The 13th Hour: A Thriller - Softcover

Doetsch, Richard

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1439147949 ISBN 13: 9781439147948

Publisher: Pocket Books, 2010

Synopsis

A mesmerizing thriller -- told in reverse!

 

A surprising and utterly original story that blends page-turning suspense with exhilarating imagination as a man goes back in time to prevent a vicious crime from ruining his life.

Nick Quinn is being held in jail, accused of the murder of his wife, Julia. He knows she's dead--he saw her bloody corpse--but he's innocent. A mysterious gentleman gives Nick a talisman that takes him back in time, hour by hour, for a total of twelve hours. With each hour, Nick finds more clues to the identity of the killer, but he also discovers that his actions in the past may have unexpected repercussions in the future. If he doesn't set things right by the thirteenth hour, all will be lost, and his desperate attempts to save Julia's life may lead to a far greater catastrophe than he could have ever imagined.

About this title

About the Author

Richard Doetsch is the international bestselling author of five previous thrillers, including The Thieves of Faith, The Thieves of Heaven, which is currently being developed for film by Twentieth Century Fox, The Thieves of Darkness, which Doetsch is co-adapting with Shane Salerno (Savages, Armageddon, Hawaii Five-0), The 13th Hour, which is being adapted by New Line Cinema, and Half-Past Dawn. Doetsch is a triathlete, adventure racer, and extreme sport enthusiast and lives in New York with his family. Visit RichardDoetsch.com to find out more.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Author's Note

You are not mistaken as you turn to the next page and find Chapter 12.

The chapters of this book are in reverse order and are to be read that way for reasons that will become evident upon your journey.

Chapter 12

July 28,
9:22 p.m.

The dark-haired man slid the exotic, custom-made Peacemaker across the table. With a frame of polished bronze with gold accents, its ivory grip inlaid with precious stones, it was unlike any other weapon produced in the nineteenth century, a six-shooter crafted in 1886 that had been lost to time, forgotten by history, spoken of in collectors' circles as myth.

As with many of the finest pistols of the day, intricate etchings appeared along the stock and seven-and-a-half-inch barrel. But these etchings were unique -- religious texts drawn from the Bible, the Koran, and the Torah, expertly rendered in an elegant calligraphy: The gate that leads to damnation is wide -- To hell you shall be gathered together -- Yet ye bring wrath -- Darkness which may be felt -- Whoever offers violence to you, offer you the like violence to him. The sayings were rendered in English, Latin, and Arabic, as if the gun were a weapon of God designed to strike down the sinner.

Crafted for Murad V, the thirty-seventh sultan of the Ottoman Empire, it had supposedly disappeared from existence in August 1876 when he was deposed for insanity after only ninety-three days of rule.

"Dual action," the man said as he picked up the weapon in his gloved hand. "You don't see many like this. In fact, I dare say this is one of a kind."

Ethan Dance handled the gun with reverence, as if it were a newborn baby. His sleepy, bloodshot eyes scanned the intricacies of the weapon, his latex-encased finger running about the gunmetal and gold in appreciation of the Colt pistol's craftsmanship. He finally laid it down and reached into the pocket of his wrinkled blue blazer.

"Looks like the same religious fervor was scratched into the ammunition." Dance laid a bullet on the table, silver, forty-five caliber. It, too, was etched, the casing wrapped in a flowing Arabic script. "There were five left in the cylinder. They're silver, you know, not sure why, its not like there were werewolves running around Istanbul in 1876. Then again, the pistol was designed for a madman."

Nicholas Quinn sat across from Dance, silently looking at the weapon. He could smell the fresh oil on its workings, a hint of sulfur residue in its chamber.

"What does something like this cost? Fifty, one hundred thousand?" Dance picked it up again, rolled out the cylinder, spinning it like a western lawman. "This gun was just a rumor, no record of ownership for 130 years. Where do you find something like this? On the antique market, black market, the hush-hush just-between-us market?"

Nick sat there in silence, his mind spinning.

The door opened, and a gray-haired man in a blue suit poked his head in. "Need you for a second, Dance."

Dance threw up his hands. "Kind of got some stuff going on."

"Well, life sucks out loud. With the plane crash, it's the two of us, Shannon, and Manz for the whole place. So unless you want to get back down to that field and start sorting through mangled bodies of women and children, you'll get your ass out here."

Dance slammed the cylinder back up into the gun, spun it once for effect, and held it up, looking down the barrel as if he were aiming at an imaginary target.

He laid the gun back in front of Nick and looked at him a moment before grabbing the lone silver bullet.

"Don't go away," Dance said as he walked out, closing the steel door behind him.

Nicholas Quinn finally inhaled, as if he were taking his first breath in three hours. He did everything he could to hold back his emotions, tucking the news in the farthest corner of his mind, knowing that if he let it run about it would eat him from the inside out.

He was dressed in the muted blue and gray Zegna sport jacket Julia had given him two weeks earlier for his thirty-second birthday, freshly pressed, looking as if it had just come from the tailor. He wore it over a light green polo shirt with his jeans, pretty much his uniform for casual Friday. Nick's dark blond hair was on the long side, in need of a cut, one that he had been promising Julia he would get for the last three weeks. His strong face was handsome and unreadable, a trait that had proven invaluable in business and poker. No one could see through his eyes to the truth in his heart, except for Julia, who could always read his thoughts from just the curve of his lip.

Nick looked around the small, confined room, a space clearly designed for the purpose of creating anxiety. There was the single metal table, the ornate, bejeweled gun upon its lime-green Formica surface; four extremely uncomfortable thick metal chairs, his ass already numb after fifteen minutes; a white; wire-caged clock hung by the door, the time approaching 9:30. The walls were bare but for a giant white board on the near wall, three colored markers hanging from a tattered shoelace off a corner. On the opposite side of the room sat a two-way mirror, which not only allowed observation by whoever stood on the other side but also created a feeling of paranoia for whoever sat in this room wondering how many people were watching, assessing, convicting you before a plea had even been entered.

An intense agony began to strangle Nick's heart. Everything in his world had stopped. His emotions had been wrung dry over the two hours before he got here. A swirl of questions and confusion dominated his thoughts.

For the briefest of seconds, he thought he could smell her, Julia's essence, as if it somehow lingered upon his soul.

Nick had gotten home at three this morning after a fourday whirlwind business trip around the Southwest, so exhausted he didn't even remember getting into bed. But he did remember waking up.

As he had drifted into consciousness, he looked directly into Julia's blue eyes, which were filled with love. She had been gently kissing him, drawing him up from whatever dream held him tight, coaxing him back into the world.

She wore nothing but an Eric Clapton T-shirt, which remained on for only three more seconds, tossed to the floor to reveal a perfect body. She was nearly as fit at thirty-one as she had been at sixteen, her breasts firm, her belly tight with just a hint of a six-pack. Her forever long legs were tan and lithe. She was of Spanish, Irish, and Scottish descent, and there was a classic beauty to her face, her high cheekbones and full lips turning the heads of most men when she walked into a room. Her large blue eyes always grew more alluring during the summer when her skin tanned to a light golden hue, with a hint of freckles rising up on her nose.

Julia straddled Nick, leaning down to lightly kiss his lips awake. Becoming lost in her tangle of long blond hair, the smell of lavender and her natural essence filling his mind, Nick's dream of moments earlier was coming to life.

They made love with the heat and excitement of first love, lost in each other's arms, hands roaming each other's bodies, kisses and warm breaths trailing skin. Their passion had rarely waned, even after sixteen years. And it was never merely sex, despite the preternatural lust they felt for each other, there was always the selfless abandonment, each delaying fulfillment in deference to the other, each concerned with the other's pleasure above his or her own, it was always making love.

And as they lay entwined, in the afterglow of the moment, the sheets in a ball at their feet, they both lost sense of time, of where they were, of whatever worries they faced in the coming day, taking comfort in each other's embrace.

With the sunlight dancing upon the white pillows, Nick finally rose from the bed, stretching his toned body to full alertness, and caught sight of the small table on their porch.

Despite her own lack of sleep from too many hours at the office, Julia had risen to prepare breakfast and set the wrought-iron table on the private, second-floor deck just off the sitting room. There was bacon, eggs, fresh-squeezed orange juice, and skillet cake, all fixed and silently carried up from the kitchen as he'd slept.

In nothing but underwear and T-shirts they ate as the sun began its climb in the summer morning sky.

"Special occasion?" Nick asked, alluding to the meal.

"Can't I just welcome you home?"

Nick smiled. "After that first course, a dry bagel would have been more than enough."

Julia smiled back, her look warm and caring, but there was something else there, a hesitation in her eyes.

"What did you do?" Nick asked with a chuckle.

"Nothing." But her voice and the slight dimple rising on her cheek said otherwise.

"Julia...?"

"We have dinner with the Mullers tonight at Valhalla," Julia said quickly.

Nick stopped eating as he looked up. "I thought we agreed we were staying home."

"They're not so horrible." Julia smiled a disarming smile. "I really like Fran. And come on, Tom's not that bad."

"When he stops talking about himself. If I hear one more word about how much money he makes, or what kind of car he just bought -- "

" -- He's just insecure. Think of it as a compliment."

"How could I possibly think of his yammering as a compliment?"

"He's trying to impress you; he obviously cares about your opinion."

"All he cares about is himself." Nick cleared his plate, placing it on the large serving tray. Julia grabbed the remaining dishes, stacking them atop his.

"I thought we made plans together, not for each other," Nick said.

"Nick." Julia grimaced. "We couldn't get reservations until 9:00."

The moment was suddenly lost as a tension grew between them.

Julia picked up the tray and walked to the door. "It's Friday night; I just wanted to go out."

And she slipped back inside the house, leaving Nick standing there alone.

Nick walked inside, through the sitting room and into his bathroom, shutting the door, turning on the shower. He stepped in, hoping the cool water would wash away his sudd...

Edition details

• Publisher: Pocket Books
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 1439147949
• ISBN 13: 9781439147948
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 432