The 13th Hour

CHAPTER 9

6:01 P.M.

NICK STOOD IN THE kitchen, unable to breathe, the words caught in his throat.

Julia came closer, not a strand of her blond hair out of place, her eyes bright, filled with life, love, and concern. Her body stood tall and confident, as if she had just stepped from an impossible dream, the coalescing of all the love and joy he had ever felt embodied in the woman before him.

“Nick?”

Without a word, he grabbed her, pulling her close, holding her as if she were about to slip away again, as if he were just being given a few moments to express his love for her before she would be ripped away for all eternity.

“Honey, what is it?” Julia asked, wrapping her arms about him in return.

He still couldn’t form words.

And then she saw his tears. In all the years they had been together, she had seen him cry only twice-at the age of fifteen when he failed to qualify for nationals and three years ago at the dual funeral for his parents.

“You’re really scaring me.” Tears of fear, of sympathy welled in her eyes. She hugged him, trying to calm him, to reassure him. “Please tell me.”

But Nick didn’t know what to say. He was overwhelmed by her presence, he had been granted an impossible wish. And he couldn’t possibly tell her what had happened-he corrected himself-what would happen.

“I love you,” he said as he took her face in his hands. “I love you with all of my heart and soul. I’m sorry about this morning, about what I said.”

“This is all about that, about not wanting to go out for dinner with the Mullers?” She gasped in an uncontrollable sob that became intermingled with laughter. “You scared me so bad, I thought,” she paused catching her breath, “I thought someone had died.”

Nick pulled her close. He couldn’t tell her what he was going through. He kissed her, deeply and lovingly, as if he were inhaling her. And she returned the affection, gently stroking his back.

And before they knew it, they were on the floor; their clothes couldn’t come off fast enough. Their passion was driven by sorrow and forgiveness for their fight earlier, for taking each other for granted. Nick loved her with all of his being, with all of the emotion he could put forth, tenderly, forcefully, loving her in thanks as if she was a gift returned from the gods.

JULIA LAUGHED AS she dressed in front of Nick, who sat with dangling legs on the kitchen counter, watching her every move. And as she stepped back in her black skirt she lost her balance, catching her foot in the zipper, tearing the seam. She grabbed the center island, recovering with a burst of laughter. “I love late-day passion.”

“Sorry about that.” Nick smiled back as he saw the tear in her dress.

“If you’d like, you could tear them all off again.”

Nick laughed, but his humor quickly fell away as his mind resumed the fear he felt for her. He jumped down off the counter, reached into his pocket and pulled out the gold watch.

“Nice watch,” Julia said as she buttoned her shirt, surprised at seeing the timepiece. “A gift from your girlfriend?”

“Believe me when I say this,” he said as he flipped it open, looking at the time: 6:15. “I have enough trouble handling just you.”

“Do you think they’ll get the power back on tonight? Not that I would ever complain.”

Nick ignored her, hustling out of the room without explanation. He went to the dining room, locking the French doors that led to the rear slate terrace, drawing the curtains closed; he did the same in the living room. He checked the windows of every room, latching them before emerging into the foyer. Finally he confirmed the dead bolt on the front door.

“Okay, now what are you doing?” Julia asked.

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

“You’re beginning to freak me out again.”

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

“After what happened today,” Julia said. “I think, karmawise, we’re pretty safe.”

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

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

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

Her face grew confused, “Are you kidding me? I’m still freaked over it.”

Nick had no idea what she was talking about.

“I still can’t get over that I’m alive,” Julia said as if for the fifth time.

Nick’s head spun around as if shot from a cannon. “What did you say?”

“I can’t believe I’m alive.”

Nick could only stare in confusion.

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

“What?”

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

“You were supposed to be on the flight that crashed… here? Today?”

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

“I’m sorry,” Nick said honestly, his breathing quickening. “I’m confused.”

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

“Tell me,” Nick said. “About the plane.”

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

“Why weren’t you on the plane?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Hi,” Nick said. “This is Nick Quinn.”

“How can I help you, Mr. Quinn?”

“I believe someone is going to try to kill my wife.”

“What brings you to that conclusion?” the officer’s voice was stern and without emotion.

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

“Mr. Quinn?”

“We’re at our house-”

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

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

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

“No,” Nick knew he couldn’t take this too far without sounding crazy.

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

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

“That’s a good idea,” Nick lied to the officer.

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

“Thanks, I appreciate it.” Nick closed his phone.

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

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

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

He needed her help.

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

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

“Julia,” he whispered, interrupting her call.

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

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

“Hang up, now.”

“What, why? I’ll only be two more minutes-”

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

“Dammit, Nick. What did you do that for? You don’t understand how important that call was.”

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

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

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

“Who? How do you know?”

“I don’t know who and I can’t explain how I know. You just have to trust me.”

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

A sudden knock on the door startled them both.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Nine-one-one emergency?” the woman’s voice answered.

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

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

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

And quietly watched as the mudroom door opened.

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

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

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

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

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

There was someone else.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Gunfire whizzed by his ears, peppering the stone wall, shattering the bark of the tree, a shredding fusillade of bullets inching down toward his position. He was pinned tight. To his left was the eight-foot wall, behind him the tree. His only ways out were over the hood of the crashed car on his right, into the open, or back out the way he came. Either way led square into the killer’s sights.

Nick lay flat on the ground, pressing his body into the torn dirt and grass, and looked underneath the vehicle. On the other side, by the rear left tire, he could clearly see the man’s muddy loafers squared off in a shooting stance, and without hesitation, Nick aimed and fired three shots, hitting the man square in the shin.

The shooter tumbled to the ground, screaming in agony. Nick leaped up and raced out of his captive position, taking cover behind Julia’s Lexus.

The killer fired haphazardly at him, six shots in rapid succession, until Nick heard the telltale click: out of ammo. He had him.

As Nick rounded the car, he saw a small, metal pick-gun lying in the mud by the driver’s-side door, looking like a cross between a staple gun and a toothbrush, Nick realized how the man had opened the locked door into his mudroom without a key.

Beside it was the Colt Peacemaker, its six cylinders smoldering and spent. With Nick chasing him down, the killer had had no time to plant the weapon, to set Nick up.

The sight of the ornate weapon angered him. That this man would set him up for the murder of his own wife infuriated Nick no end, but as he thought on the moment, he knew the future was already changing, there would be no gun in Nick’s car to tie him to the murder, and soon, there would be no murder at all.

Nick approached the man, finding him on his belly next to the wrecked Impala, his back rising in deep wounded breaths. The man’s dark hair, caked in blood, poked out from underneath a New York Mets baseball cap, his left arm broken from the car crash, cantilevered out at an odd angle. He gripped his now-useless nine-millimeter pistol in his right hand, as his left leg extended out bullet-shattered and bloody.

Nick slowly knelt beside him. He reached out and grabbed him by the back collar of his shirt, catching a silver chain between his fingers, the holy medal of St. Christopher now dangling from his clenched fist.

Nick did everything he could to restrain himself from killing the man, breathing a sigh of relief with the first completed step toward saving Julia. And for the moment he felt hope rise up. Against all logic, he knew that he just might be able to bring Julia back.

Nick tilted the killer’s head toward him, to finally lay eyes on the man who had just killed his wife…

But before his face came into view, before he could identify Julia’s assassin…

Nick’s world went black.