Nick cut the distance to the fleeing car by half as he locked up the brakes, threw the car into a sidespin, and made the turn less than an eighth of a mile behind what he now identified as a blue Chevrolet Impala. He pinned the gas and raced up to within thirty yards of his prey, but Julia’s killer wasn’t about to give up so easily; he accelerated down the hill, his car going airborne several inches as he negotiated the sudden dips and descents of the hilly road.
Nick drove harder. They were less than half a mile from Route 128, a road filled with too many choices to count, too many ways out, too many chances for the killer to escape before Nick could identify him.
Ten yards away now, he saw the license plate-Z8JP9-committing it to memory. Nick was thankful for the heavy-duty engine of the Lexus as it roared toward the Impala. Like most SUVs, it was designed to be pushed, to be driven off-road in more extreme conditions than a normal car, but usually they were only driven by housewives on trips to the market or soccer games. But despite its design, it was never meant for a high-speed chase like the one Nick was in now, where tipping over was a real possibility.
And all at once, Nick was upon them, the Impala just inches away, but he didn’t stop, he rammed the back of the car at full speed, jolting himself forward. He braked for a second, easing off, and hit the accelerator again, this time pulling up alongside and ramming into the rear fender of the Chevy. Nick eased off a moment before his next charge.
A sharp turn was approaching. On its far side, less than a quarter mile away, was the access onto Route 128. He had only one more chance.
Nick turned into the oncoming lane-the inside of the sharp turn-praying to God no one was coming the other way or he would no doubt be killed and Julia’s life would truly end on the floor of their mudroom.
Nick accelerated through the turn, the Impala right alongside him. He didn’t look inside, he didn’t risk losing focus on his driving. He threw the wheel hard right, slamming the assailant into the stone wall on the right side of the road. And the driver lost it, his car, traveling over sixty, began to fishtail, and both rear tires blew out, sending the Chevy into a spin. The car jumped the curb, crashing into a tree, its front end wrapping around the trunk.
Without thought, without care, Nick hit the gas and rammed the rear end of the car for good measure, his airbag exploding in his face, sending him hurling back against his seat.
He quickly pushed the deflating bag aside, ignoring the small burns on his face from its deployment, and rolled out of his car onto the ground, gun in hand, the safety off. He crawled toward the Impala, which was wedged at an angle into the tree and wall. Fuel was leaking, coolant hissed, steam poured from the hood.
From his vantage point on the ground, he peered up into the car. While he wanted to kill the driver, lay the pistol up against his head, exacting revenge as judge and jury, unloading his remaining bullets into this killer’s brain, he remained focused on what he really needed to do. He needed to identify this man if he was to have any chance of stopping him in the past.
On his belly, Nick crawled up to the passenger side, next to the stone wall. Peering up, he saw the deployed airbags, the fat older man unconscious in the passenger seat. Nick slowly rose up on his knees, looking at the steering wheel, at the driver’s-side airbag, but finding the driver’s seat empty.
Gunfire exploded in his ear, ricocheting off the tree. Nick rolled down and scrambled to the destroyed front end of the car, where billowing steam rolled up into clouds, obscuring his position.
Gunfire whizzed by his ears, peppering the stone wall, shattering the bark of the tree, a shredding fusillade of bullets inching down toward his position. He was pinned tight. To his left was the eight-foot wall, behind him the tree. His only ways out were over the hood of the crashed car on his right, into the open, or back out the way he came. Either way led square into the killer’s sights.
Nick lay flat on the ground, pressing his body into the torn dirt and grass, and looked underneath the vehicle. On the other side, by the rear left tire, he could clearly see the man’s muddy loafers squared off in a shooting stance, and without hesitation, Nick aimed and fired three shots, hitting the man square in the shin.
The shooter tumbled to the ground, screaming in agony. Nick leaped up and raced out of his captive position, taking cover behind Julia’s Lexus.
The killer fired haphazardly at him, six shots in rapid succession, until Nick heard the telltale click: out of ammo. He had him.
As Nick rounded the car, he saw a small, metal pick-gun lying in the mud by the driver’s-side door, looking like a cross between a staple gun and a toothbrush, Nick realized how the man had opened the locked door into his mudroom without a key.
Beside it was the Colt Peacemaker, its six cylinders smoldering and spent. With Nick chasing him down, the killer had had no time to plant the weapon, to set Nick up.
The sight of the ornate weapon angered him. That this man would set him up for the murder of his own wife infuriated Nick no end, but as he thought on the moment, he knew the future was already changing, there would be no gun in Nick’s car to tie him to the murder, and soon, there would be no murder at all.
Nick approached the man, finding him on his belly next to the wrecked Impala, his back rising in deep wounded breaths. The man’s dark hair, caked in blood, poked out from underneath a New York Mets baseball cap, his left arm broken from the car crash, cantilevered out at an odd angle. He gripped his now-useless nine- millimeter pistol in his right hand, as his left leg extended out bullet-shattered and bloody.
Nick slowly knelt beside him. He reached out and grabbed him by the back collar of his shirt, catching a silver chain between his fingers, the holy medal of St. Christopher now dangling from his clenched fist.
Nick did everything he could to restrain himself from killing the man, breathing a sigh of relief with the first completed step toward saving Julia. And for the moment he felt hope rise up. Against all logic, he knew that he just might be able to bring Julia back.
Nick tilted the killer’s head toward him, to finally lay eyes on the man who had just killed his wife…
But before his face came into view, before he could identify Julia’s assassin…
Nick’s world went black.
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.
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.
