Read Online Eleventh Hour by Catherine Coulter - Free Book Online

Before Dane could force Elaine Books and Nick Jones back out of the apartment, Nick saw two white legs sticking out from behind the living room sofa, a really pretty sofa, all white with even whiter pillows strewn across it. All over that white were dark stains, as if someone had dipped a hand into a paint can and just sprinkled the paint everywhere.
    “Oh no,” Nick said. “It’s not paint, is it?”
    “No,” Dane said, “it’s not. Don’t move from this spot, you understand me?”
    Delion went behind the sofa and knelt down. When he straightened, he looked hard, sad, and angry.
    “I think we’ve found Valerie Striker. She’s been garroted. I’d say she’s dead a couple of days at least.” He nodded to Dane, who herded the two women back into the hallway. He heard Delion on the phone, speaking to the paramedics.
    Elaine Books leaned against the corridor wall and started crying. “I’m so sorry,” Nick said. “She was your friend. I’m so very sorry. I liked her. She was kind to me, despite—despite how I look.” Very slowly, Nick drew the woman into her arms and let her cry on her shoulder.
    Nick looked up at Dane. “He killed her. He must have seen her, worried that when she found out about Father Michael Joseph’s murder, she’d remember seeing him. He either knew who she was or he found out, came here sometime during the night on Sunday and killed her. That’s exactly what happened, isn’t it?”
    Dane nodded. “Yes, that’s probably right.”
    Elaine Books continued to weep, softly now, her head still on Nick Jones’s shoulder.
    Valerie Striker was dead. Chances were that she hadn’t seen a thing, but that hadn’t mattered. She couldn’t tell them anything now. Nick closed her eyes as she rocked Elaine Books against her and thought, I’m the one who’s supposed to be dead, not her. If only she’d waited for the cops, she would have remembered to tell them about seeing Valerie Striker, and they would have come here, maybe before the killer did, and they could have saved her.
    It was her fault.

EIGHT
    “She can’t stay in the shelter,” Dane said. “Do you have a safe house where we can stash her?”
    “Yeah,” Delion said, “but I don’t know if the lieutenant will approve it for her. There’s no real threat of danger here.”
    “You’re wrong, Delion. When our guy sees this description—and I bet he will—he’ll try to find out about the person who gave it, knowing that if he’s ever caught, she can identify him. She’d be a sitting duck at the shelter.”
    “If she would just tell us her real name and address, we could send her little ass home.”
    Dane looked over toward the small kitchen where Ms. Nick Jones stood waving a tea bag in a paper cup of hot water, the frayed cuffs of her thick red sweater falling over her fingers. He could still see the tear streaks on her cheeks.
    “Look, Dane,” Delion said, “you’re a cop. You know that since she isn’t a teenage runaway, it means she’s running from something or someone. That, or she’s a druggie—that’s the most likely. You notice she’s wearing all those sweaters? She’s probably hiding needle tracks on her arms.
    “Maybe she’s wearing them to keep warm. Whatever, it’s unfortunate because our Ms. Jones seems bright and speaks well. She’s well educated. It was just her bad luck that she was in Saint Bartholomew’s on Sunday night, that is, if you believe the story she told us about why she was actually there.”
    Dane didn’t say anything, kept looking at Nick Jones. “She has very nice teeth,” he said. “Good dental hygiene.”
    “Yeah, I noticed. And that means she hasn’t been on the street all that long. What? A couple of weeks? Not a month, I’ll bet. She doesn’t smell and her clothes aren’t stiff with dirt.”
    “No.”
    “All right, Dane, I’ll ask the lieutenant. Now, we’ve got four murders, all possibly committed by the same perp. We have a pretty fair description of