Eleventh Hour by Catherine Coulter Read Free Book Online

area, it was lined with old gray file cabinets that had seen better days a half century before.
    He laid her on the rattiest, ugliest old green sofa he’d ever seen. No, there was one just as ugly in the rectory at St. Bartholomew’s.
    “You got some water, Delion?”
    “Uh? Oh yeah, just a moment.”
    Dane went down on his haunches next to her. He gave her a cop’s once-over, quickly done, assessment made. She looked homeless—torn jeans, three different sweaters, one on top of the other, all of them on the well-worn side, not dirty, just old and tattered. She wore no makeup, not a surprise. Her hair was a dirty blond with a bit of curl, longish, tied in the back with a rubber band. Even with all the bulky layers of sweaters, it was easy to tell she was thin, pale, no more than twenty-seven, -eight, max. Not doing well in life, that was for sure. She looked like she’d been in a closet for too long without a glimpse of the sun, or tucked away in a homeless shelter. She also looked like she needed a dozen good meals. She’d been carrying a wool cap. Even unconscious, she still clutched it in her fingers.
    They had a homeless woman for a witness?
    Of course, that was just the outside. What a person was like on the inside was what was important, what was real. But if her outsides gave any clue at all, it was that something bad had happened to her. Drugs?
    An abusive husband? Alcohol?
    Why did she faint? Hunger?
    “Here’s some water. She show any signs of life yet?”
    “Soon.” Dane lightly slapped her cheeks, waited, then slapped her again.
    A couple of inspectors stuck their heads in. Delion waved them off. “She’ll be okay, don’t call the paramedics, okay?”
    A woman officer said, “She looks really down on her luck. The last person she should want to see is you, Delion.”
    Her eyelashes fluttered. Slowly, she opened her eyes, blinked a couple of times, and focused on Dane’s face above her.

    “Oh no,” she said, so low he could barely hear her. She tried to get away from him by pressing herself against the back of the sofa. “Oh God, am I dead?”
    Dane said, “No, you’re not dead. I’m not dead either. You knew my brother, didn’t you? Father Michael Joseph?”
    “Your brother?”
    “Yes, my twin brother. We’re identical twins. My name is Dane Carver.”
    “You’re not a priest?”
    “Nope,” said Delion. He brought his face down close to hers, which made her shrink back even more.
    Delion backed off, said, “He’s the other end of the scale.”
    “You’re a criminal?”
    “No, I’m not. That was just a bit of police humor. Here, drink a bit of water.”
    He cupped the back of her head, brought her up a bit, and put the paper cup to her mouth. She sipped at it, then said, “Thank you, no more.”
    Delion pulled up one of Lieutenant Purcell’s chairs, straddled it, waved Dane to the only other chair in the small room. Dane pulled it up next to the sofa.
    Delion said, “You here to tell us about Father Michael Joseph? You know something about his murder?
    You wouldn’t be the woman who phoned in the murder about midnight Sunday night, would you?”
    “Yes,” she said, unable to look away from Father Michael Joseph’s brother. She lifted her hand, touched her fingertips to his cheek, the small cleft in his chin. Dane didn’t move. She dropped her hand, swallowed tears. Dane saw that her fingernails were as ragged as her sneakers, her hands chapped. “
    You’re so like him,” she said. “I only knew him for two weeks, but he was always kind to me, and I know he cared about what happened to me. He was my friend. I’m not Catholic, but it didn’t matter. I was there Sunday night, in the church, when that man shot him.”
    Delion said, “Why the hell didn’t you come forward right away? Good God, woman, it’s Tuesday morning. He was murdered midnight Sunday.”
    “Yes, I know. I’m sorry. I had to call you from a public phone, and I finally found one that worked by a