Read the 13th Hour for Free Online Page B

commit such an act, who could rob an innocent of life, who could rob a husband of his reason for living?
And while Julia was dead, it was as if the bullet had also struck Nick. His mind had collapsed, falling into denial, fantasizing about changing the past, about saving Julia. It was the fantasy of a wounded heart, of an insane mind.
Marcus had been in his garage looking through a file box in the trunk of his car when he'd heard the gunshot. It sent a chill down his spine, as it came from the Quinns' house. He ran as fast as he could, cutting through their open garage door, through the open mudroom door, to see Julia lying askew around the rear stairs. Half her face was gone, and it took every ounce of his energy to hold his stomach together as he became overwhelmed with grief and shock. And when he finally stepped over her body, he saw Nick sitting on the floor beside her, stroking her leg like a child uncomprehending of the reality of death.
Marcus crossed his expansive side lawn, approaching Nick's house, but this time there was no reason to run; nothing was going to bring Julia back.
The coroner's truck and two unmarked cop cars, a Taurus and a Mustang, sat in the driveway. Normally a murder in a town that hadn't seen a murder in twenty-five years would result in an overwhelming response by half the force, but the rest of the department, every policeman, desk clerk, secretary, and receptionist, was at the crash site. Every fireman, EMT, councilman, and doctor from the town had responded. There had never been a plane crash in Byram Hills, or the county, for that matter, but the well-off community responded as if it specialized in disasters. Every able body was out at the field working with the NTSB in whatever capacity they could. Whether it was helping the families of the deceased, searching for wreckage and body parts, or handling administrative details, the entire town of Byram Hills was out in force at the scene of the tragedy just three miles away. As a result, there were only two cops available to deal with Julia's death.
    N ICK AND J ULIA'S house sat on three acres, one of the few properties that hadn't been subdivided. Their house dated back to the 1890s, with additions in 1927, 1997, and 2007. The former main house of what was once expansive farmland was five thousand square feet and could truly be called a home. Every room was filled with pictures and mementos speaking to the character of their owners. Far from a museum showcase, as so many large houses had become, it was a home designed for family, a house that Marcus knew one day would be filled with children. But now, as he slipped under the yellow crime tape that wrapped the walk, as he opened the side kitchen door and stepped into the large white kitchen, Marcus knew not only would children's voices never be echoing the walls but Nick would probably never come home again.
As Marcus cut through the dining room, he could hear the detectives' voices in the front hall and stopped. He took a moment to backtrack, feeling himself pulled by some unseen force. And though he couldn't bear to look at Julia's body again, he craned his neck toward the mudroom where her body lay.
The white-haired coroner leaned over the black body bag, zip-ping it up, pulling out a dark marker and writing on the bag's label, an action as devoid of emotion as if he was filling out a grocery list. The man's black eyebrows stood in sharp contrast to his white hair, his hunched frame and weathered skin putting him no younger than seventy-five. Marcus imagined more than a few doctors, medical examiners, and coroners had been pulled from retirement today to deal with all of the death in Byram Hills.
Marcus could make out Julia's form under the black vinyl and morbidly wondered if there was any chance of a mortician's reconstruction to honor her, to allow her husband to look upon her one last time, to say his final good-byes.
The floor was still pooled with blood, the rear wall covered in