Richard Doetsch - The 13th Hour

Streams of volunteers, municipal workers, and National Guardsmen flowed in and out of the area, marching silently up and down the access road that had, up until this morning, only known minivans and SUVs filled with kids and soccer moms en route to fun.

As they drove out, the parked cars thinning out, Nick couldn’t believe his eyes as they drove past the blue Chevy Impala. He caught sight of the license plate and confirmed it was Dreyfus’s rental.

“Stop,” Nick said.

Dance ignored him.

“Stop. That’s the car I was telling Shannon and your captain about. The son of a bitch is here.”

Dance said nothing to Nick as he picked up the walkie-talkie on his seat and thumbed the talk button. “Captain?”

“You got to be kidding me, Dance,” Captain Delia shot back. “You’re gone all of three minutes and there’s an issue?”

“Send a Guardsman out to the side road where all of the local volunteers parked. Blue Chevy. License plate-” he turned to Nick to finish his sentence.

“-Z8JP9.”

“Tell him to unobtrusively watch the vehicle. Make sure he knows what that word means. When the guy shows up to leave, have him detained until we get back.”

“Gotcha,” Delia said.

“Relax.” Dance finally spoke to Nick. “If that guy is here he won’t get out.”

“Why would he come here?”

“That’ll be the first question you can ask him when we get back.” Dance said as he wiped his sweaty brow with the sleeve of his white shirt and pushed his moist brown hair back off his face.

They drove out through the slow-moving traffic, Dance didn’t bother to throw on his siren or lights; it wouldn’t move anyone along any faster.

“Sorry about being so short with you,” Dance said. “ Shannon ’s kind of an asshole, he’s got a tendency to piss me off, and this is the fourth time today.”

“It’s okay, this is a bad day for everyone,” Nick said.

“Your wife’s okay though, right?”

Nick nodded.

Dance loosened his tie, taking it off and throwing it in the back. He unbuttoned the top two buttons of his shirt and directed the a/c vent at himself, sighing as the cool air hit his body.

“The captain told me everything you and your wife have been going through today. When something like this happens, we get blinded to the rest of the world, forgetting it’s still moving despite the tragedies we face.”

As Nick listened to Dance’s short speech, he couldn’t help looking at the detective’s exposed neck, looking for the St. Christopher medal, before admonishing himself for his paranoia.

They finally emerged from the long access road back onto Route 22, finding it eerily empty, in sharp contrast to the chaos behind them.

“So, they said you have a copy of the security video?”

“Yeah.” Nick nodded, patting the breast pocket of his blazer.

“Did you look at it?”

“Just parts, but I saw one face. I’ve got a printout, if you want to take a look. But there’s a lot of snow, they seemed to have disabled the cameras at some point.”

“All right. We’ll check it out at the station. You don’t mind if I shower first, do you?”

Nick shook his head, instantly regretting it, knowing that the clock was ticking. His time with Dance was limited. He needed to glean as much info as he could before the hour was up.

“I feel like I’m covered in death.”

“What time do you have?” Nick didn’t want to pull out the watch.

The car approached a green-railed bridge, a quarter-mile span that rose fifty feet above the Kensico Reservoir, one of the most peaceful sites in all of Byram Hills.

“Three-forty-five,” Dance said.

“I hate to ask this, but… do you think, maybe, we could… it’s just, my wife-who knows where…”

Dance looked at him, his face unreadable, before he finally nodded. “Sure, I didn’t mean to be insensitive. We’re only a minute from the station. We’re on a generator, we’ll dive right in.”

“Thanks.” Nick smiled, regretting not turning to the police earlier. He could have been much farther along in finding Julia’s killer.

“Do you me a favor?” Dance tilted his head toward the rear of the car. “On the backseat is my gym bag, can you grab it?”

“Of course,” Nick unbuckled his seat belt, turned around, and awkwardly twisted around to grab the small canvas bag that was just beyond his fingertips’ reach.

Without warning, Dance slammed on the brakes, the wheels locking up, the antilock system working overtime to avoid a skid as the car ground to a halt in the center of the bridge. Nick was hurled back into the dash, half his body thrown to the floor. A nine-millimeter Glock came to rest on his forehead.

“Hands on the dash,” Dance yelled.

“What’s the matter?” Nick said as he climbed up from the floor back onto the seat and complied, his hands shaking from the sudden change of events and the cold barrel pressing into his flesh.

Dance held the gun in his right hand as he used his left to pull out his cuffs and snap them over Nick’s wrists, binding them together.

“What the-?”

Dance pushed Nick forward and snatched Nick’s Sig-Sauer from the waistband under the rear of his jacket, throwing it in the back of his car.

“Why are you carrying a concealed weapon?” Dance yelled. “

Relax-”

“Open your door, slowly. Step from the vehicle. And don’t be an idiot.”

“Relax.” Nick gave a relieved smile. “I have a license for it. God, you scared me.”

“Out now!” Dance flipped on his police lights, the overly bright red strobes disorienting as they flashed.

“Come on, I have a license for it,” Nick said as he awkwardly opened the door with his bound hands and stepped from the car. Dance slid out right behind him.

“Hands on the bridge rail,” Dance yelled as he walked to the rear of his car, popping open the trunk.

“Dance, please. What’s the matter? I was carrying it for my wife’s protection.”

Nick couldn’t see what Dance was doing but suddenly felt something wrap his lower legs as two large plastic ties were secured around his ankles.

“Come on, don’t you think you’re overreacting?” Nick said as he looked at his now-secured legs.

Dance spun him around, reached into his jacket pocket, and pulled out Julia’s PDA.

“Dance, now you’re pissing me off. What the fuck are you doing?” Nick tilted his body to the left and looked into the open trunk and everything made sense.

The trunk was filled with duffel bags, one of them half open, and protruding from it, gleaming in the afternoon sun, was the gold pommel of a sword.

“You’ve got to be kidding me? You?”

Dance opened the rear door of his car, grabbed Nick’s gun off the seat, took him by his collar, and shoved him in. Slamming the door, leaving Nick alone, locked inside.

Nick sat there staring over the seat at the ticking clock on the dashboard, the LED reading 3:50.

Everything began to make sense. Why he had been arrested, why Dance was running the investigation: He was controlling it all, involved in the robbery, Julia’s murder, the cover up, his frame-up.

As bad as the situation had just gotten, Nick now knew the man responsible for Julia’s death. He knew now who he had to stop.

For the next few minutes, it was all about staying alive. He needed to survive until the top of the hour.

The clock read 3:52. Nick had never felt time move so fast and so slowly at once.

Dance opened the rear door and, with his gun, motioned Nick to get out.

“You stay the hell away from my wife or so help me God-”

Nick fell instantly silent as Dance rested the barrel of the loaded gun against his lips to quiet him.