Free Eleventh Hour by Catherine Coulter Page A

turned her around to face him. There was a line of freckles across her nose he hadn’t noticed before, quite visible since she was so pale. But what he really saw, and hated, was defeat. She looked crushed, flattened.
    He clasped her upper arms and shook her slightly. “Listen to me. I won’t let anyone hurt you, I promise.”
    “You look so much like him.”
    “Yes, I know, but my brother and I were very different people. Very different. Well, not in all things, but in many.”
    “Maybe not,” she said. “Maybe not. He promised he wouldn’t let anyone hurt me either.” She bit her lip. “But he’s dead. Please, I wasn’t responsible for his death, was I?”
    She stood there, her arms pulled behind her, her wrists handcuffed, tears streaking down her cheeks.
    “No,” Dane said. “You weren’t responsible. I do know one thing for certain—Michael’s murder had nothing at all to do with you. Believe it.”
    “Oh shit,” Delion said, coming to a dead stop about three feet from them. “I don’t need this.”

NINE
    “What size do you wear?”
    “I don’t want any new clothes. Listen to me, Agent Carver, I just want to stay the way I am now. I have to, don’t you understand?”
    “You’re going to be safer if you look like a reasonably dressed woman rather than a bag lady. This is a very ordinary, inexpensive store, Inspector Bates told me. She said we could get you a couple of things here that look like what everyone else is wearing. Don’t give me any more trouble, Ms. Jones. I’m so tired I could sleep leaning against that taxi sign, and I know all the way to my wing tips that I need your help. Don’t think of it as a favor to the cops. Think of it as a favor to my brother, you know, the man you really liked and admired. I need you to help me catch his killer.”
    He knew then that, finally, he’d touched her. He’d made her feel guilty, made her feel beyond selfish if she ran away. She wanted to catch the monster who murdered his brother. Good, whatever worked. It had taken him long enough. Maybe it would help her get over the idea that she was responsible.
    What made it even better was that it was only the truth. He did need her.
    “All right. Let’s get some inexpensive things, then.”
    “And then some better things.”
    “I thought you said you were really tired.”
    “I am. But I’m staying at a good hotel, the Bennington, just off Union Square. I’d like to remain low profile. Having a bag lady on my arm would make everyone think I was some sort of pervert.”
    “They’d think you didn’t have much money, that’s for sure.”
    Dane didn’t know where it came from, but he smiled.
    Thirty minutes later, they walked out of The Rag Bag, a woman’s retread clothes store just off Taylor and Post, not far from the Bennington Hotel. Of course in San Francisco, nothing was very far from anything else. She was wearing a decent pair of jeans, a white blouse, and a dark blue pullover V-necked sweater. The cap was gone from her head, her hair ruthlessly brushed back and clipped at the back of her neck.
    They didn’t get a single look from any of the tourists or staff at the Bennington. Once they were in Dane’s room on the fourth floor, he said, “You still don’t look like you’re quite up to snuff. But better, much better. Would you like to shower and wash your hair or have an early dinner first?”
    No big surprise. She opted for dinner. When it arrived twenty minutes later, he waved her to the small circular table with its two chairs and the room-service dinner he’d ordered up for them.
    She said, “I look fine, really. No one noticed me at all. I’ll just wear these clothes until you can catch this guy.”
    “Oh? And then you’re going to trot back to the shelter? Or maybe panhandle on Union Square?”
    “Yes. Whatever.”
    “I threw away your homeless clothes.”
    She gave him a long, emotionless look. “I wish you hadn’t done that. They were all I had.”
    “When