Джеймс Паттерсон - The 13-Minute Murder

Fine, I’ll do it myself.

I tiptoe downstairs and head for the kitchen. I pass through the doorway, which is “decorated” up and down with lines marking various Rourke family members’ heights over the years. And not just Alex’s. Mine and my brothers’. My late father, John. My aunt Anna and cousins Matthew and Jacob. Generations of us.

But I don’t have time to be sentimental. Not now.

Not when I’m in danger.

An emergency flashlight sits on top of our old, humming refrigerator. Wedged behind the fridge is an even older Ruger bolt-action hunting rifle.

I take both.

I unlock the front door, step outside, flip on the flashlight, and survey our driveway and front yard. Everything looks normal. All sounds quiet. I exhale, relieved. Maybe I’m so exhausted, I really am starting to—

Clank.

No, there it is again. I’m sure of it. Coming from behind the farmhouse.

Gripping the flashlight and gun tightly, I slowly stalk around the side of the house, trying to crunch the dry grass as little as possible so as not to give away my position.

I reach the backyard now, where I haven’t been in weeks. No sign of anyone. Not near the house, at least. But then my flashlight glints suddenly off something metal and blue leaning against the back porch.

It’s Alex’s dirt bike, untouched in ten weeks.

A lump forms in my throat. The pain is still so fresh. But I quickly push it out of my mind—when I hear another clank echo from farther out on the property.

I start following the dirt path that winds along the fields, toward our old barn. Crickets bombard my ears. Mosquitoes gnaw at my face. But I keep going, rifle aimed and ready…even when I reach the old tire swing hanging from that giant oak tree. The site of that framed picture of Alex I love so much. My eyes burn.…

But I hear yet another clank. Even louder now.

I’m getting close. But to what?

Finally I see something strange. Light. Coming from inside our ancient woodshed, peeking through the cracks. The shed is rotting and practically falling apart. Plus, it doesn’t have a power line running to it—so where’s the light coming from?

I carefully approach. The door is open just a crack. I hear the hum of a diesel generator powering what I think is a set of work lamps. I can barely make out a male figure, backlit, hunched over what looks like a bumper.

I’m so confused. A strange car? A generator? What the hell is it?

I ready my rifle—when I accidentally bump the door with the muzzle.

The figure spins around. I get ready to shoot.

It’s my brother.

“Stevie?” I say, throwing open the door, just as surprised as he is.

“Jesus, Molly! I almost jumped out of my skin.”

I enter the shed and look around. Up on cinder blocks is what appears to be a 1990s-model Ford Taurus, a silvery blue, badly rusted one. Its hood is open, its engine in a state of chaos, tubes and wires lying everywhere.

“What the hell is all this? It’s one o’clock in the morning!”

Stevie glances down at his watch. “1:15,” he says a little sheepishly.

Has it only been a few minutes since I crept out of bed? It feels like closer to an hour.

Stevie looks away and starts wiping grease off his hands with an old rag. He seems embarrassed, like a little boy caught sneaking candy before dinner.

“I…I don’t understand, Stevie. Whose car is this? Where did it come from? What were you…?”

I trail off when I start to piece it together.

Alex’s sixteenth birthday is—well, was —just a few months away. He’d be getting his driver’s license.

And metallic-blue was his favorite color.

That lump in my throat comes back with a vengeance.

“Buddy of mine from the refinery had it sitting on his front lawn,” Stevie explains. “Few months ago, I gave him a hundred bucks for it. When Alex was at school one day, and you were off at the market or somewhere, I had it towed. Then me and Hank pushed it into the shed. I’ve been working on it here and there since.”

Stevie pauses, then somberly runs his hand along the rusty blue siding, like a horseman saying good-bye to a beloved steed that has to be put down.

“I was gonna surprise him. Surprise both of y’all. But tonight…after we talked…I couldn’t sleep, either. Figured I should finally start stripping it for parts.”

I know my brother isn’t much of a hugger, but I can’t help myself. I wrap my arms around his giant frame and hang on as tight as I can. He embraces me back.

“He would’ve loved it so much,” I say.

We pull apart, a little awkwardly. Stevie looks at his watch. “I should probably get some shut-eye. I can finish this up over the weekend.”

But as he starts putting away his tools, I look over the car and get an idea.

“Not so fast,” I say. “You really think you can get her running again?”

Stevie nods.

“’Cause you heard my plan,” I continue. “First thing we’re gonna need…is a getaway car.”

4 minutes, 25 seconds

I’d never aimed a gun at another person before.

“This ain’t a toy, Molly,” my father told me the very first time he taught me to shoot, passing his old Smith & Wesson Model 10 from his rough, giant hands into my soft, tiny ones. “Unless your life’s in danger, don’t never point it at nobody. Hear me? Else I’ll slap you so hard, your pretty eyes will pop right out of your skull.”

It was a warning I never forgot.

As I hold that same S&W now, feeling the cold wooden grip in my palm, I can hear my father’s words. What would he think if he knew what I was planning?

I wasn’t just about to point the weapon at another person.

I was going to wave it around at many.

And threaten their lives.

“It worked!” Hank exclaims, a nervous grin creeping across his face.

Of course it did. I thought of the idea myself.

Hank is sitting in the driver’s seat of a recently refurbished 1992 silver-blue Ford Taurus that has since been repainted black and has had its license plates removed and VIN numbers all scratched off. “They’re calling in backup,” he continues. “Y’all should go now if—”

“Hush,” snaps Stevie, from the back.

We’re all listening closely to a police scanner resting on the dash. I can’t make heads or tails of all the squawking and static. Thankfully my brothers and Nick and J.D. can. And apparently, they like what they hear.

“Here comes the cavalry,” says J.D.

And just like that, I hear a distant police siren. Then another. Then the glaring whine of a fire truck. The shrill alarm of an ambulance.

More voices crackle over the scanner, frantic. I manage to pick out a few words: “courthouse,” “suspicious package,” “evacuation,” “all available units.”

“Masks on,” Stevie orders. “ Now we go. And remember: in and out, four minutes. Just like we practiced.”

The five of us don the cheap rubber Halloween masks we’ve been holding, each the cartoonish face of a different former president. Me, Stevie, Hank, J.D., and Nick become Lincoln, Washington, Nixon, Reagan, and Kennedy.

Hank stays behind the wheel of the parked car as the rest of us get out. I’m tingling with nerves as we cross the quiet street. And ready our weapons.

Five ex-presidents are about to rob a bank.

We burst in through the Key Bank’s front entrance—and Stevie immediately blasts a deafening round of buckshot into the ceiling.

“Hands up and keep ’em high!”

We quickly spread out and take our positions, just like we’d rehearsed multiple times in the old barn back on our farm, three big counties away.