Eleventh Hour (24 page)

“She’s above just an ordinary special agent,” Dane said and sucked in his breath when the nurse jabbed a needle into his right arm.

“That’s your tetanus shot,” Dr. Martinez said. “Now, just one more for the pain. It should keep you smiling for a good four hours. And you’re going to need some pain pills, enough for three days. Don’t be a macho, take them.”

“He’ll take them,” Nick said, her bandaged hands on her hips, as if ready to belt him if he got out of line.

She was still wearing his bloody jacket. She looked ridiculous.

The nurse said something and the doctor nodded. “Since you’re not his wife, you need to step out, ma’

am. She’s got to give him a shot in the butt.”

“I’ve seen a lot of him already,” Nick said, “but not his butt.”

When Dane walked out of the cubicle, his left arm well bandaged and in a dark blue sling, he was trying to get his pants fastened with just his right hand.

Nick shoved his hand out of the way. “Hold still.” She zipped the pants the rest of the way up, fastened the button, then got his belt notched. “There, you’ll do.” She smirked, no other word for it. “Hey, did you have Dr. Martinez check the teeth marks on your shoulder?”

“He said I didn’t have to worry about infection, the antibiotic should cover the teeth marks, too. If you’re rabid, that could, however, be a problem.”

She smiled, a small, stingy one, but still something of a smile. She straightened in front of him, studied his face for a long time. She picked out the last of the glass and stroked her fingers through his hair to neaten it. “You’re pale, but not bad. Thank you for handling that so well, Dane. I owe you.”

“Yeah,” he said. “You do.” He leaned down, kissed her, then straightened again. “Debt paid.”

She laughed, looked off-kilter for a moment, which pleased him, then took off his jacket and draped it over his back. He was about to kiss her again when Lou came up. “Everything’s taken care of. Everyone

’s excited to have a real FBI agent in here with a bullet wound. They get LAPD occasionally, but never a Fed. I think that woman over behind that desk wants to jump your bones, Dane.”

“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 Inn and I’m going to watch Dane rest until tonight.”

“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. Running won’t help you. You do realize that, don’t you?”

His brain was stalling out, working slower, beginning to fuzz around the edges. He couldn’t be certain he’

d make any sense in another minute. He felt bone tired, his body and his brain closing down.

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

CHICAGO

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.”

Nicola took a step back. She was nearly against the fireplace now. She felt the heat of the flames against her back. She said, “Cleo wrote that she doesn’t want me to die. She wrote that I should run, just like she did. She didn’t want to die either.”

“This is utterly ridiculous.” He looked dazed, as if he couldn’t quite grasp what she was saying, and all through it, he was staring at those pages in her hand. “Let me see that goddamned letter.”

“No, you’ll destroy it and the journal pages. I can’t allow you to do that.”

“All right, all right. Listen to me. I didn’t kill anyone—not my mother, not Melissa, not anyone. That’s just insane.” Still he stared at those sheets of paper, his pupils sharp black points of light, his face as white as his beautifully laundered shirt. “You’ve got to let me see that letter. It can’t be from Cleo. She loved me, she wouldn’t say such things.”

“She left because you wanted to kill her and because she realized you were insane with jealousy. You believed she was unfaithful to you.”

“She left me to be with Tod Gambol, everyone knows that. Listen, Nicola, let’s sit down and talk this over. We can start at the beginning. We can work it all out. I love you.”

“I’m going to the police, John. I suppose I wanted to confront you with the letter, hear what you had to say. I really hoped that I’d believe you—”

“Dammit, then listen to me,” he said, but still he was staring at that letter. “Give me a chance. I had nothing to do with my mother’s death. I was sixteen years old, for God’s sake. She was an alcoholic, Nicola, and the decision at the time was that she ran her car off the road because she was drunk. As for Melissa, by God I loved her, and she slept with Elliott—the bastard has always wanted what I have—but I didn’t kill her. I simply broke it off with her. It was a damned accident, it had to be. The letter and the journal—it’s got to be a forgery. Give me the letter, Nicola, let me examine it.”

“No. I think I’ll give it to the police, let them figure it out.”

“It would ruin me politically, Nicola, you must know that. Do you despise me so much that you want me to have to resign from the Senate? Spend my days being hounded by the press? I didn’t do anything, dammit! You can’t simply read a letter, some stupid pages from a make-believe journal, from God knows whom, and decide I’m a murderer, accuse me of killing my own mother? I was only sixteen! A boy doesn’t murder his own mother!”

She said very quietly, “The boy does if he’s a psychopath.”

“A psychopath? Good God, Nicola, this is beyond ridiculous. Listen to me. You must realize how impossible this all is. You can’t go to the police.” He drew himself up, becoming the patrician gentleman, tall, slender, elegant, and he was angry, his hands clenched into fists at his sides. He looked from her to the letter, the pages still clutched in her right hand. He said softly, “You’re not going anywhere, you stupid little ingrate. Just look what I’ve done for you—Jesus, I was going to marry you, make you one of the most sought-after women in America. You’re young, beautiful, intelligent, a college professor, and not left-wing, which was a big relief, let me tell you. With you at my side, with my coaching you, showing you what to do, we could have had just about everything, maybe even the White House. What is wrong with you, Nicola?”

“I don’t want to die, John, I really don’t. Were you driving that car, wearing that ski mask, trying to run me down?”

“The cretin who wrote you that letter, he’s trying to turn you against me. Why can’t you believe that?

None of this is true. A drunk nearly hit you, nothing more than that.”

“And the food poisoning, John? Was that all an accident, too?”

“Of course it was! Just call up the doctor and ask him again. That damned letter isn’t from Cleo!”

“Why not? How can you be so sure that Cleo didn’t write me? She wants to protect me, save me from you. You did want to kill her, didn’t you, John? Did you really believe she was being unfaithful to you, or was that just a ruse, or some sort of sick fantasy?”

“I’m not sick, Nicola,” he said, his voice shaking with rage. She was suddenly afraid, very afraid. She eased her hand into her jacket pocket, felt the grip of her pistol.