Eleventh Hour

“My bones wouldn’t jump back,” Dane said. He felt slight nausea now even though his arm throbbed only a bit. The nurse had shot him up with Demerol. Whatever it was, it was working.

“We’re going back to our Holiday I

“All right,” Lou said, “but you can expect everyone to come over and see for themselves what happened.”

“Oh dear,” Nick said. “We’ll be needing another car.”

“Not to worry,” Lou said. “Bo is already working on it. You’ll have another car there within a couple of hours, guaranteed.”

“You could have been killed. Very easily.”

“Let it go, Nick. It’s my job. The arm will be fine in just a few days, according to Bo, who, according to Lou, has reason to know. How are your hands?”

She waved that away. “I don’t want you to get killed.”

“I won’t. Drop it. Give me one of those egg rolls. Oh, dip it first. Thank you.”

She watched him eat. It was dark, almost seven o’clock in the evening. They’d been alone only for the past four minutes. Savich and Sherlock were the last to leave, Sherlock saying, “Remember, we’re two doors down, in twenty-three, and it’s the same phone number. Enjoy the Chinese.”

“You need another pain pill,” Nick said when she realized he wasn’t going to eat any more. She fetched him one from the bottle on the dresser.

She didn’t even take the chance that he’d try to be macho, just shoved it in his mouth and handed him a glass of water.

“That should help you sleep. You need rest, not any more talk.” She stood up and stretched, then began pacing the small room, to the door and back again.

“That was really much too close.”

“No,” Dane said, shaking his head, “that bullet old Milton fired in the church was much closer.”

“How many more times can we be lucky?”

“This second time wasn’t entirely luck,” Dane said.

“Yeah, yeah, you’re Superman.”

He said, “Promise me you won’t run, Nick.”

“Listen, you, I want you to stop looking into my head.”

“You’re real easy to read, at least right now. Ru

She said, “Well, I’m not a jerk, so I won’t leave you while you’re down. So stop trying to figure out how you can get your paws on some handcuffs.”

“Thank you,” he said, and closed his eyes. At least Savich had gotten him out of his clothes. He was wearing a white undershirt and sweatpants, no socks. He liked to feel the sheets against his toes. Nick pulled the single sheet to his chest, then straightened it over him.

He had nearly died because of her.

TWENTY-FOUR

She heard him unlock the front door, walk into the large entrance hall, and pause a moment to hang up his coat. She heard him mumbling something to himself about some contributor. When he walked into the living room, where she sat in one of the sleek pale brown leather chairs, his face went still, then lit up.

“Nicola, what a wonderful surprise. I was going to call you the minute I got my coat off. You lit the fireplace, that’s good. It’s very cold outside.”

She rose slowly, stood there, staring at him, wondering what was in his mind, what he was really thinking when he looked at her.

“What’s wrong? Oh God, did something else happen to you? No one told me a thing, no one-”

“No, nothing more happened. Well, actually, I did get a letter from your ex-wife, warning me that you are trying to kill me because you believe I’m sleeping with Elliott Benson.”

“From who? You got a letter from Cleo?”

“That’s right. She wrote to tell me you believe I’m sleeping with Elliott Benson, that you believed she slept with him, too.”

“Of course you’re not sleeping with him. Good God, Nicola, you won’t even sleep with me. Besides, he’s old enough to be your father.”

“So are you.”

“Don’t talk like that. I’m nowhere near that old. You know I’ve wanted to sleep with you, for months now, but you put me off, and now you’ve begun to back away from me.”

“Yes, I have, but that’s not what’s important here, John.”

“Yes, I agree. Now, what’s this nonsense about a letter from Cleo? That’s impossible, you know that. She’s long gone, not with Elliott Benson, for God’s sake, but with Tod Gambol, that bastard I trusted for eight long years. What the hell is this about?”

“I got the letter just a little while ago. She warned me that you would try to kill me, just like you did her. She told me to run, just like she ran. I want to know what this is all about, too, John. She makes serious accusations. She wrote about your mother’s supposed accidental death, and the death of your college sweetheart-both car accidents. Her name was Melissa.”

His face flushed with anger, but when he spoke, his voice was calm, like a reasoned, sympathetic leader reassuring a constituent, the consummate politician. “This is nonsense. Ridiculous nonsense. I don’t know who wrote you a letter accusing me of all this, but it wasn’t Cleo. She’s been gone for three years, not a single word from her. There’s no reason she’d write to you, for God’s sake. As I recall she didn’t even like you. I think she was jealous of you because, truth be told, even back then I thought you were wonderful. Don’t get me wrong. I loved Cleo, loved her very much, but I thought you were bright and so very eager and enthusiastic.”

She wasn’t about to go there. Yeah, she thought, she probably would have licked his shoes in those days, if he’d wanted her to. She said, “John, I could have dismissed this letter as a crank, but there was more.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“She included several pages from your journal.”

“My journal? Why would she do that?”

“She said she found it by accident one day in your library safe. She read it, read your confession about killing Melissa. It’s right here, John, in your handwriting. How many women have you killed?”

He stood stiff as the fireplace poker, just three feet behind her, close enough to grab to protect herself if she needed to. He said slowly, his pupils dilated, “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Nicola. I have a journal, but writing something like that? What, as a joke? It’s absurd. No, wait. Did Albia put you up to this?”

“Oh no, John, no joke. No Albia either. No, don’t come any closer to me. Not even a single step. You see this?” She waved three pieces of paper at him. “This is Cleo’s letter to me and two pages she copied from your journal. This is from the woman I knew when I first came to work for your reelection campaign, a woman I liked very much. When she left you, I believed, like the rest of the world, that you were devastated, but she tells me that she ran for her life. I remember how everyone felt so very sorry for you. No, stay back, John!”

He never looked away from the pages she held. She saw he wanted those pages, wanted them badly. He said, “Yes, Cleo left me, you knew that, Nicola. If you’ll show me the letter, show me those ridiculous journal pages, I’ll be able to prove that it’s not even from Cleo. Really, that’s quite impossible.”

“I don’t see why it’s impossible. And yes, actually, it is from Cleo. I know her handwriting. God knows I read enough of her memos when I was volunteering. She wrote that you not only tried to kill her-that’s the reason she ran, because of the journal-but you’re trying to kill me because you believe I’m sleeping with Elliott Benson.

“Again, John, how many women have you killed?”

“For God’s sake, Nicola. Somebody else wrote you that letter, someone who copied her handwriting, someone who hates me, wants to destroy us. Someone made up those journal pages. Don’t let that happen, Nicola. Let me see that letter. Give it to me.”