“Sorry about that.” Nick smiled back as he saw the tear in her dress.

“If you’d like, you could tear them all off again.”

Nick laughed, but his humor quickly fell away as his mind resumed the fear he felt for her. He jumped down off the counter, reached into his pocket and pulled out the gold watch.

“Nice watch,” Julia said as she buttoned her shirt, surprised at seeing the timepiece. “A gift from your girlfriend?”

“Believe me when I say this,” he said as he flipped it open, looking at the time: 6:15. “I have enough trouble handling just you.”

“Do you think they’ll get the power back on tonight? Not that I would ever complain.”

Nick ignored her, hustling out of the room without explanation. He went to the dining room, locking the French doors that led to the rear slate terrace, drawing the curtains closed; he did the same in the living room. He checked the windows of every room, latching them before emerging into the foyer. Finally he confirmed the dead bolt on the front door.

“Okay, now what are you doing?” Julia asked.

Nick spun around to find her sitting on the third step of the maroon-carpeted main stairs.

“You’re beginning to freak me out again.”

“Just checking the doors,” he said, but his lie was all too evident. After half a lifetime together, his face was easier to read than his sloppy handwriting.

“After what happened today,” Julia said. “I think, karmawise, we’re pretty safe.”

Nick didn’t know what she was talking about, but he wasn’t about to correct her, to tell her how wrong she was.

He went into the powder room and latched the window that had been left cracked open since the exhaust fan had died.

“And our karma is in such good shape because…” he said as he came back into the foyer, taking a seat next to her.

Her face grew confused, “Are you kidding me? I’m still freaked over it.”

Nick had no idea what she was talking about.

“I still can’t get over that I’m alive,” Julia said as if for the fifth time.

Nick’s head spun around as if shot from a cannon. “What did you say?”

“I can’t believe I’m alive.”

Nick could only stare in confusion.

“The plane crash…? “she said in a leading way, as if her point was obvious. “I was supposed to be on that plane.”

“What?”

“I tried to reach you all day, I figured you were so buried in your work, didn’t you get my message?” She looked into his eyes in a clinical sort of way.

“You were supposed to be on the flight that crashed… here? Today?”

“I thought that was what all the emotion was for, that somehow, by the grace of God, your wife cheated death.”

“I’m sorry,” Nick said honestly, his breathing quickening. “I’m confused.”

“What happened today?” Julia laid her hand upon his leg, rubbing it gently as if he was injured. “You’re not yourself.”

“Tell me,” Nick said. “About the plane.”

“I was just running up to Boston for a last-minute meeting. An hour at most. Catching the shuttle back-I can’t believe you didn’t check your messages.”

“Why weren’t you on the plane?”

The phone rang, startling them both. The kitchen phone was old-fashioned, attached to the wall, the handset linked by a long, coiling wire. Unlike the electricity for the town, the phone lines still worked, drawing their power from a separate system.

Julia beat Nick to the phone, snatching it off the wall cradle in the kitchen. “Hello,” Julia said as she answered it. “Oh, hi, I’m glad you called.” She put her hand over the mouthpiece. “I’ll only be two minutes.”

Nick nodded and walked out through the mudroom, a chill coursing through his body as he examined the small space. He glanced up the back stairs, opened the back entrance to the basement, and quickly closed and locked the door. Finally he looked at her purse on the hook, took it down and checked inside, seeing her wallet, phone, and Palm Pilot. He again looked at the almost antiseptic space. There wasn’t even a mote of dust in a corner, it was so clean. There was no blood on the floor, no mayhem, no body… yet.

He shook off the waking nightmare, hung the purse back up, and walked out into the garage. He reached into his pocket, withdrawing his keys, and thumbed the trunk release. As the lid rose, he looked inside, moved everything around, checked under his hockey bag, behind the med kit, but it wasn’t there. The gun hadn’t been planted here… yet.

He grabbed the handle of the lid and closed the trunk. He looked about the garage as he had one hour before-which was really one hour in the future.

It was so much to keep his mind wrapped around. Time was no longer linear, it was a series of surreal vignettes, each one forming a piece of a puzzle, and each piece he would have to pay strict attention to. Forward, backward, remembering the future as he headed into the past.

He was finding it hard to keep it all straight but fought his mind. He had to keep the pieces sorted without the distraction of his emotions if he was to stop Julia’s killer.

And then the plane crash ran to the forefront of his thoughts. Did Julia avoid one death only to face another hours later? Why wasn’t she on that plane? He’d had no idea when she left for work this morning that she was going to Boston. Not that it was out of the ordinary. They both spent way too many hours in airports and in the air running from one meeting to another, all in pursuit of the American Dream. Nick hated flying. He knew it was an illogical fear when one looked at the statistics, but he was always filled with trepidation whenever either he or Julia flew.

He thought it the most horrible of deaths, helplessly falling from the sky, the screams of the desperate ill-fated passengers filling your ears until you all met a simultaneous death in a fiery crash. Nick had tempered his fear, learned to deal with it for work, but it always grew to new proportions when Julia flew, causing him sleepless nights and angst-filled days whenever she traveled by air. He had even once implored her not to fly, on the basis of a weather forecast and misinformed intuition. She had yet to let him live that one down.

But now, what stroke of luck had pulled her off? She didn’t mention it to him, she didn’t have time to explain before she got on the phone.

He walked out of the garage and looked again at Julia’s car. He saw the keys in the ignition, something that bothered him no end. He thought it was like a free pass to steal the car, an invitation that said, “Please, I don’t care, take me for a joy ride, sell me to the highest-bidding chop shop.”

Nick thought of running, taking Julia as far away as he possibly could. But would that only delay the inevitable? Would whoever was trying to kill her get to her later, track her down tomorrow, maybe Sunday? Would she be killed at a time… at a time when he couldn’t intervene, when he couldn’t save her?

He pulled out the gold watch and checked the time: 6:35. The detective said she was shot before 7:00, and he had less than twenty-five minutes before he was pulled back again. He had to stop her killer, and he had to stop him now. He needed to know who it was so they couldn’t reach out of the dark and snatch her away again.

As he looked back at his house, at everything they had sweated for, the cars, the garden, it meant nothing. Nick pulled out his cell phone and made the call he’d intended to from the moment he’d held Julia alive and well in his arms.

“Byram Hills Police, Desk Sergeant Manz speaking,” the voice answered.

“Hi,” Nick said. “This is Nick Quinn.”

“How can I help you, Mr. Quinn?”

“I believe someone is going to try to kill my wife.”

“What brings you to that conclusion?” the officer’s voice was stern and without emotion.

Nick was suddenly at a loss for words. He had figured he would simply get the cops up here and have them apprehend the killers before they got close to Julia.