The 13-Minute Murder

by James Patterson

  “Doesn’t matter,” I say. “This is family-only. Either we’re all in, or we’re all out. Right on our asses, too.”

  My brothers and sisters-in-law chew on that. So do Nick and J.D., two retired Marines Stevie served with in the Middle East so long ago, who became as close as blood. Especially in recent years, they’d become like big brothers to Alex, taking him on hunting and fishing trips for some critical male bonding. They were in the second row at his funeral, two burly ex-soldiers dabbing at their eyes.

  I explain one final time exactly what I’m proposing. My plan is a long haul with short odds. It might cost us everything. But doing nothing definitely would.

  After a tense silence that feels like it goes on forever…

  “In,” Stevie says simply. Marines don’t mince their words.

  “Semper fi,” says Nick, stepping forward. He and J.D. both give stiff salutes.

  Kim clasps her husband’s hand. “That makes four, then.”

  Debbie nervously twirls her yellow locks, blinking, unsure. I like Debbie—or, should I say, I’ve grown to like her. We probably wouldn’t be friends if she weren’t married to my brother. Debbie’s sweet, but timid. Tries a little too hard to please. She’d rather go with the flow than rock the boat, especially when her husband’s in it. She looks to Hank for guidance; she doesn’t get it. So she does something surprising. She goes with her gut.

  “This place, after all these years…it’s become my home, too. I’ll do it.”

  Hank throws up his hands. He’s the final holdout.

  “You’re asking me to pick my family or my conscience. You understand that?”

  My eyes flutter to a framed, faded photograph on the wall of Alex at age six. He’s sitting in a tire swing hanging from the branch of a giant oak tree on our farm, smiling a gap-toothed grin. He looks so little. So happy. So innocent.

  So alive.

  “Sounds like an easy choice to me,” I say.

  At last, with a heavy sigh, Hank nods. He’s in, too.

  And so the vote is unanimous. My plan is a go.

  “Just one little problem,” Debbie says nervously, bending down now to pick up the pieces of the antique plate her husband broke.

  “Where are we gonna get seventy-five grand to pull this thing off?”

  5 minutes, 35 seconds

  In the ten weeks since my son died, I’ve probably slept less than ten hours.

  During the days I’m bone-tired, shuffling from room to room like a zombie. But at night, rest rarely comes. I toss. I turn. I pray. I cry.

  My mind keeps replaying my every memory of Alex over and over on a loop. But they’re never chronological. They always jump around.

  First I might remember watching him when he walked across the stage in his adorable little cap and gown for his kindergarten “graduation” ten years ago.

  Then I might think of the joyful look on his face the time he scored a winning goal for his junior-high soccer team.

  Then I might see him taking his first tottering steps in the kitchen of our farmhouse.

  The same farmhouse my family and I have lived in for decades upon decades.

  The same one that could be taken away from us very soon.

  Right now I’m lying in bed, sweating through the sheets thanks to the west Texas air, still blasting strong at 1:10 a.m., according to the old clock radio next to my bed.

  But I’m not thinking about Alex.

  Instead I’m jumpy with nerves. My entire family, nuclear and extended, blood and not, has just agreed to my “hell of a plan.” It still hasn’t fully sunk in. Tomorrow we start putting it into—

  Hang on. I hear something. Outside. A metal clank, distant but distinct.

  Having been awake most nights for over two months, I’ve gotten familiar with the sounds at these hours. Like crickets. The occasional coyote howl. Other than that, there aren’t any sounds. Our farmhouse sits on ten secluded acres.

  Maybe it’s just an animal. Or maybe…it’s an intruder? Or maybe I’m just hearing things, my mind is just playing—

  Clank.

  There it is again. I have to find out what it is.

  I slip out of bed and into some slippers. Then I creep down the hall.

  I pad right past the shut door of Alex’s room, which I haven’t set foot in since the day he died. I don’t know when I will again. Maybe never.

  I reach Stevie and Kim’s bedroom, give the door a knock, then slowly push it open. (They moved back in about two years ago, after Stevie’s hours at the oil refinery were cut, to help defray living expenses for all of us.)

  Kim is dozing soundly, but next to her is empty space. Great. He’s probably out with Hank, Nick, and J.D., tossing back a few, something they’ve been doing more lately to help numb their grief. But what’s the point of having your retired Marine big brother sleep under the same roof as you if he’s not sleeping there when you need him?

  Fine, I’ll do it myself.

  I tiptoe downstairs and head for the kitchen. I pass through the doorway, which is “decorated” up and down with lines marking various Rourke family members’ heights over the years. And not just Alex’s. Mine and my brothers’. My late father, John. My aunt Anna and cousins Matthew and Jacob. Generations of us.

  But I don’t have time to be sentimental. Not now.

  Not when I’m in danger.

  An emergency flashlight sits on top of our old, humming refrigerator. Wedged behind the fridge is an even older Ruger bolt-action hunting rifle.

  I take both.

  I unlock the front door, step outside, flip on the flashlight, and survey our driveway and front yard. Everything looks normal. All sounds quiet. I exhale, relieved. Maybe I’m so exhausted, I really am starting to—

  Clank.

  No, there it is again. I’m sure of it. Coming from behind the farmhouse.

  Gripping the flashlight and gun tightly, I slowly stalk around the side of the house, trying to crunch the dry grass as little as possible so as not to give away my position.

  I reach the backyard now, where I haven’t been in weeks. No sign of anyone. Not near the house, at least. But then my flashlight glints suddenly off something metal and blue leaning against the back porch.

  It’s Alex’s dirt bike, untouched in ten weeks.

  A lump forms in my throat. The pain is still so fresh. But I quickly push it out of my mind—when I hear another clank echo from farther out on the property.

  I start following the dirt path that winds along the fields, toward our old barn. Crickets bombard my ears. Mosquitoes gnaw at my face. But I keep going, rifle aimed and ready…even when I reach the old tire swing hanging from that giant oak tree. The site of that framed picture of Alex I love so much. My eyes burn.…

  But I hear yet another clank. Even louder now.

  I’m getting close. But to what?

  Finally I see something strange. Light. Coming from inside our ancient woodshed, peeking through the cracks. The shed is rotting and practically falling apart. Plus, it doesn’t have a power line running to it—so where’s the light coming from?

  I carefully approach. The door is open just a crack. I hear the hum of a diesel generator powering what I think is a set of work lamps. I can barely make out a male figure, backlit, hunched over what looks like a bumper.

  I’m so confused. A strange car? A generator? What the hell is it?

  I ready my rifle—when I accidentally bump the door with the muzzle.

  The figure spins around. I get ready to shoot.

  It’s my brother.

  “Stevie?” I say, throwing open the door, just as surprised as he is.

  “Jesus, Molly! I almost jumped out of my skin.”

  I enter the shed and look around. Up on cinder blocks is what appears to be a 1990s-model Ford Taurus, a silvery blue, badly rusted one. Its hood is open, its engine in a state of chaos, tubes and wires lying everywhere.

  “What the hell is all this? It’s one o’clock in the morning!”


  Stevie glances down at his watch. “1:15,” he says a little sheepishly.

  Has it only been a few minutes since I crept out of bed? It feels like closer to an hour.

  Stevie looks away and starts wiping grease off his hands with an old rag. He seems embarrassed, like a little boy caught sneaking candy before dinner.

  “I…I don’t understand, Stevie. Whose car is this? Where did it come from? What were you…?”

  I trail off when I start to piece it together.

  Alex’s sixteenth birthday is—well, was—just a few months away. He’d be getting his driver’s license.

  And metallic-blue was his favorite color.

  That lump in my throat comes back with a vengeance.

  “Buddy of mine from the refinery had it sitting on his front lawn,” Stevie explains. “Few months ago, I gave him a hundred bucks for it. When Alex was at school one day, and you were off at the market or somewhere, I had it towed. Then me and Hank pushed it into the shed. I’ve been working on it here and there since.”

  Stevie pauses, then somberly runs his hand along the rusty blue siding, like a horseman saying good-bye to a beloved steed that has to be put down.

  “I was gonna surprise him. Surprise both of y’all. But tonight…after we talked…I couldn’t sleep, either. Figured I should finally start stripping it for parts.”

  I know my brother isn’t much of a hugger, but I can’t help myself. I wrap my arms around his giant frame and hang on as tight as I can. He embraces me back.

  “He would’ve loved it so much,” I say.

  We pull apart, a little awkwardly. Stevie looks at his watch. “I should probably get some shut-eye. I can finish this up over the weekend.”

  But as he starts putting away his tools, I look over the car and get an idea.

  “Not so fast,” I say. “You really think you can get her running again?”

  Stevie nods.

  “’Cause you heard my plan,” I continue. “First thing we’re gonna need…is a getaway car.”

  4 minutes, 25 seconds

  I’d never aimed a gun at another person before.

  “This ain’t a toy, Molly,” my father told me the very first time he taught me to shoot, passing his old Smith & Wesson Model 10 from his rough, giant hands into my soft, tiny ones. “Unless your life’s in danger, don’t never point it at nobody. Hear me? Else I’ll slap you so hard, your pretty eyes will pop right out of your skull.”

  It was a warning I never forgot.

  As I hold that same S&W now, feeling the cold wooden grip in my palm, I can hear my father’s words. What would he think if he knew what I was planning?

  I wasn’t just about to point the weapon at another person.

  I was going to wave it around at many.

  And threaten their lives.

  “It worked!” Hank exclaims, a nervous grin creeping across his face.

  Of course it did. I thought of the idea myself.

  Hank is sitting in the driver’s seat of a recently refurbished 1992 silver-blue Ford Taurus that has since been repainted black and has had its license plates removed and VIN numbers all scratched off. “They’re calling in backup,” he continues. “Y’all should go now if—”

  “Hush,” snaps Stevie, from the back.

  We’re all listening closely to a police scanner resting on the dash. I can’t make heads or tails of all the squawking and static. Thankfully my brothers and Nick and J.D. can. And apparently, they like what they hear.

  “Here comes the cavalry,” says J.D.

  And just like that, I hear a distant police siren. Then another. Then the glaring whine of a fire truck. The shrill alarm of an ambulance.

  More voices crackle over the scanner, frantic. I manage to pick out a few words: “courthouse,” “suspicious package,” “evacuation,” “all available units.”

  “Masks on,” Stevie orders. “Now we go. And remember: in and out, four minutes. Just like we practiced.”

  The five of us don the cheap rubber Halloween masks we’ve been holding, each the cartoonish face of a different former president. Me, Stevie, Hank, J.D., and Nick become Lincoln, Washington, Nixon, Reagan, and Kennedy.

  Hank stays behind the wheel of the parked car as the rest of us get out. I’m tingling with nerves as we cross the quiet street. And ready our weapons.

  Five ex-presidents are about to rob a bank.

  We burst in through the Key Bank’s front entrance—and Stevie immediately blasts a deafening round of buckshot into the ceiling.

  “Hands up and keep ’em high!”

  We quickly spread out and take our positions, just like we’d rehearsed multiple times in the old barn back on our farm, three big counties away.

  People scream and panic—but obey.

  Nick barks at the young, dumb security guard: “That means everybody!”

  The kid must be barely out of high school—just a few years older than Alex was, I can’t help but think. The way his baggy uniform hangs off his rail-thin frame, he looks like a child playing dress-up with his daddy’s clothes. He flashes Nick a filthy look but meekly raises his hands.

  So far, so good.

  “Start emptying your drawers,” Stevie orders the three tellers. J.D. tosses each of them a burlap sack.

  Then my brother turns to the stunned branch manager, a sweaty middle-aged Hispanic man in a cheap tan suit and bolo tie. “We’re gonna go open the vault.”

  Stevie accentuates his point with a pump of his shotgun.

  “Not a problem,” the manager gulps, then adds with a shaky smile, “Mr. President.” He and Stevie disappear into the back office.

  J.D. watches over the tellers hurriedly stuffing cash into the brown bags.

  Me and Nick keep our guns on everyone else, all frozen like statues reaching toward the sky. I realize the pimply-faced security guard’s pistol is sitting in its holster.…

  But it’s the patrons I’m worried about more. After all, this is Texas. I’d bet a few are packing concealed heat.

  Last thing we need is for one of them to decide to use it.

  Through the eye slits of my hot, sticky rubber Lincoln mask, I keep scanning these fifteen or so unlucky folks. The older African-American married couple, the man whispering comforting words to his whimpering wife. The trashy-beautiful young white girl, maybe a cocktail waitress, maybe a stripper, still wearing her stilettos from the night before, holding the wad of one-dollar bills she was planning on depositing. The sixty-something balding fat man with the suspicious bulge under his leather jacket, and the darting eyes of a military veteran.

  Any one of these people could mean trouble. (The sight of any mothers with children in the bank would be the kind of trouble I don’t know if I could handle.) I keep scanning the group, looking for the tiniest hint of it. Praying I don’t see it.

  Then two more police sirens echo in the distance.

  “Did one of y’all hit your panic button?!” J.D. angrily asks the tellers.

  The bankers shake their heads. Yet they and the customers look hopeful as a cop car whizzes by outside…but keeps driving. J.D. smirks.

  “’Course one of you did. Probably all of you. But it don’t matter. Plainview PD’s a little tied up right now.”

  Still, I steal a glance at my watch. Since we left the car, it’s been three minutes, twenty-six seconds. In and out in four, tops—that was how we practiced it. Distracted across town or not, the law is going to show up eventually.

  And if they do, God help us.

  What in the hell is taking Stevie so long in the vault?

  My breathing starts to pick up. The sweat on my brow I can’t wipe away stings my eyes. This plan—my plan—was supposed to be foolproof.…

  “Let’s roll!” I hear my older brother shout.

  Finally.

  Still holding the manager at gunpoint, Stevie emerges from the back office. A small black duffel bag, bulging with bills, is slung over his shoulder.

  “Pass ’em over,
come on!” J.D. commands the tellers, quickly collecting the burlap sacks.

  Nick and I give the cowering patrons and jittery security guard one final look.

  Then the presidential bandits head for the entrance.

  Holy shit, I think. We pulled off step one!

  Outside, the coast looks clear. Hank is just rolling up in the black Taurus.

  The vehicle that was supposed to be my son’s first ride…is now our getaway car.

  I push open the bank’s door.…We’re so close.…

  When I hear behind us a trembling voice—and the chambering of a bullet.

  “Don’t move or, or…I’ll shoot!”

  15 seconds

  I stop in my tracks and glance back. We all do.

  Goddamnit.

  That scrawny security guard had decided to play hero.

  “Bad move, son,” says Stevie, real low, turning slowly around.

  “I said don’t…don’t move! I swear I…I’ll shoot all of y’all!”

  It’s five against one. Not likely. But the black SIG Sauer in the guard’s freckled hands is shaking so much, I’m worried he might drop it—and God knows who a stray round might hit or what might happen next.

  I hate to admit it, but part of me feels almost bad for this young man. Maybe it’s my maternal instincts. Maybe it’s how close in age he is to Alex. I know he’s standing in our way to freedom. I know he could ruin everything. But still…

  “Put…put down your weapons!” he stammers.

  Stevie raises his voice. “Gonna give you one more chance to let us walk.”

  But the guard doesn’t blink. “No, see, I’m gonna give you one more chance—”

  “We ain’t got time for this shit!” J.D. snaps.

  He’s right. Every second we waste…

  And Stevie knows it. So he acts fast.

  In a flash, he drops to his knees and takes aim at the guard over his duffel bag.

  The guard panics and shoots—clear over Stevie’s head—shattering one of the glass doors behind us.