of the reservoir.

Of course, to Brinehart, this would be their first meeting.

“Is there a problem?” Nick asked.

“May I ask what you are doing?” Brinehart asked.

Two fires trucks raced by, their sirens blaring, drowning out the moment.

Nick grew suddenly conscious of the weight of his own gun pressing at the small of his back. He could reach around and grab it in seconds but thought better of it. One mistake on his part and Julia was dead.

“Sir, may I ask you to turn around and place your hands on the roof of your vehicle?”

“Why? I haven’t done anything.”

“Please, sir, turn around and put your hands on the car.”

Nick slowly turned, cursing himself for being so foolish as to have lulled himself into a false sense of security, thinking Dance’s people weren’t watching the place after the robbery.

“Before you frisk me,” Nick said, looking over his shoulder, “I have a Sig-Sauer in the waistband of my pants. It’s legal and licensed.”

“May I ask why you’re armed?” Brinehart asked as he raised Nick’s jacket and removed the pistol.

“I carry it for protection.”

“In Byram Hills?”

“The city,” Nick said. He hated how comfortable he had gotten with lying. “I have some real estate in some rough areas.”

“Mmm.” Brinehart checked the safety, slipped the gun in his own waistband, and frisked Nick, running his hands from his ankles up to his arms.

“Do you mind emptying your pockets? Slowly, please.”

Nick reached in and pulled out Dreyfus’s wallet along with his own, placing them on the trunk of his car. He pulled out his cell phone and some spare change; he removed the two envelopes from Marcus and the European from his coat pocket, cursing himself for still carrying them.

“Is that everything?” Brinehart said, seeing a small lump in his left front pocket.

Nick reluctantly stuck his hand in his pocket and pulled out the gold watch and the St. Christopher medal, watching Brinehart’s eyes closely for any sign of recognition.

“Nice watch.” Brinehart’s focus was on the antique. “Don’t see too many of those.”

Brinehart’s eyes drifted over the two wallets, picking them both up. “Any reason you carry two?”

Nick remained silent as Brinehart opened the first, seeing Nick’s ID and credit cards. He put it down and opened Dreyfus’s. There was a subtle widening of Brinehart’s eyes. He quickly turned to Nick. “Please place your hands behind your back.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me. What’s the problem?”

“I won’t ask again.” Brinehart laid his hand back on his holster for emphasis.

Nick shook his head as he threw his hands back, the cuffs instantly slamming about his wrists, feeling like a death sentence.

Brinehart stepped to Nick’s car, removed the keys from the ignition, and pulled the two-way radio from his belt.

“Dance?”

“Yeah,” the detective’s unmistakable voice answered back.

“Where are you?”

“Still at the airport, what the hell do you want?”

“We may have a problem. I found a Nicholas Quinn, snooping around Washington House.”

“Quinn? As in Julia Quinn?”

“Yeah, she was here separately but left.”

“Was he just watching her back?”

“He has Paul Dreyfus’s wallet.”

“How would he get that?”

“You want me to interrogate him?” There was glee in Brinehart’s voice.

“No.” Dance shot him down. “Take him to the station. Hand him off to Shannon. I want him questioned by someone with some experience.”

NICK LOOKED AROUND the room, at the sparse metal table he sat at. The chipped metal door with the porthole glass, the dark mirrored window along the wall. The power was on, unlike everywhere else in town. He had been here over nine hours ago as the gold watch read, at 9:30 P.M., in the future. He had met Dance then. He was kindly, caring, and, as he learned later, entirely full of shit.

It had all started here in the interrogation room of the Byram Hills Police Department when he was brought in on suspicion of murdering his wife. All a setup, as he came to see, by the very man who had interrogated him.

Brinehart had taken everything from his pockets: Paul Dreyfus’s wallet, his own wallet, his keys, his gun, Marcus’s envelope with his letter and the Wall Street Journal page, the letter from the European, the St. Christopher medal, and the thing that struck terror in him, the one thing he had been told not to let out of his possession if he was to succeed, if he was to save Julia: the watch.

He had taken it for granted. Where he had at first been a skeptic, laughing at the insanity, the impossibility, now, after nine jumps, he trusted it implicitly, without doubt. He trusted it like he trusted the sun to rise every morning, no longer holding it in awe, looking at it with reverence or wonder. He hadn’t pulled it from his pocket in hours to watch it tick down, believing in its sweeping hand, trusting its inner workings to pull him back through time.

It was his bridge, it was the light that would lead him to save Julia.

And now it was gone.

He looked at the clock on the wall: 12:30.

DETECTIVE BOB SHANNON came into the room carrying a small, shallow, wicker basket filled with Nick’s personal effects and two cups of coffee.

Shannon’s dark hair was pushed back, well groomed, his hands clean, no sweat or grime on his body. He looked fit and well rested, far different from when Nick had met him at the crash site several hours from now, when the horror of death could be seen in his eyes, when the stress of the crash had nearly broken his spirit.

“Sorry to keep you waiting,” Shannon said, a greeting far different from that of nine hours ago when they sat in this very room, when Shannon verbally assaulted him, accused him of killing his wife. He put a cup of coffee in front of Nick and sat down across from him.

“So you’re playing the good cop?” Nick said

“Believe it or not, there’s no one else here. Just you and me. I’m both good and bad,” Shannon said with a smile, which quickly faded as he became distracted. He ran his hand over his dark hair as he leaned back in the metal chair. “That damn crash is something awful. Every able body is out at the site. I’ve got the station all by myself, just me and the desk sergeant who’s handling phones for the moment. So no, I’m not pulling some cliché cop thing, it’s just a good cup of coffee on a really bad day.”

“I’d like to know what’s going on,” Nick said.

“You haven’t been charged with anything, Mr. Quinn. I just need to ask you some questions. Officer Brinehart’s a little green. With everything going on, we are beyond short-staffed. Detective Dance called, asked me to ask you a few questions before he got here.”

“Then ask your questions,” Nick said, looking at the clock on the wall, watching time slip away.

“Dance wants to know why you have this guy’s wallet.”

“You think I stole it?”

“No, Mr. Quinn. I’ve already checked you out. I know who you are, that you grew up in this town. I’m sure half the people in it would vouch for you. I know you’re licensed to carry that pistol-it’s locked away for the moment. So, no, despite what Dance may think, I don’t think you stole it. Dance said he is looking for its owner, Paul Dreyfus, in connection with some preliminary investigation he’s running.”

“I found it,” Nick blurted out the lie, hoping to get this over with.

“Where?”

“Outside Washington House, on the sidewalk.”

“May I ask what you were doing there?”

“My wife’s client is Shamus Hennicot, it’s his house. She thought his place might have been burglarized; I drove by for her.”

“Burglarized? What do you mean? We heard nothing of that.” Nick couldn’t tell if Shannon was screwing with him, whether he was one of Dance’s inside guys, but the surprise on his face appeared genuine.

“She says they may have been burglarized.” Nick threw his hand up in frustration. “Look, she was supposed to be on that flight today; she’s really freaked out right now. I would like to go find her.”

“Okay,” Shannon nodded. “I just have one other question.”

Nick watched Shannon reach into the basket. He saw his hand drift over Marcus’s letter, over the European’s letter, toward the watch, but then detour for the St. Christopher medal, lifting it out by its silver chain. He laid it on the table, the necklace dribbling down like water, and pushed it across the counter surface in front of Nick.

“Where did you get this?”

Nick picked it up, turning it over in his hand reading the fateful inscription. “I don’t know who it belongs to.”

“That’s not what I asked.” Shannon reached into his own pocket and drew out his hand, he laid it upon the table, looking at it, and finally pulled his hand back to reveal the same medal.

Nick’s heart pounded, trying to explode from his chest. He looked up at Shannon, the detective who had interrogated him, had beaten on him, had actually been poised to kill him here in this very room nine hours from now, accusing him of killing his wife when he was the one who actually pulled the trigger. As much as he hated Dance, this was the man who had killed Julia.

The man he had chased from his home, through the streets, forcing him off the road into a tree. The unseen man he had a gun battle with and almost caught. The man who he had ripped this very medal off in the future, whose medal now existed in two separate times. Nick’s eyes suddenly burned with hate.

“Whoa, did I hit a nerve? What’s with the stare of death?” Shannon asked. “It’s just a religious medal.”

Nick sat there wanting to reach out and kill the man who sat before him, the one person in this department he had thought he could trust.

“All other things aside,” Shannon continued, “I really need to know where you got it.”

“Why?” Nick whispered, as he stared at the two medals.

“Because I know who owns that, and I didn’t realize it was missing.”

Nick’s world, for the umpteenth time, turned upside-down.

“What do you mean you know who owns it?” Nick asked. It hadn’t occurred to him that there could be more than one medal.

“The inscription on the back,” Shannon said as he took the medal out of Nick’s hand, turned it over, and did likewise to the one on the table. And Nick saw the difference: There was no engraving on Shannon’s.

“He always takes it off, along with all of his rings and his bracelet and watch, when he gets to work in the morning, tucks it in his shoe inside his locker, then puts it all back on at the end of the day before he leaves.

“Thing is, I saw him take it off at seven this morning and there is no way you could get into the locker room. This place is locked up tighter than a steel drum, and until the plane crash, it was swarming with cops.”

“Whose is it?” Nick said, his voice anxious.

“Ironically, it’s Detective Dance’s,” Shannon said.

“Are you sure it’s his?” Nick asked slowly.

“Positive.” Shannon leaned forward. “Look at the edge, see the chip? It happened when he was moonlighting on some job down-county. And the note on the back, his mom had that done, Miracles do happen. She was a great lady, very religious, believed in God’s influence, that it was his hand controlling fate, that we’d all be held to a higher judgment at our demise. Dance was her only child, her miracle.”

And everything fell together. Dance was Julia’s killer, as he was Paul Dreyfus’s, McManus’s, and Marcus’s. He was as evil and depraved a man as Nick had ever known. Nick’s mind took on a sudden focus. He needed to stop the robbery, but most of all he needed to stop Dance from ever initiating the robbery at 11:15. For if the robbery didn’t occur, there would be no reason for Julia to be killed, for Marcus, for anyone to die.

But Nick took comfort in the fact that even if he couldn’t stop the robbery from happening, at least his search for Julia’s killer was over; he knew who he had to kill.

Nick looked up at Shannon, his opinion of him changing for the third time today. “Why do you guys wear the same medal?”

“Dance can be a real ass, but he’s family, he got me this job a few years back, we went to the same high school in Brooklyn. He’s my cousin.”

“He’s your cousin?” Nick said in shock.

“Believe me, there’s no love lost. Anyway, we went to St. Christopher’s Catholic High School in Brooklyn. They gave these out at graduation.”

“I hate to interrupt, but my wife… she has no idea where I am.” Nick knew he needed to get out of here as quickly as possible in order to be in place to stop Dance and stop the robbery from ever happening.

“Right, right,” Shannon said. Standing up, he gathered up the two medals, putting his in his pocket and Dance’s in the basket, and opened the interrogation room door. “I just need to process you out, get you to sign for all your stuff. I promise we’ll be quick.”

Nick stood and followed him out of the room, happy to be free, happy to be on his way to finally setting things right, to saving Julia, to ensuring a long future ahead of them.

Shannon laid the basket on a small desk in the hall and quickly set to filling out a triplicate legal-release form. “Your pistol is in our gun safe, I’ll get it as soon as we get you signed out.”

Nick picked up Marcus’s envelope along with the letter he had received from the European, glad that Shannon hadn’t peered at either, and tucked them back in his coat pocket.

“Shannon, what the hell are you doing?” Dance called from the corral area of the police station. He was dressed in his blue blazer, white JC Penney shirt, and blue-striped tie, and the rigors of the day were not yet reflected in his appearance.

“Where the hell have you been all morning?” Shannon shouted back. “I can’t find you for hours and then you drop a silly Q &A in my lap.”

Dance stormed down the corridor, walked right past Shannon, and took Nick by the arm, leading him down the hall.

“Hey,” Shannon yelled as he chased after him. “What the hell are you doing?”

Dance continued down the hall, pulling Nick along with him. He opened a large metal door, revealing a large room containing five jail cells.

“Dance, let him go. He’s done nothing wrong.”

“Shannon here gets all touchy-feely,” Dance said to Nick.

Dance pulled the door of the first jail cell fully open, shoved Nick inside, and, with a crash, slammed the iron-barred door closed behind him. The cell was ten by ten feet, surrounded by typical vertical bars with metal cross-hatches. There were two folding chairs in the center of the room and a wooden bench anchored into the wall.

“What the hell you putting the guy in there for?” Shannon asked as he came into the room. “Cut him a break. His wife just narrowly missed getting on that plane. And besides, you actually owe him, he found your St. Christopher medal that you lost.”

“What?” Dance tilted his head. “I didn’t lose my medal.”

Silence filled the air as confusion reigned.

Shannon and Dance stepped out of the room, closing the door behind them.

“What the hell is going on?” Shannon pressed him.

“Do you mind telling me what you were doing letting him go?” Dance said.

“What are we holding him on? The only thing he did was be in the wrong place at the wrong time-” Shannon stopped. “And you never answered my question. Where the hell have you been?”

Shannon was several inches taller and carried twenty more pounds of muscle, but that didn’t stop Dance from rushing into his face, staring up at him like a junkyard dog.

“You listen to me,” Dance said. “Since when did you become my keeper? You work here by my grace and my grace alone, not the captain’s, not anyone but me. I got you the job and I can take it away. And mind you, if I take it away it’ll be by blowing the whistle to Internal Affairs.”

“Give me a break,” Shannon shot back. “Neither you nor they have anything on me. I’m lily-white.”

“Really? How about that five grand you took off the drug bust last year?”

“Bullshit. You gave me that money, shoved it in my pocket.” Shannon jabbed his finger at Dance. “And I gave it right back to you. I never want anything to do with your scheming bullshit.”

“Funny, that’s not how I remember it,” Dance said mockingly.

“You’d make up a story to have your own flesh and blood thrown in jail?”

“Cousins doesn’t make us flesh and blood. Our parents couldn’t have been more different, thank God.”

“You’ve done something,” Shannon said. “I see it in your eyes. And it didn’t go well, did it? If it did you’d be smiling ear to ear even with two hundred people dead in a plane crash. What the hell did you do? And what does this Quinn guy have to do with it?”

Dance opened the door to the jailroom, stepped in, and turned back to Shannon. “You go to the crash site and think long and hard about the future you want.” Dance paused. “And remember who controls it.”

DANCE SLIPPED THE jail key in the slot, opened the heavy barred door, and stepped inside the cell, pulling it closed behind him as he stuffed the key in his pocket. He carried the small wicker basket of Nick’s belongings and stared down at him as he sat in the middle of the confined space in a metal folding chair staring at the beaten-up clock on the wall.

He waved the basket before Nick’s eyes. There was Paul Dreyfus’s wallet, his own wallet, his cell phone, his keys, all of which he ignored, choosing to stare at the wall, but then his eyes were inexorably pulled toward the gold watch lying there, its appearance belying its power. And it was all he cared about, not the jail key in Dance’s pocket that could free him from these confines, not his keys, so he could drive away. All that mattered right now was getting the watch back into his possession.

And Dance pulled the basket away, a taunting reminder that Dance controlled the moment.

“Some nice watch you have,” Dance said as he pulled it from the basket. He rolled it about in his hands, running his thumb over the golden case, about the winding stem on top. He thumbed it open, staring at the old English face. “An antique. Was it your dad’s, maybe your grandfather’s? Big sentimental value to it? Fugit inreparabile tempus,” he said, reading the inscription. “I bet it would probably crush you if you lost it, huh?” Dance deposited it in his right jacket pocket.

The two envelopes in Nick’s jacket pocket felt as if they were on fire. If Dance was to find them, to see the Wall Street Journal page, to read the letter explaining the watch… Marcus’s words ran in his ear, “… in the wrong hands…” Nick knew there were no worse hands then Ethan Dance’s.

Dance reached back into the basket and lifted up the silver St. Christopher medal. “I know if someone stole something of mine, something I held dear, something that was given to me by mother… well, I would be angry, to say the least.”

Dance slipped the small wicker basket through the bars, laying it on the floor. He turned around and stood over Nick.

“Where did you get this?” Dance said as he dangled the St. Christopher medal in Nick’s face, swinging it back and forth like a pendulum. “Were you in my locker? Was it Dreyfus? How the hell did you get in there?”

Nick remained silent as he watched Dance’s eyes lose focus.

“I got this for graduation,” Dance said as he turned it over and read the worn engraving. “Miracles do happen. My mom had that engraved because my father said it would be a miracle if I graduated, it would be a miracle if I amounted to anything. She always called me her miracle kid.”

For the briefest of moments, Nick thought he saw a twinkle of humanity in Dance’s eyes as he slipped the chain over his neck, the medal falling against his chest, lying oddly upon his shirt and tie, as if it was an award bestowed by royalty for service above and beyond the call of duty.

“I take it off at work because I never want to lose it. It’s just about the only thing I hold dear in this world. I’m not sentimental about much, but its meaning to me is something you couldn’t understand. You know, I should kill you for stealing it.”

Dance reached into his pocket and pulled something out, clutching it tightly in his hand. “You’re going to tell me what the hell is going on. Where did you get that medal?”

Nick didn’t answer.

Dance looked at his right fist, the one clutching whatever it was he had pulled from his pocket, and without a second thought, drew it back and unloaded it into Nick’s face, knocking him out of his chair.

“You better start talking,” he said as he stood over Nick.

Nick rolled about the floor in pain, his right brow split open, blood boiling up, but he shut his senses down, his eyes fixed on the clock on the wall: 12:56.

“How did you do it? What kind of trick are you trying to play with me?”

And with that, Dance hit him again. The blow glanced off the side of Nick’s head; Dance’s aim was off from his anger.

Nick watched Dance pace around the small cell. He stopped and looked out through the bars before turning back.

Dance crouched over Nick and held his fist before Nick’s face. The seconds ticked by as the two stared at each other, and then Dance opened his fist, palm-side down, and let the chain fall out of his hand, holding the dangling medal between his fingers, the medal swinging and spinning about in the air.

The St. Christopher medal hung there, a medal identical to the one that hung about Dance’s neck, identical in every way. Not in the sense that it was identical to the one Shannon had, that he had also gotten when he graduated St. Christopher in Brooklyn. This medal was a carbon copy of the religious piece draped upon Dance’s shirt and tie. Every nick, every scratch, the slight indentations from life. Everything was a spot-on match, and as it hung before Nick’s eyes, it spun about and Nick could plainly see the engraving, Miracles do happen.

“How the hell did you do this? Is this some kind of sick joke to mess with my head? It’s something you and Dreyfus cooked up, isn’t it?” Paranoia laced his every word. “You thought that you could play me, with some twisted kind of magic?

“Well, Nicholas Quinn, Shannon was going to let you go, but I know who you really are and what you have been doing.”

Nick glared Dance.

“You’re working with the Dreyfus brothers, aren’t you? Helping them to screw me.” Dance paused, a grin forming on his lips. “You should know, your buddy, Sam Dreyfus, is dead. He’s dead because he knew I was going to kill him and he ran off like a coward clutching the prize he stole from us. I couldn’t have dreamed up a better death for that twisted fuck. His brother, Paul? No doubt he was involved in trying to double-cross us, too. I’ll take care of him right after I deal with you. And your wife.” Dance paused. “I know who your wife is. I know she’s Hennicot’s attorney and she’s got the security video of the robbery in her office. Maybe I’ll kill her in front of you; I’d take pleasure in that.”

And with those words, Nick snapped. Everything that had happened-seeing Julia dead, her face torn apart by the gun blast; her living in peril; Marcus’s death; his own frustration at chasing shadows, living in a microcosm of time separate from the world, knowing the future and struggling to figure out how to change it; and now this son of a bitch pulling him from his destiny as Julia had been pulled from the plane crash-all seemed a cruel mockery, letting him get so close, but killing him before he could save her from what fate had in store for her.

Nick grabbed Dance’s leg, pulling him off-balance. He leaped to his feet and with a bone-crushing right hook drilled Dance in the nose, stunning him. All Nick’s anger, all his rage filled his fist as he drew it back and hammered it into Dance’s jaw. He continued with a rain of blows, a release of his pain and frustration. All his emotions poured out of his clenched fists as he hit the man who would end Julia’s life, who would shoot her in cold blood, a devil playing God as he ripped her from this earth. Nick would kill him right here, right now, with his bare hands. Dance might have been strong, he might have been tough, but there is a point of desperation all men reach when everything they hold dear is taken from them, when what they love most is stolen away. Nick had endured Julia’s death, her danger, her fear, he had left her behind in the future to die with Dance, a man who through the twisting of time, seemed to haunt his every living second.

He hit him again and again.

But Dance was tough. He blocked Nick’s next punch and countered with a hard right that sent Nick staggering back. Dance jumped on him, holding him by the collar, as he rained blow after blow upon Nick’s body, doubling him over, knocking the wind out of him. Nick could feel a rib crack, the pain excruciating as he struggled to breathe as Dance’s attack raged on.

Nick’s awareness was slipping, consciousness drifting in and out, but a single image filled his mind. The golden timepiece. Without the watch, he would be trapped in this time line, continuing forward with his and Julia’s fate set on a course of death, a death he knew for himself was only moments away. And Julia would be dying all the sooner, alone, with nothing but questions swirling in her mind.

Nick could barely see through the blood that ran down into his eyes, he could barely make out the clock on the wall, but his vision was just clear enough to see the time: 12:59, the second hand sweeping up toward the top of the hour.

And then Nick thought of Julia, of everything she meant to him. He thought of her gentle touch, her lips as she woke him this morning, of her hope-filled eyes and her blonde hair as it fell upon him as they made love. He thought of her heart and her passion. He thought of her as she swam too fast at the age of fifteen, gasping as he pulled her from the pool but never complaining. She was his life, everything he cared about, everything he lived for.

With a last bit of strength, reaching into what was left of him, Nick hit Dance in the nose, continuing his momentum, driving the detective up against the bars of the jail cell, his adrenaline-infused muscles pinning him there.

And in a final moment of clarity, as the clock struck one, Nick reached into Dance’s jacket and pulled the watch from his pocket.