Richard Doetsch - The 13th Hour

“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.