Richard Doetsch - The 13th Hour

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.