The 13th Hour

CHAPTER 8

5:00 P.M.

NICK STOOD IN HIS library, heaving, out of breath, swirling his tongue about in his mouth to rid it of the metallic taste. He felt the chill, more pronounced this time due to his sweat-covered body. His pants and shirt were muddy and torn from the accident and from crawling around on the ground. His hands shook from the adrenaline still coursing through his system. With a white-knuckled grip, he still held tight to his pistol. And…

He still held tight to the St. Christopher medal. Like the other inanimate objects in his possession, the gold watch, his cell phone, his clothes, it had leaped back with him, still dangling from his clenched fist. He held it up, looking at its chipped surface, the engraved message on the back ironically seeming to call to him. Miracles do happen.

An overwhelming frustration rose up in Nick as he realized how close he had been. He had literally held Julia’s killer in his hand, but his hesitation had cost him. He had never seen his face, never learned his identity…

But as he looked again at the silver medal, he realized that he did have a piece of him, and more important, he did remember the license plate: Z8JP9.

Nick looked again at his condition, his clothes, his banged-up face, and bolted out of his library, through the living room, across the foyer, and up the stairs. He couldn’t let Julia see him like this.

“Nick?” Julia called out from the kitchen. “Are you done with all your work?”

“Just going to take a quick shower,” he called out as he continued his sprint to their bedroom, happy to hear her voice once again.

“Wait, I haven’t seen you all day,” she yelled.

Without a response, Nick went straight to his bathroom and shut the door, stripping out of his clothes and turning on the water, thankful that there was hot water in the tank before the power went out. He opened the shutters to let some light in and looked out the window. Against all logic, he saw Julia’s Lexus, which he had taken out of the driveway and rammed into the blue Chevy, destroying the front end of the Japanese SUV. It sat in the driveway, its black waxed finish without even a scratch.

Unfortunately, he realized as he turned, looked into the mirror, and saw the damage, that wasn’t the case for him.

He had two small burns above his left eyebrow from the airbag, along with a cut on his right cheek. The small scrapes, dirt, and grime made him appear as if he had just emerged from battle, which was how his body actually felt.

He hid his pistol underneath the stack of dark-blue towels and hopped into the shower. He was suddenly aware of his host of injuries as the hot water hit his raw skin. His body felt far worse than after a hockey game full of major checking and fights. As he chased Julia’s killer, as he rolled from the car and became pinned by the gunfire, he had felt not a moment of fear for his safety. He had never been so determined, never fought harder in his life. Hope had focused him; his love for Julia had driven him.

He soaped up, rinsed quickly, and was out of the shower in less than two minutes. He realized that he literally had no time to waste, he had only eight hours left to figure out a way to stop Julia’s killer, and the only way he was going to be able to do that was by finding out why he was after her in the first place.

“Care to explain?” Julia stood in the open doorway as she pointed at the muddy and bloody clothes on the floor.

Nick wrapped a thick white towel around his waist.

“My God, what happened?” she said as she saw the burns and the cut on his cheek.

“No big deal.” Nick tried to slough it off.

“No big deal? It looks like someone made a big deal about your face.”

“You should see the Mets fan in the baseball cap.”

“What happened to you?”

“Car accident.”

“Car accident? Whose car?”

He had no idea how to answer as he glanced out the window at her car in the driveway. Life was running backward, everything was resetting timewise, but as he felt the ache with his movement, he knew everything was resetting except him.

“I stopped to help someone who dumped their car in a ditch; I slipped a bit.”

She looked deep into his eyes, not buying a word he said.

He quickly walked by her to his closet. “Tell me again, why weren’t you on the plane?”

“You’re changing the subject.”

Nick threw off his towel as he quickly put on a pair of briefs and Levi’s 501 jeans. He was amazed to find his wallet on his dresser. It had been taken by the police at 9:00 P.M., but here it was now, four hours earlier, where it had been for most of the day before he grabbed it at 5:30 in order to get a credit card number. He shook off the warped déjà-vu moment and turned to Julia with the most serious of looks. “Julia, I need to know what pulled you off that plane.”

Julia stared for a moment, though she finally relented, annoyance coloring her voice. “I got on the plane this morning; I had to run up to Boston for a short meeting. I had settled into my seat and gotten lost in a conversation with a lovely old lady.” Julia paused with a sudden realization. Her angry tone vanished, replaced with the sound of sorrow. “Her name… her name was Katherine and she was going to see her husband, who was sick. She didn’t say it, but I think he was dying. And despite her hardship, the pain she was in, she asked about me, my life, with such sincere interest, with such green, honest eyes.”

Julia paused, tears welling up. Nick gently laid his hand on her face, stroking it, pulling her into a reassuring hug as she began to sob.

“All those people. They all sat on that plane with such hope in their eyes,” Julia said, her voice cracking. “Heading off to see friends and family; a business trip that they promised their kid they’d hurry back from; people going on vacation. None of them ever imagining they would all soon be…”

“Julia,” Nick gently said, trying to bring her back to the moment. “Why did you get off the plane?”

“There was a robbery.” She looked up at him.

“A robbery? What kind of robbery?”

Julia pulled away from Nick. She briefly went into his bathroom, returning with a tissue, dabbing her eyes, wiping away her grief.

“There’s a large colonial home over on Maple Avenue called Washington House. It belongs to a man by the name of Shamus Hennicot. It’s been in his family for three generations. He’s at least ninety so, as you can imagine, it’s rather old. The outside has that white clapboard New England look with the black shutters, wood shake roof-”

“I know the house, Julia.” Nick said, trying to hurry her along.

“Well, it’s a bit more than some colonial remnant. They have kept the insides updated and reinforced with concrete and steel. While it is Hennicot’s home, it also contains not only his office but a rather elaborate storage and display warehouse on the lower level.”

“Warehouse for what?”

“The Hennicots have been clients of Aitkens, Lerner, & Isles since 1886. Shamus’s grandfather, Ian Hennicot, was this wealthy Irish land baron and whiskey manufacturer. He was also a purveyor of antiques with an affinity for warfare. He had a collection of exotic weapons from around the world. Bejeweled daggers from Sri Lanka, diamond-encrusted sabers from Turkey, katanas from the feudal era of Japan, Chinese lances, English and Spanish swords from the age of knights. It was his true passion. He had a collection of pistols and rifles, with intricate engravings. The contradiction was bizarre: weapons of elegance and beauty whose only purpose was death.

“The tastes of Ian’s son, Stephan Francis, were a bit more traditional. He collected fine art and statuary, jewelry and sculptures. And his son, Shamus, his passions are more benevolent. He would loan certain pieces of their collections out to museums around the world but always refused to sell them.

“I’m not sure if you remember, but a few years back, I was assigned as not only the junior attorney appointed to handle Hennicot’s business affairs but also the emergency point person, which included being contacted any time the security system at the Maple Avenue building was breached.”

“So, while you were waiting to take off, you were beeped?” Nick asked in confusion.

“It’s quite a bit more than a beep.” She smiled. “But yeah. A text message, actually.”

“What did they take?”

“There was a velvet pouch with over two hundred diamonds, four gold swords and two silver rapiers, three sabers, five jewel-encrusted daggers, three gold-inlaid pistols along with their silver ammunition. All told, over $25 million.”

Nick listened to her every word convinced that her future death was 100 percent related to what she had just told him. “What did you do when you got off the plane?”

“Headed over there, straight away. I wasn’t sure yet if there had been a robbery; I thought it might have been a false alarm.”

“What about the police?”

“The Hennicots weren’t too trusting of the police. The procedure is we are contacted first, an automatic email and text message is sent for any unscheduled access to the lower-level vault, then, once we deem it necessary, we call the police. Hennicot’s philosophy was the police were just one step above the criminals and who was to know if they didn’t line their pockets during the investigation while pointing their fingers at the thieves?”

“A little cynical,” Nick said. “Don’t you think?”

“They call it eccentric.”

“You mean high-class crazy?”

“If you ever met him, you’d think differently. He’s probably the sanest, nicest man I’ve ever met. When I was first assigned to him, he sent me the kindest note. He has taken me to lunch dozens of times. He’s so charming and wise. He’s given me such great advice about my career, business, life…”

“Should I be worried?” Nick asked facetiously.

“Well, he’s worth over $4 billion. And for a gentleman of ninety, he couldn’t be more handsome. He doesn’t get around too well, hasn’t left his New England summer home in over a month. Everyone thinks he’s this man of mystery, an anonymous donor to countless charities. When large donations are made and no one can track down the originator, many think it has to be Shamus trying to give away his fortune.”

“Well, is it him?”

“Now it wouldn’t be anonymous if I knew, would it?” Julia smiled.

“Does he know he’s been robbed?”

“It was my first call after I saw what was stolen. I spoke to his assistant, who said she’d tell him, but they were crazy dealing with other matters.”

Nick became lost in thought for a moment before getting angry. “You went inside this place? How did you know the thieves weren’t still in there?”

“Well…” her face couldn’t hide her answer.

“This isn’t part of an attorney’s job, you never told me this.”

“He pays us a retainer of twenty five thousand a month in addition to what we bill them. I never thought this would happen. Besides, I’m fine.”

“Yeah, but…” he didn’t finish the statement, not knowing what to say.

“Look, I’m fine. And besides, you’ve seen that crazy eight-faced key in my purse and I know you’ve seen the security card. I told you what it was for.”

“You said a client’s home. You never mentioned you were playing security guard.”

“Client confidentiality,” Julia said.

Nick brushed off her response. “If the key and the card are the means of access to a place of such wealth, why do you carry them around so nonchalantly?”

“The key is special. It’s marked with eight letters, each corresponding to a specific date. Today happens to be a D-day. If you don’t know the algorithm to get the date you’ve got a one in eight chance of its working, that coupled with the magna-card being passed before the reader three times plus you need to input your Social Security number… the key alone is pretty worthless.”

“Julia, you said it was an extra key to someone’s home. Not a place filled with weapons.”

“Not this kind of weapons. You wouldn’t use these to kill someone.”

Nick didn’t dare contradict her. “With all the great security, how’d they get in?”

“Not sure, but they knew what they were doing, they had definite inside knowledge, they knew the security system, destroyed the server, the whole magilla, but they forgot about one thing-we hired a separate firm to set up a remote backup.”

“What?”

“Never put all your eggs in one basket for security or you’re beholden to the integrity of one protector. Two separate firms for two separate aspects. The security server in Hennicot’s building has a remote live backup to the computer in my office. Any time there’s a security breach it sends the files to my computer for this exact reason.”

“So everything, images of whoever broke in, is on the computer in your office?”

“Yeah, and here.” Julia held up her Palm Pilot PDA. The hand-held personal data assistant she carried in her purse stored far more than her contacts, calendar, and email, its large memory capacity far surpassing that of her BlackBerry and smart phone.

“What?”

“When a blackout hits, we have backup batteries that allow our computers to save and shut down so you don’t lose the data you’re working on. When the plane crashed, knocking out the lights, it initiated a backup and shutdown.”

“And…?”

“As a precaution, sensitive files are emailed to my PDA, so I’m not impeded in critical work. All of the security files for two hours prior to shutdown are on this.”

“Can I see?”

“Why would you want to see?” Julia said, confused. “The police will handle it after they deal with the plane crash.”

“I just want to take a look.”

“Even if we wanted to, I need a computer, and we have no power unless your notebook still has battery.”

Nick shook his head.

“The file is unviewable on the Palm. It’s a host of video and secure data files.”

“I can’t believe you put yourself at such risk.” Nick couldn’t hide his anger.

“When you think about it,” Julia said, “that robbery saved my life.”

Nick knew she was right, but it was only a temporary save; It actually cost her her life. He couldn’t help thinking that no matter what he did, fate was going to take her away.

Nick pulled on a light-blue, button-up shirt. He reached out and took Julia’s hand. “Listen to what I have to say, hear me out without interruption.”

“You’re freaking me out,” Julia said.

“I don’t mean to.”

“Then reduce the drama factor,” she said with a serious smile.

Nick took a breath. “There are no cops around, everyone is at the crash site.”

“Yeah-” Julia shut her mouth as Nick held up his hand.

“Whoever pulled that robbery is trying to erase their tracks.” Nick paused.

Julia looked into Nick’s concerned eyes before turning her attention to the Palm Pilot in her hand, her thoughts churning, until realization washed over her face.

PLUMES OF WHITE smoke billowed up from the crash site two miles away; an all-day battle with no victors, no winners, but countless victims. And while the fight to contain the fire had neared its end, the mental battle would go on for days, weeks, years. Though the scar in the ground would heal, nature filling in the scorched earth with a green blanket of growth in mere weeks, the town would never be the same again.

As Nick drove his Audi A8 toward the village of Byram Hills, he glanced at Valhalla, their favorite restaurant, thinking how much the area had changed.

Byram Hills had once been a town right out of Mayberry: dirt roads and a single street light, a police station with three jail cells, a fruit and vegetable stand that sold fresh doughnuts and cider on the weekends. Houses were modest despite incomes, no one judged his neighbor on square footage. Children of firemen and janitors hung out with the children of CEOs and real estate tycoons, playing and fighting as kids do without the word lawsuit ever being uttered. High school coaches remained in place for the season, while parents had no illusion that their child was the next Michael Jordan. Marriages lasted longer, couples working together to make their commitments endure despite the hardships they faced. But over time, as with much of America, some of the town’s character was sold off for higher returns, people became caught up in appearances, in perceptions, in keeping up with the Joneses.

Sadly, tragedy is the great equalizer, Nick thought. It knows no ZIP code, has no country club membership or two-room cold-water flat. It strikes without prejudice, reminding us of the fragility of life, of what truly is important when all things are stripped away. For sorrow and loss, pain and suffering are innate in our hearts, and while they may lie dormant they are quickly remembered when death fills the air.

And with an event of the magnitude of a plane crash, when 212 people are collectively ripped from this world, from your own backyard, life is reset, priorities falling back into their proper order.

Within moments of the crash, stores and businesses closed, summer camps were shuttered. Families came together. Churches and synagogues opened their doors for prayer. Volunteers arrived by the busful in the open fields less than a mile outside town where friends and strangers had departed this earth.

Julia rode in the seat beside Nick, her eyes fixed on the smoke on the horizon, unable to shake the thought of death and how it had passed her by today.

“You sure we can get a computer in your office to work?” Nick asked.

“Why do you need to see the security files? Let’s just turn my PDA over to the police. This is none of our-and particularly none of your-business, Nick.”

“When it concerns you, Julia, it is my business.”

“Nobody is after me; you’re being ridiculous.”

“No, trust me, I’m not.”

“You’re not telling me something.” Julia was getting upset.

Nick didn’t respond.

“What aren’t you telling me?” She grilled him as if she were in court.

“Julia,” Nick said, losing patience. “Just answer the question.”

“We don’t have a generator,” Julia snapped. “But we do have battery backups for the computers, they’re good for a half hour.”

“And we’ll be able to view the files on your PDA?”

Julia nodded, suddenly distracted by the sight of the town as they drove down Main Street.

The village was eerily empty, stores closed, gas stations shuttered, a virtual ghost town. Not a soul on the sidewalks, not a car in the streets. Shop windows were dark without electricity to light their window displays. The pizza parlor, the barber shop, even the banks and post office, locked tight on a Friday afternoon in the middle of summer for the first time in their history.

The National Guard, the usual responders to disasters, were at a quarter capacity as a result of the war, so volunteers were needed. It didn’t matter if you were a grandmother or an eighteen-year-old college student. You were put to work either directing traffic, filling out paperwork, or if you were a hardy soul, sifting through the crash site.

Julia’s eyes returned to the smoky plume rising over the hill at the far side of town. Nick couldn’t imagine what was going on inside her head, looking at a funeral pyre that she had escaped through a twist of fate.

But Nick had witnessed his own horror. He had watched Julia die, mourned her once, and he refused to do it for a second time. He would somehow find the man who pulled the trigger and would stop him. He felt the lump of the Sig-Sauer at the small of his back, fully aware that he would, in all likelihood, have to use it. No matter the consequence of his actions, even though he might lose his own life in the process, he would save his wife.

He made no mention of the gun he was carrying and was sure to keep the bulge of the weapon out of Julia’s sight. She hated guns with a passion, an irony that was not lost on Nick. He rarely removed the gun from the safe and had never carried it. He was actually finding it awkward now as it rubbed against his skin under his hastily put on sport coat.

AITKENS, LERNER, & Isles was considered one of the top firms in the country, specializing in finance and tax law. The sixty-partner firm had the luxury of locating wherever they saw fit, which was naturally at the nexus of its three senior partners.

The firm had a three-building campus on North Castle Hill, its three hundred employees swelling the town of Byram Hills during the week, but that couldn’t have been farther from the case today.

The four parking lots were entirely empty as Nick pulled his Audi up to the circular drive in front of the central building.

He and Julia hustled up the fire stairs two steps at a time to the darkened second floor, the emergency light’s batteries already depleted. They raced to Julia’s office in the rear. It was a typical senior associate suite, a large desk and a seating area with a couch and armchairs. But her usually fastidious work area had been destroyed: her desk tipped over, her computer missing, wires torn from the walls, the monitor shattered on the floor.

“My God! When I find the son of a bitch who did this…” Julia’s temper was approaching its boiling point.

“Where’s your server?” Nick said, without acknowledging her raging mood.

“You knew this was going to be like this, didn’t you?” Julia said with a mix of anger and confusion.

“Where’s the server?”

“End of the hall,” Julia said, leading the way. “This is all about the robbery. What the hell?”

They arrived at a nondescript door that sat between the auxiliary kitchen and the office of the managing partner, Sherman Peabody. Julia punched the code into the keypad, tore open the door, and immediately saw what they both dreaded. The server towers within the computer room had been stripped of their hard drives; wires hung useless from the racks, looking like dead snakes.

“Midnight backups?” Nick asked

“Everyone’s computer and all the servers back up on three separate nodes once a day at 2:00 A.M.”

They both looked at the large computer room, now rendered useless, hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage inflicted, all in an effort to erase what had occurred earlier in the day at Shamus Hennicot’s large white house on Maple Avenue.

“Now do you believe me?” Nick looked at the Palm Pilot in Julia’s hand. “That’s the only thing pointing at whoever ripped off your client.”

“We’ve got to get this to the police-”

“There are no police to give it to.”

“Let’s just bring it to the crash site, give it to someone there.”

Nick knew that would only serve to delay his finding Julia’s killer, and the only way he was going to do that was to see the face on that PDA.

“How did you know this was going to happen, Nick?”

Nick took the Palm Pilot out of her hand.

“Answer me, dammit, what’s going on?”

Nick pulled the pocket watch and looked at the time: 5:40.

“You’ve got to trust me, I’ll explain later, but right now we don’t have the luxury of time,” Nick said as he stepped back into the hallway. “You said every computer here has a battery backup module.”

Julia pointed them out under the assistants’ desks in the corral area, a little larger than a bread box, configured like an enormous power strip.

“How long do they last?”

“Half hour, give or take a few minutes.”

Nick headed back to Julia’s assistant’s desk. “Do you think Jo used it up?”

“She left right after the crash, I told her to go home.”

Nick sat down at Jo Whalen’s desk. She had been Julia’s assistant for three years now, and if Julia was organized, Jo was supremely anal: pencils and paper clips perfectly aligned north to south in their respective holders, not a stitch of paper or a fleck of dust upon her work station. Nick fired up Jo’s computer, the light wash of the monitor casting an eerie glow about the darkened office. He turned to Julia as the screen asked for the password.

Julia leaned over him, typed it in, and the computer sang to life. The reserve battery began beeping, calling attention to its limited operating capacity.

“Let’s go,” Nick said, handing the PDA back to Julia.

Julia turned it on and placed the infrared link next to the computer station. She highlighted the files on the PDA and hit send.

Jo’s computer began humming, and a video screen opened on the monitor as the file infiltrated her system. They both watched as six files appeared on the bottom of the screen just below the video viewing window.

Julia clicked on the first file. A detailed ledger appeared in an Excel spreadsheet.

“This isn’t what we wanted,” Julia said.

“What is it?”

“It’s the inventory of Hennicot’s collection.” Julia pointed at the screen. “It can be sorted by age, type of weapon or antique, value, year acquired, and now,” she clicked the screen, reordering the rows, “by what was stolen.”

“We need to see the video,” Nick said, hurrying her along.

Julia closed the file without a word and clicked the next file.

The screen filled with a video of alternating images of various security feeds, a time clock emblazoned in the bottom right-hand corner. There were static images of the parking lot, the front of the building, a well-appointed English-style office, pictures of display cases filled with elegant swords and knives, a fixed image of a safe, its size hard to estimate without something to scale it by, pictures of shipping crates, of doors and hallways, stairs and conference rooms.

Julia hit the fast-forward button with the mouse and the images cycled by at an extremely fast rate until all at once the monotony of images was interrupted. The exterior shot of the parking lot and front of the building became nothing but white snow.

Nick took the mouse and slowed the video.

The interior images remained on and unchanging, but suddenly, in one of them, a large brushed-steel door cracked open, and a flood of light cut through the room.

“What are you doing with that?” Julia suddenly shouted, pointing at the gun sticking out through the vent of Nick’s jacket as if he was carrying another woman’s panties in his back pocket.

“Please watch the screen,” Nick said as all his focus remained on the open door.

“I told you how much I hate that thing.” Julia’s fury was growing. “You said it was only for the shooting range.”

“Julia, please just watch the monitor.”

“I hate guns, you know that.” And just like that Julia’s anger at the thieves, at those that had trashed her office, was turned upon Nick. “And how many times did you say you hate guns?”

Nick remained intent on the monitor, not wanting to explain how he had already used the gun to save his own life.

A man came into view on the monitor, his face filling the screen. Nick had never seen him before, but he had someone now to focus his anger on. The man looked to be in his early fifties, dark hair with a slight receding hairline. His eyes were obscured by glasses, but there was nothing hiding his gaunt face, his overly high cheekbones, and the prominence of his thick eyebrows.

“Promise me,” Julia demanded, her eyes boring into Nick, “when this is all past, that you’ll get rid of it like you promised me you already did.”

“Who the hell is that?” Nick pointed at the screen. And as Julia finally returned her eyes to the monitor, the image turned to white snow, each room following in succession. The entire system seeming to fail.

“What the hell?” Julia said.

“Did you see him, an older guy, glasses?”

“No, I didn’t see him.” Julia’s anger hit new heights. “Rewind it. If I-”

But Julia never got to finish her statement, as gunfire erupted around them, the cubicle exploding into hundreds of pieces.

Nick pulled Julia out of the hail of bullets onto the floor, reached up, and grabbed the PDA off the desk. The monitor with the useless images of snow exploded in a shower of sparks.

Nick snatched the gun from his waistband and fired off three shots in the direction of the unseen shooter. He took Julia’s hand and, without a word, led her through the corral of cubicles, being sure to keep their heads below the shooter’s line of sight. He kept his pistol aimed straight ahead to intercept anyone who might suddenly feel bold and show himself.

He tore open the fire stairs door, peeked inside, shoved Julia in, and turned back to scan the area. More gunfire answered his curiosity. Nick wanted to hunt the shooter down, kill him in his tracks, but he needed to get Julia out of harm’s way.

He grabbed Julia and raced down the stairs. He cautiously cracked open the lobby door and peered into the vacant marble vestibule. They slipped through the lobby on light, running feet and looked out the front door. With not a soul in sight, they charged out and ran to the Audi immediately in front of the building.

Nick fired up the car and hit the gas, the wheels spinning, throwing them both back into their seats. With a screech of tires he spun the car around and raced out of North Castle Hill.

Just as he emerged onto the main road, he caught sight in his peripheral vision of the blue Chevy Impala sitting at the rear of Julia’s building.

“Now are you glad I didn’t get rid of the gun?” Nick said, trying to contain his anger at the situation.

Julia said nothing. Fear flowed from her eyes as she buckled her seat belt, her hands shaking as she fumbled with the clasp.

Nick drove the Audi faster than he had ever driven before, pushing the speedometer over 110 miles per hour. As the car rocketed up Route 22, there wasn’t another vehicle in sight. Like the town, the road was completely empty, it was as if they literally owned the road, as if they were the only ones alive. Nick glanced in the rearview mirror but saw nothing but open road behind them, no pursuers, no cars, no flying bullets.

He finally eased off the gas.

“What the hell,” Julia said from the passenger seat, her right hand strangling the handle above the door. “And how did you know to bring a gun?”

Nick pulled a sliding left turn onto Route 128, ignoring the useless red light, and sped down through town.

“Listen to me, very carefully.” There was an intensity to his voice. “When we get home, you get in your car. I want you to drive as far from here as you possibly can. Do not go to your cousin’s, friend’s, anyone’s house. Check into a hotel and pay by cash.”

“Stop!” Julia screamed. “What’s going on?”

“Whoever burgled that building, whoever stole those guns and diamonds, is erasing everything leading to them.” Nick paused as he looked at her. “Everything, including any possible witness.”

Nick drove up Wago Avenue to Elizabeth Place, down Sunrise Drive and down Townsend Court into their driveway, and pulled into the garage.

“You’ve got your wallet? Cell phone?”

“Yeah.” Julia nodded.

“Go now.” Nick hopped out of the car. She followed suit and ran around to his side.

“What are you going to do?” She looked up at him. “I’m not leaving without you.”

Nick looked at her, long and hard, memorizing her face as if he was looking at her with new eyes. “If you ever were going to start listening to me, please make it now.”

He led her over to her Lexus and opened the driver’s side door.

“Please don’t leave me,” Julia said, her tough exterior broken.

Nick pulled out the watch and quickly checked the time before stuffing it back into his pocket.

“I promise, I’ll find you.” He reached out and pulled her to him, the emotion of their embrace conveying far more than a kiss ever could. All of the fear and anxiety floating on the surface was briefly lost as they drew strength from each other, as they found a glimpse of hope that his words would prove true.

Despite the harsh language and anger, they both knew it was over the stress of the moment, over the fear each felt for the other.

“Julia, I love you.” Nick directed her into the driver’s seat. “You’ve got sixty seconds to get out of here.”

He turned and walked to the house.

“Where are you going?” Julia called out as she rolled down the window.

Nick looked over his shoulder at her as he walked through the garage. “I think I know how to stop this madness.” He didn’t dare say that he was going to kill the son of a bitch who killed her.

He grabbed the door handle to the mudroom, pulled open the door-

– and found himself standing in his library. He shook off the cold, his body growing more accustomed to the jump. He didn’t need to look at the watch to know what had happened. He felt for the gun at the small of his back, confirming its presence.

He walked out of the room through the foyer and into the kitchen.

“Can I make you something to eat?” Julia said as she looked into the darkened fridge, smiling, not knowing what lay ahead.

“I’ll be back in a little while,” Nick said, surprised to see her home.

“Don’t forget about dinner.”

As much as he didn’t want to have dinner with the Mullers, and despite the fact that he had gotten so angry about it, he would gladly have dinner with the annoying Mullers for the next month if he could just get through this upside-down day and be assured that Julia would be dining at his side.

Everything revolved around the robbery that had occurred this morning. That’s where the answers lay, that’s where he would find and stop Julia’s killer.

Nick quietly walked through the mudroom and reached into Julia’s purse hanging on the wall. He grabbed her PDA, quickly searched for and found a security card and set of keys. He slipped them into his pocket and headed out the garage door.