A Moment in Time (53 page)

      
The heavy thud of Luke Nolan's heart played a funeral dirge. Footsteps echoed through the tunnel, keeping time with his pulse as if the entire proceeding were meticulously choreographed.

 
      
Music to fry by.

      
His hands were cuffed, and chains linked his ankles, their rhythmic chink, chink, chink punctuating his death march. Everything seemed magnified, in slow motion. Surreal neon lighting provided the finishing touch.

      
Looking around, he counted one woman–the prison doctor who would pronounce him dead–and eight men.
How many assholes does it take to execute Luke Nolan?
 

      
He almost laughed. Hell, he should laugh. Eleven years rotting on death row should give him that right. So much for the Court of Appeals and a pitiful excuse for a public defender.

      
How do you plead?

      
Not guilty.

      
And no one had believed him, including his so-called attorney.

      
The prison chaplain appeared at Luke's side, an open Bible clutched in his hands as they continued the long walk to the execution chamber. Luke was beyond prayer, but it couldn't hurt. Maybe, just maybe...

      
Get over it. You're dead meat, Nolan.

      
He banished hope from his mind and heart as the heavy doors opened before them. It was freezing cold, in absolute contrast to what he'd soon feel.

      
Luke swallowed the lump in his throat, commanding himself not to reveal his fear. These sons of bitches wanted him to fry, and there wasn't a frigging thing he could do to prevent it, but he'd be damned before he'd give them the satisfaction of seeing his terror. No matter how real...

      
"Would you like last rites, Luke?" the chaplain asked.

      
For a moment, Luke met the man's gaze. The expression in the priest's aging eyes left no doubt he disapproved of these proceedings. "Nah, that's all right, Father. Too late for me."

      
"I've always believed in your innocence," he whispered. "I'll pray for your soul, my son. Is there anyone you'd like me to call?"

      
"No thanks, Father."
 
So there was one person in the whole world who actually believed him. One. "Tell my grandma..."

      
"Yes?"

      
"Never mind."
 
Luke released a long sigh. "She wouldn't even believe you. Thanks just the same, Father."

      
Raised by his devoutly Catholic grandparents, Luke Nolan had been a kid from Denver, in the wrong place at the wrong time. Tough, cool, cocky as hell...

      
And gullible.
 

      
Eleven years ago, he'd followed Ricky–a punk from nowhere with no last name–into that liquor store believing they were after a fresh six-pack. One minute they were joking around. A few seconds later, Ricky pulled a gun on the old man behind the counter.

      
The crotchety old fart triggered an alarm before Ricky could clean out the register. Enraged by the man's nerve, Ricky shot the clerk between the eyes and ran, leaving both his gun and Luke behind.

      
Luke was a wild kid, but not a killer. He'd never even owned a piece, for Christ's sake. But when the cops rushed in and found him on his knees with a rag pressed to the man's bloody forehead, it was a done deal.
 

      
No witnesses and no prints on the gun–just an eighteen-year-old punk who'd already found plenty of trouble in his young life. Luke was arrested, tried and convicted practically before the victim drew his last breath.
 

      
Eleven years. Luke sighed and looked around the room–anything to keep him from fixating on the chair. Public outrage over capital punishment had delayed his execution countless times. With so many idle hours on his hands, he'd even managed to earn his college degree.

      
After the raging hormones of adolescence had loosened their grip on his sanity, Luke discovered a new side to himself. If his appeal had ever came through, he'd intended to complete his Master's and teach high school. Hell, maybe he could've prevented a few punks from ending up like him.
 

      
Idealistic bastard.

      
Bitterness settled in his gut like acid and he swallowed the bile that burned his throat. Hell, at least getting his degree had kept him busy.

      
"I have something for you," the priest said, jerking Luke back to the present. "Your grandfather wrote a–"

      
"My grandfather
died
three years ago."
 
Disbelief and the pain of remembrance sliced through Luke. His pulse escalated to a jarring thud in his ears as he recalled his grandmother's words when she'd phoned with the news. She'd accused him of murdering the old man with shame.
 

      
The priest lowered his gaze for a moment, then drew a deep breath, reached into his pocket and withdrew an envelope. "Your grandmother sent this yesterday. Your grandfather left instructions that you were to have it if..."

      
Luke gnashed his teeth, hoping the noise might blot out the memory of his last visit from his grandfather. Albert Nolan was the only man in the world Luke had ever truly respected. That respect had given the old man power–too damned much power.
 

 
      
With shaking fingers, Luke took the envelope, swallowing the lump in his throat. "Thanks, Father."
 
It wasn't the priest's fault that Luke had once cared enough for someone to make himself vulnerable to this kind of pain.
 

      
"What's that?" Warden Graham stopped in front of Luke and snatched the envelope.

      
"It's only a letter from the boy's grandfather," the priest explained, sighing.
 

      
With a smirk, Graham looked at the envelope, then returned it to Luke. "Make it quick."

      
Luke refused to meet the warden's gaze, knowing he'd find a malicious gleam in those accusing eyes. After the warden turned and walked away, Luke opened the envelope and unfolded the single page to view his grandfather's spidery scrawl. His vision blurred, but he blinked several times to clear it, then noted the ten-year-old date at the top of the page–the same day Luke's death sentence was handed down.

      
You shamed me. I will go to my grave grieving the end of the Nolan name. I hereby disown you.
 
Albert Nolan.

      
Neatly, Luke refolded the page and returned it to the envelope. "Will you destroy this for me later, Father?" He cleared his throat and tried not to see the pity so obvious in the priest's faded gray eyes.

      
"Of course, my son."
 
He sighed. "I'm sorry."

      
"Don't be, Father," Luke said, looking beyond the priest's white hair to the stark walls of the chamber. "Don't be."

      
Then a prickling sensation on the back of his neck told him someone was watching him. He looked up and met the doctor's anxious gaze. She looked nervous as hell as she tucked a dark curl behind one ear. Something sparkled on her cheek and she brushed it away with the back of her hand. Tears?
Fat chance
. No one would cry for him.

      
"It's time," a rough voice said from behind the priest.
 

      
"I hate this," the woman said loud enough for everyone to hear. "Why won't you let me ex–"

      
"Too late now, Doctor," the warden said, rubbing his chest.

      
"But you can't do–"

      
"All you have to do is tell us when it's over and sign the death certificate."
 
The warden turned his back on the doctor and approached Luke again. "Now I can retire knowing I did my job right," he said, his eyes glinting with malicious victory before he walked away.

      
Luke drew a deep breath, deciding not to waste it on a response. The warden's wishes had been obvious for years. Swift justice.
Yeah, right. Justice
.
      
 

      
"Go with God, my son," the chaplain said quietly. As he backed away murmuring in outdated Latin, he made the sign of the cross toward Luke. A blessing.

      
Once upon a time, Luke would've understood the words. Now, too late, he wished he could remember their meaning. He wished so damned many things, but he dared not think of his grandfather again. Anything but that.

      
Defeated, he pushed away thoughts of the priest and all things religious. This was the end–he had to face it. Resolutely, he forced his gaze back to the vehicle for his one way trip to hell. It looked like something from Dr. Frankenstein's lab. A moment later, two men led him to the chair, replaced the chains and handcuffs with automatic restraints, then placed electrodes on his shaved head and one leg.

      
The sick part of him had wanted–needed–to know exactly what would happen today, so he'd researched the fine art of electrocution in preparation for the big event. These innocuous little electrodes would send two thousand volts of current blasting through his body. Nineteen hundred degrees fahrenheit. His eyeballs would pop out of their sockets, and his face and appendages would become hideously contorted and disfigured. The stench of his burning flesh–inside and out–would permeate the chamber.

      
The burning flesh of an innocent man...

      
The condemned usually defecated and urinated after the current had done its job. Pity he'd be too far gone by then to witness his executioners' gagging and retching. They'd know soon enough why Luke Nolan had requested a hot and nasty burrito for his last meal.

      
Another man rushed into the room, his face flushed and his breathing labored. Luke couldn't prevent a surge of hope, and he exchanged a questioning glance with the priest. Could this be a last minute reprieve?
 

      
"We got a bomb threat and we're evacuating," the man said.
      
"Not a chance. We'll be finished in a few minutes," the warden said. "Those bleeding hearts don't see a damn thing wrong with blowing us to hell and back, but they cry cruelty at simple justice."

      
Last year, when a particularly aggressive activist organization had threatened to prevent Luke's execution by any means necessary, the authorities had transferred him to a brand new, underground facility far up in the mountains. He didn't even know exactly where they were–some new prison with high-tech equipment for ridding the world of scum like him. The maximum security facility was built into a mountain like NORAD. It wasn't even officially open yet, and as far as he knew, he was the one and only prisoner.
 

      
Soon, there would be none.

      
Compassion filled the priest's eyes, and Luke jerked his gaze away, hating himself for hoping, even for a moment. "Just get it over with," he muttered, grinding his teeth. He refused to beg for his miserable life.

      
The doctor stood beside the priest, more tears trickling unheeded down her cheeks. Everyone deserved at least one mourner when they died, and now Luke had two more than he'd expected.

      
Except for the doctor's murmuring to the priest, an obscene silence fell over the room as the head fry cook pulled a black hood over Luke's face. The mournful wail of sirens sounded in the distance as thunder rumbled to a roar then faded, only to return even louder. Closer. Not thunder, Luke realized. Explosions.
 

 
      
The first searing jolt tore through his body and he screamed. Unbearable pain... If the current failed to kill him, insanity would finish the job. No human could endure such pain and live.
 

 
      
The chaplain reverted to English and Luke clung to the familiar words above the boom of another explosion. Pandemonium erupted around him just as the next surge plundered through him.
      
This time he didn't scream. Instead, he could've sworn he heard his own desperate voice join the priest's.

      
Our Father, who art in Heaven...