Eleventh Hour

by Catherine Coulter

  “If it was Weldon, he was super careful. Or he was wearing a disguise, like the one he just might have worn in San Francisco.”

  Dane didn’t say anything, just drove toward LA, ideas flying about in his brain, none of them leading anywhere except fantasyland. He kept his eye out for Harleys.

  Nick finally fell asleep a little before midnight and was promptly hurtled back to that night in Chicago when the dark sedan had tried to run her down. Her dreams skipped to the man she’d seen leaving her condominium, the man who’d set the fire. Then, suddenly, she was staring at the man on the Harley, firing nonstop at them.

  Oh God, oh God. She gasped and bolted straight up in bed, panting. It all came together. She realized suddenly that all three were the same man.

  All three times, the man was out to kill her, not because she was an eyewitness to Father Michael Joseph’s murder, but because the man was sent from Senator Rothman, who wanted her dead. Odd how it had all come together in a nightmare, but she was completely certain of this.

  She quietly got out of bed. She pulled off her nightgown. She put on her clothes, her shoes. She looked at the adjoining door, drew in a deep breath, and quietly turned the knob.

  She heard Dane breathing evenly in sleep. She didn’t think she breathed at all as she stole over to the bureau and took Dane’s car keys out of his jacket pocket. She saw his wallet on the bureau and took a credit card. And finally, his SIG Sauer, and an extra clip. She looked back toward him. He was still sleeping.

  She looked back at him one last time, then quietly closed the adjoining door again. He’d already been shot trying to protect her. She simply couldn’t bear the thought of him dying—like his brother—a senseless, vicious death. She simply wouldn’t put him in harm’s way. She was a target and, as long as she was with him, so was he, for the simple fact that she knew to her soul that if she were threatened, he would give his life for her.

  There was simply no way she could bear that. No way at all. Besides, she had a plan. If it failed, she could disappear again. She slipped out the door, quietly closing it behind her.

  It was Savich, in a room three doors away, on the edge of sleep, who heard a car’s engine rev not far from their rooms. He was out of bed and standing naked in the Holiday Inn doorway, watching Dane’s rental car disappear out of the parking lot.

  TWENTY-NINE

  Sherlock sighed. “Does she have any money?”

  “She can’t have much,” Dane said. “And that means that she’ll hitchhike. Oh damn, I take that all back. Nick’s not an idiot. Let me check.” He ran back into his room. After a couple of seconds he called out, “Does anyone have any handcuffs?”

  “Not on me,” Savich said.

  Dane was back in a moment, breathing hard. “When I catch up with her, I’m not going to rely on reason anymore. It’s time for brute force. Remind me to get some handcuffs from Detective Flynn. Here’s the deal. She didn’t just steal the car keys, she also has my AmEx and my SIG Sauer.” He stopped, looked momentarily baffled. “Why did she sneak out? Nothing’s really changed. Why?”

  Within ten minutes, Detective Flynn had an APB out on the Pontiac, driven by a young woman with shoulder-length blondish-brown hair, gray eyes, weight around one fifteen. Well, not just gray eyes, Dane thought, they were pure gray and large, with dark lashes. But she was thin, still too thin, although she looked better than she had when he’d first met her. Good God, it was just last Tuesday. And she was wearing a pair of dark brown slacks and a light brown sweater, he’d checked. Purse? Her purse was black leather, just like her short boots. Size seven and a half, yes, that was her exact shoe size. It was important to be accurate for the APB, and so he mentioned that her eyebrows were a dark brown, nicely arched. Jesus, he was losing it. She was about five-foot-eight-inches tall—well, maybe taller because she came nearly to Dane’s nose. Every officer in the LA area was alerted, in great detail.

  She’d taken all her clothes—all the clothes he’d bought her. He discovered very quickly that he’d never been so scared in his life. She was out there alone and she didn’t have any idea how to protect herself. She had his car and she had his gun. She wasn’t helpless, thank God. He was going to tie her down when he found her and not let her up unless they were handcuffed together.

  His healing arm itched. When his cell phone rang ten minutes later, he nearly fell over in his haste to get it.

  Nick left the Pontiac three miles from the Holiday Inn, in the middle of a long row of cars parked in front of an apartment complex. She locked it and left the keys on top of the front driver’s-side tire. Obvious place, but given Dane’s resources, the chances were that the police would retrieve the car before a thief decided he was hard up enough to steal it.

  His SIG Sauer felt heavy in her purse. She’d checked the clip. There was a full fifteen rounds in it. Other than that, she had twelve dollars and Dane’s AmEx. She didn’t quite feel like Rambo, but it was close enough.

  It wouldn’t be dawn for several more hours. No one had followed her from the Holiday Inn. It was dark and she was armed. With each passing minute there was more distance between her and both the bad guys and the good guys.

  She saw some kids in baggy pants on the corner of Pickett and Longsworth. They were probably dealing drugs. She didn’t even pause, just turned quickly and walked to the east. The freeway wasn’t more than a mile away and she’d flag down an eighteen-wheeler. She’d gotten to San Francisco riding high above the ground in big trucks and keeping company with at least a half dozen truck drivers. She’d even learned how to operate a CB.

  If she ran into a nut this time, she had the SIG Sauer. She flagged down a really big Foster Farms truck heading up I-5. A beefy guy named Tommy stopped because, he told her, he had to make it to Bakersfield, and he’d been driving without a stop for too long and was dead on his feet. Would she mind singing and talking to him until he let her out? She didn’t mind at all.

  He got her as far as Ventura County. “Hey,” he said, “I think we sing a pretty mean ‘Impossible Dream.’ ”

  An hour later, a smaller supply truck loaded with linens and bathroom supplies for one of the big ski lodges picked her up and began the climb to Mt. Pinos.

  It was cold in the Los Padres National Forest, but down at Bear Lake elevation there wasn’t much snow on the ground, just a white veil, and the air was clear, as it had been yesterday.

  The driver dropped her off in front of Snow House, a small lodge where she could wait until the stores opened. She wasn’t about to take a room. She knew they’d be tracking the card, would realize soon enough where she was.

  Things had to happen soon or Dane would get to her. She sucked in a nice deep breath and walked into Snow House.

  Her husband was driving up from LA a bit later, she told the desk clerk, and was meeting her here. This was where they’d spent their honeymoon and they wanted to come back. She was just here first. No, she didn’t want to check in just yet. She’d wait in the lobby area, near that roaring fire. They didn’t seem at all suspicious.

  When the stores opened, she smiled toward the clerk behind the counter and walked out. She visited a small boutique, bought a cheap parka and gloves, and went to a general store at a filling station.

  An hour later, she hiked to the Lakeview Home for Retired Police Officers.

  She began to wonder if her great plan was going to lead to anything. She had to try it. She believed that Captain DeLoach had more answers than he’d given to them before. Now she was alone, and she knew she could get him to talk.

  At least she prayed she’d get the old man to talk.

  She walked straight to Captain DeLoach’s double-paned sliding doors, and tapped on the glass. No answer.

  She tried the door. It was locked.

  She tapped harder on the glass and jumped when she heard a querulous old voice mutter, “Who the hell wants in now? That you, Weldon? You want to finish the job on me, you little bastard?”

  The curtains were jerked
back and she was face-to-face with Captain DeLoach. He looked pale, sported a small white bandage around his head, but his old eyes were clear and focused.

  He stared at her a moment, nodded to himself, and unlocked the doors. She watched him wheel his chair back before she opened the door and eased in. She relocked the door and drew the curtains.

  She said, “I shouldn’t be here, Captain DeLoach, but I think you’re where all the action is, so consider me your bodyguard.”

  “You’re a lot prettier than that idiot I kicked out of here last night. Overweight dolt, all he wanted to do was eat Carla’s doughnuts and she was getting pissed, which means that she’d carp at me. Did you see any of the cops they put around to protect me?”

  “Not a soul, but I was really careful.”

  “Yeah, yeah, I bet they’re all asleep. Hey, I recognize you. You’re an FBI agent, aren’t you? The gal with Agent Carver?”

  “Yes, that’s right, I was with Agent Carver. I’m here to protect you. You don’t need those other cops. But you’ve got to keep my presence here quiet, okay?”

  The old man ruminated on this for a good five seconds and then slowly nodded. “I haven’t had a girl around me without a needle in her hand in more years than I can remember.”

  “Do you remember back for a lot of years?”

  “Yep. Do I salute you?”

  “Yes,” Nick said. Slowly, the old man saluted her and she saluted him back. She said, “Tell me about some of those years you remember, Captain.”

  Captain DeLoach paused again, then said in a dreamy voice, more singsong than not, “You know, young lady, some of those years are so clear in my head that it’s like yesterday. I can feel what I felt then, the exhilaration, the excitement. I can see their faces as they were then, hear the yells, the screams, feel them score into me, deep, taste them, you know? I can feel all the joy and triumph, the pure sweetness of winning, and I loved that, you know?”

  “No, sir, I don’t know what it is you’re talking about.”

  He gave her the sweetest smile. “So many people I knew, liked, but now they’re mostly dead. All except me and mine, of course. Yep, just look who’s left. That’s a shame, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, sir, it’s a real shame. Why do you call Weldon a little bastard?”

  “I remember it was like yesterday that he was just a little tyke, couldn’t even walk yet, and he was into everything. I was alone. What did I know about how to raise a baby?”

  “I imagine it was very difficult, sir. What about Weldon?”

  No answer this time. His head just fell forward. He seemed to be asleep. From one moment to the next, he was simply gone, someplace in the distant past when he’d known happiness. Poor old man. She wondered how it would feel to have your own son trying to kill you. She didn’t know what Captain DeLoach had meant with all that talk about the yells and screams. It made no sense.

  She straightened, looked around the large room. It was nice and warm in there. She shrugged out of her parka, walked around a bit, getting acquainted with everything. It was like a junior suite in a hotel, only it was personalized with some photos on the end table—none of Weldon, but she and Dane had already remarked on that. Maybe she’d ask Captain DeLoach if he had any pictures of his only son stashed somewhere. Beside his bed were a few more photos—of a baby, and then that baby as a toddler. Weldon? She didn’t know. But wait—that couldn’t be. There was a car in the background, and the car wasn’t forty years old. It was around the mid-1980s. Okay, so it wasn’t Weldon. Another family member had a little kid, that had to be it.

  Nick turned away from the photo, realized that Nurse Carla or anyone who worked there, for God’s sake, could come tromping through the door. Where could she hide?

  There was a big walk-in closet six feet from the double bed. The wood doors were slatted so she could see Captain DeLoach clearly. She spread her parka on the carpeted floor and made herself comfortable.

  She’d bought taco dip, a small box of Wheat Thins, and a Diet Dr Pepper—her favorites—in the small food market inside the filling station, using up four dollars and eight cents of her twelve dollars. Before she fell asleep, her stomach happy, she wondered how long it would take Dane to track her down.

  At ten o’clock in the morning, Delion, Savich, Sherlock, and Dane were seated around Detective Flynn’s desk in the detectives’ room on the second floor of the West Los Angeles Police Department. Linda, today’s volunteer receptionist, had given them all homemade cookies when they’d come in. “I’ve always admired the FBI,” she’d said, patting Savich’s bicep. “And you’re so nice, too.”

  Sherlock had said, “What about me, Linda?”

  “I think of you as their mascot, cute as a button with that red hair flying all over the place. As for you,” she said to Dane, “you look a bit on the edge. The cookie will help get things in perspective, sugar always does.”

  “Thank you, Linda,” Dane said. “That’s what we’ve been hearing about, sugar.”

  The detectives’ room was, as usual, a madhouse, which didn’t appear to bother anyone. Savich settled down in a side chair next to Detective Flynn’s desk, MAX on his lap. He looked up after ten minutes and said, “No indication that she’s used the AmEx yet, either that, or folks are just too lazy to check. Since the card’s in your name, Dane, and not hers, I can’t imagine anyone not checking. We just wait, nothing else to do.”

  Sherlock said, “You know the deal you made with her not to delve into her past? Well, we’ve got to find her and protect her, we’ve got to find out who she is. The time has come. Dillon, can you have MAX find out who she is?”

  “Yes,” Savich said. “We know her name’s Nicola, she’s twenty-eight, she’s got a Ph.D., and she’s a college professor. This won’t be anything for MAX. Everyone on board with this?”

  Delion said, “Do it. Now isn’t the time for irrelevant promises.”

  “Yeah,” Dane said. “That’s what I figured.”

  While Savich worked, Detective Flynn was sitting back in his chair, his hands laced over his belly, a basketball on the floor beside him. He said, “I just don’t understand why she took off like this. She’s pulling us away from the really important stuff—you know, multiple murders, silly things like that. I’d like to get in her face when we catch up with her.”

  Sherlock said, “Do you think she headed back up to San Francisco? To hide herself in the homeless population again?”

  Dane shook his head. “No. And I don’t think she’s gone back home either, wherever home is.”

  “Then where did she go?” Flynn asked, sipped at the god-awful coffee. His phone rang. He picked it up, barked, “Yeah? Detective Flynn here.”

  He wrote something on a pad. When he set the receiver back into its cradle, he was grinning. “How’s this for a bit of luck? Our girl hitched a ride with a trucker. He said he always listens to the police reports on his CB. Said when he heard the APB, he knew he’d given our girl a ride.”

  “Where?” Sherlock said.

  “Up in Ventura County.”

  “Hot damn,” Dane said. “She’s gone to see Captain DeLoach.”

  “But why did she just run away like that?” Flynn asked.

  “I’ll be sure to ask her after I handcuff her,” Dane said.

  “I’ll provide the handcuffs,” Delion said.

  “I’m still gonna burn her ass,” Flynn said.

  MAX chose that moment to beep. Savich looked down, smiled. “MAX just told me who she is.”

  Savich closed down MAX, rose, and stretched. “We can be at Bear Lake by midafternoon.”

  THIRTY

  One moment there was only the sound of Captain DeLoach’s soft snoring. The next there was a man’s voice, speaking quietly, right there, right next to Captain DeLoach’s wheelchair.

  “Wake up, old man. Come on now, you can do it. It’s Weldon, and I’m here to make sure that it’s over, at least for you. Wake up, you old monster, wake up. I’m going to mete out the onl
y justice you’ll ever get in this world, and I want you awake for this.”

  Captain DeLoach jerked awake, snorted, looked up, and whispered, “Weldon, how did you get in here? There’s cops out there protecting me, lots of them. And the Feds, they’re everywhere looking for you. You’d better run while you’ve got the chance. How did you come in through the sliding doors? I always keep them locked.”

  “You old fool, I have a key to the sliding doors. Not a soul saw me, for sure not that one cop chatting up Velvet in the reception area. And the other one who’s supposed to be protecting you—I saw him out in the parking lot smoking a cigarette. There’s just the two of them, old man.

  “It’s finally time for you. For more than thirty years you’ve thumbed your nose at everybody. Now it stops. No more time for any big announcements to anyone else from you. It’s simple justice, you know it.”

  “You think you can manage it this time when you didn’t the last two times, you little wimp?”

  “I was trying to scare you, not kill you, you monster. I didn’t think I’d have to kill you then. Is your brain so far gone you can’t remember that?

  “But this time, I am going to kill you. All your threats to tell the world what you are will die with you. After that fall you took—I really hoped you’d die, but you’re still tough, aren’t you? Why didn’t you make your big announcement?”

  Captain DeLoach said, grinning widely, “Of course I’m tough, but no one could tell that by looking at you, you little pussy. I didn’t say anything because I wanted to torture you more, boy. Make you wonder, worry when the blow was going to fall. Threatening your daddy, trying to scare him—nearly to death—that’s not a nice thing, you know. And you left me there, lying on the floor, my head all bloody.”

  “Shut up. No more abuse from you, old man, no more.”

  “I’m still your only daddy, you puking coward. Jesus, I can’t believe that you’re actually part of me, although your mother was weak, always whining, just like you. And then she died, and it was just you and me, but you weren’t strong, you weren’t a man, you were just like her. And then you just up and left after high school, believed you’d escaped me. Well, I was sick of you, I wanted you out of there.