Richard Doetsch - The 13th Hour

“I’ll be fine,” Julia said, squeezing his hands with reassurance the way her mother used to do to her when she was a child. “You be careful.”

“I will, I just want you away from here till I get thing sorted out.”

“You come and get me, because we’ve got things to talk about, lives to get on with.”

“I’ll see you this evening, no later than 10:00 P.M., I promise. But I don’t think we’ll be seeing the Mullers for dinner.”

“You planned it this way, didn’t you?” Julia smiled. “I have something to tell you when you pick me up, so don’t be late.”

The train came around the bend, heading into the station.

“I won’t be late,” Nick said as he walked her up onto the platform.

“You should probably have this,’ Julia said as she pulled her PDA from her purse and passed it to him.

“Thanks,” Nick said, tucking it into his pocket.

“Remember what you promised,” she shouted back at Marcus. “Nothing stupid.”

The train pulled in, its brakes squealing as it came to a stop. The door whisked open with a release of air right where they were standing.

“Ten o’clock,” Julia said.

Nick pulled her into a long, hard kiss, a lifetime of passion passing between them in seconds. He finally released her as the door buzzed in preparation for closing. “Ten o’clock. No later,” Nick said in agreement.

Julia stepped into the train, the doors coming together, closing between them.

“I love you,” Julia mouthed from the other side of the door.

And the train pulled from the station.

“Protect the goalie,” Marcus said as he walked up behind him. “That’s my job.”

“You’re an idiot.”

“Ah, maybe,” Marcus said as he straightened his tie and tucked in his white shirt. “But right now, I’m your idiot.”

HORACE RANDALL WAS six months from retiring. Twenty-five years on the force. He had put in an extra five hoping to put away enough money to retire. But life being what it was, he had already spent his retirement fund and would be leaving the department in December without a dime in the bank.

He had come in at the age of twenty-eight filled with piss and vinegar and an altruistic view of justice. But the years of exposure to a system that had no true black-and-white demarcation of right and wrong but instead was filled with gray areas of political expediency had broken his spirit. He had spent the last ten years going through the motions, pushing paper, and drinking beer.

He had never fired his gun on duty, never chased a suspect down, never lived the life of a romanticized cop. And that suited him just fine.

He had mentored Ethan Dance when he joined the force ten years ago, taking him under his wing, showing him the ropes, watching as he quickly rose to detective. He knew full well of Dance’s extracurricular activities but as long as they didn’t affect Randall, they didn’t bother him and besides, though he wasn’t a model cop, he was true blue and would never turn on his fellow officers.

Randall weighed in at 240 pounds. He’d averaged ten pounds of additional weight a year for the last eight years, his thirty-two-inch waist a distant memory. His horn-rimmed glasses were considered retro cool by some of the young patrolmen but truth be told he’d worn the exact same frames since he was fifteen.

Dance knew Randall’s situation and had offered him a retirement solution, a healthy bank account that would provide for him for the rest of his life.

It had fallen to Horace Randall to find Julia Quinn. While they planned to get her at home this evening, the timetable had been moved up by Dance for God knew what reason. Things would have been so much simpler if they’d stuck with their original plan.

While Randall was known as lazy, most people didn’t realize that laziness bred ingenuity; if necessity was the mother of invention, then laziness was the father. Randall wasn’t about to drive all over looking for Julia Quinn when just a few strokes of the keyboard could accomplish so much more.

While life had come to a standstill in Byram Hills, people still needed to shop, to eat, to get gas. As sad as it was, life went on despite tragedy. Randall sent out Julia’s image as a missing person in connection with the North East Air crash, emailing and faxing it to the bordering police jurisdictions, the rail stations, and the neighboring towns’ restaurants, gas stations, and businesses.

She was a beautiful woman; her DMV photo couldn’t diminish that in the least. There was no doubt she would catch the eye of everyone he reached out to, he just didn’t expect to get a call so quickly. But it was good to know that in this day and age, the citizens of this county could really pull together when a life was on the line.

THE EXPRESS TRAIN was practically empty. As it was midday there wasn’t much travel to and from the city, unlike rush hour, when nary a seat could be found. There were only two others in the train car: an older woman, dressed in Chanel on her way to some Friday evening function, her face buried in a tawdry novel, and a young man, dressed in doctor’s scrubs, who struggled to stay upright and awake as he read his newspaper.

Julia rarely took the train, finding it inconvenient and confining, preferring to drive her car in and out of the city with the option of listening to the radio or talking on her cell phone at her leisure.

As she finally settled back in her seat, she couldn’t believe she had been on Flight 502, buckled in, prepped to go. And now she sat in this train, on the run. Her feeling of being saved, of being plucked from death had been short-lived.

She could never understand what ran through the minds of those who inflicted pain and suffering on others, how they could willingly bring people to harm. She had never feared for her life before, never contemplated her own death, but now in a space of less than two hours she had found herself looking at death from a variety of angles, all of which made her appreciate the value of life, the value of the moment and how precious it truly is.

Both Marcus and Nick had told her not to worry, which only made her worry more. She had no idea why Nick was so fearful, but in the sixteen years they had been together, other than lightning and flying, he wasn’t afraid of anything. She quelled her own fears, placing her trust in her husband. He wasn’t foolish-far from it. He had a combination of street smarts and intelligence that manifested not only in a successful career but in a successful life. If anyone could save her, if anyone could make matters right, it was Nick.

Julia ran her hand along her belly. Though it was still flat, she could sense the life within her womb, growing, developing, a completion of her union with Nick, truly a child of their love that would bind them together for all eternity, a combination of the best parts of both of them. She wondered how the genetic slot machine of life would play out. Would he or she look like Nick or Julia, or would the child be a combination? Blonde hair, brown hair, maybe red hair, as it did run on both sides of their families. Green eyes or blue? There was no question the child would be predisposed to athletics, following in its parents’ footsteps… or maybe not. What if the child hated sports? Whatever the newborn was, she would be happy, as the child would be theirs, a new focus in their lives that would change all priorities.

She had planned to tell Nick as soon as she saw him-her grand plans of sonogram pictures and paternal surprise having been dashed-but then Marcus had shown up with Nick. Her good news would have to wait for a more solitary moment.

As she pondered what was going on, the train slowed and came to a stop. Julia looked out the window, her heart suddenly thundering in her ears. They were in the middle of nowhere, in a no-man’s-land between stations. This was supposed to be an express train, next stop Grand Central Station, smack dab in the middle of Manhattan.