Synopsis for Midnight Hours

Synopsis
Midnight Hours

         Martin Rogers, a homicide lieutenant, positions his power chair at the end of the parallel bars in the therapy room. Over the past months, those bars became an enemy that cannot be conquered, but which creates agony and despair. He glares at his enemy as they silently wait to conquer him again. An orderly in white stands beside the left side of the bars. Martin fights to overcome the damage caused by a bullet in his back.

         After Martin returns from another “wasted” therapy session, the whish of the power chair’s wheels on the carpet and the low hum of the computer create the only sounds in the room as he positions himself at the desk. He closes his eyes before laying his fingers on the keys to type in the code which would connect him to the refuge he so needed. The Internet and the game room give him an escape from constant pain. The woman he met and visits nightly adds to the ability to flee.

         Midnight always appears around midnight each night. She tantalizes him, giving him little information about herself; although, she finally tells him her name, Norma Fields. After Martin threatens to cut off the months-long cyber relationship, she offers to send him a picture of herself. She sends an email attachment: a picture of a beautiful woman.

         Martin’s interest changes to one that’s professional. An identical copy had been found, folded in the pocket of a paraplegic who had gone over the rail of a hotel room balcony. As soon as he sees the picture, he calls his friends and fellow detectives, Kyle Stone and Frank Thomas.

         The three men meet at Martin’s for breakfast and discuss the photo. Kyle mentions that the woman looks familiar. The men decide to find what information they can about the case and about Midnight, Norma Fields.

         After Kyle and Frank return to Martin’s house after their shift, the doorbell rings. Kyle answers the door and invites a young woman to join them. Martin gasps as Midnight walks into the room. Kyle introduces Assistant District Attorney Lisa Harris, telling the others, “I told you the picture reminded me of someone.”

         Lisa studies the photo and agrees the head and face are hers but not the rest of the body. She joins the investigation.

         In the days that follow, the “Midnight team” discover that several men with large accidental death insurance policies, all with Norma Fields as the beneficiaries, have “accidentally” died. The search for Midnight intensifies. Although “Norma Fields” keeps appearing on the fringes of the case, she can’t be found except as a fatality of domestic abuse many years previously. Yet, one insurance company has photographs of her taken the day she picked up the million dollar benefit for an accidental death.

         Attempts to trace Midnight’s IPS lead Lisa and Martin to a house in Guymon, where an old man, Clay Carson, reveals that Norma, his wife, died years before. Lisa’s father, the county sheriff, remembers the case: Norma had been found dead in the living room, and, although, a jury found him not guilty, law enforcement officials believed the crippled man had murdered his wife. Norma’s younger brother, Cain Fields, disappeared the same night. The computer Mr. Carson “won” is the source of Midnight’s emails. The FBI takes over tracing them.

         As he works with the rest of the “Midnight team” to find the elusive woman, Martin works to build his strength and regain the use of his legs. Soon he uses a cane and no longer relies on the power chair, a fact that he doesn’t reveal to her.

         A meeting between Midnight and Martin is set at a hotel requested by her. The police department prepare the room with microphones and hidden video cameras, extra “workers” keeping eyes on the hall area. A sharp-shooter sits at a window across the atrium. The trap waits for Midnight to appear.

         Martin orders a meal to be delivered by room service, also as requested by Midnight. When the waiter brings the meal, Martin moves his power chair to remove his bag from the table, only to realize that the waiter has closed the door. Before he can whirl the chair back around, a cord is looped over Martin’s head, and a macabre dance of death begins. Martin used the joy stick to jerk the chair back and forth, trying to keep the killer off balance. As he struggles for his life, the detective wonders why help doesn’t come. Hoping to get the sniper’s attention, he runs the chair out on the balcony, whirls it around to back it into the railing, which breaks, sending the waiter and the power chair over the side. Martin manages to grab a post still connected to the balcony as the waiter crashes through a tree in atrium and the chair explodes below.

         After Kyle and Frank help him to safety, Martin and the others take the elevator down to the ground floor and atrium, where they discover the waiter has managed to escape, but with injuries. The forensic lab people gather evidence. Lisa runs to Martin and hugs him. When the captain insists, Martin goes to the emergency room with a hurting throat and back.

         The investigation continues, but dead end after dead end stops progress. Bit by bit, though, some headway is made. The investigators believe that Cain Fields may be the mysterious Midnight, but they can’t prove that he lives after he supposedly died in a semi-truck accident the night he disappeared or that another young man, who apparently died in a navy explosion, is him. The Navy joins the investigation when questions arise that John Robert Olson may not have been killed after all.

         The computer service for the police department crashes. The return of service brings emails from Midnight that shows he/she knows the interactions of the task force searching for him. Finally he makes a serious mistake: He targets a wealthy rancher in a sparsely populated area of the state, resulting in a witness who could identify him.

         Midnight has stayed busy: He romances a dispatcher for the police department and visits the building many times, often as an employee of the computer service used by the police. He meets a homeless man, whom he “befriends.” He taunts Martin through emails and setting up possible explosions.

         When the dispatcher discovers on a trip with the man she thinks loves her that he is Midnight, she runs away in the hilly, forested area where they stayed in a cabin. Climbing a tree, she finds enough access on her cell phone to send a message to a dispatcher, asking that Martin be contacted as well as help sent for her. She ends up in a hospital in a coma after running in front of a speeding pickup.

         Knowing that Denise has been with the killer, Martin watches for a familiar face (the witness worked with a sketch artist) on video tapes of people coming and leaving the police station. Once the face appears, copies are made and distributed to television stations and all law enforcement officers and locations. When the story appears on a local TV station, calls start pouring into the task force. One led to Midnight’s apartment.

         Inside, as Martin discovers by peeking through a window, sits a man wrapped in explosives. The man wears Midnight’s face, not the one in the sexy photo, but the one for the waiter, from the sketch, and from the tapes. As others hurry to clear the apartments in the area, Martin tries to talk with the now hysterical man. Knowing that an explosion could come at any moment, Frank tells Martin and Kyle to leave immediately since he runs faster than Martin who still used a cane. He will keep the living bomb talking as long as possible before he too sprints to safety.

         The officers barely reach safety when the building goes up in a cloud of smoke and flames.

         When the task force meets the next day for a post mortem, a letter waits for Martin. Inside, Midnight writes his justifications and thoughts, answering most of the questions the task force had about him. He admits his guilt and states that if Martin receives the letter then Midnight is dead. Although Martin isn't satisfied that Midnight is really gone, his captain insists he forget his fears and close the case.

         Martin and Lisa marry in the last chapter. However, in the epilogue, a man missing the lower part of a leg goes to a game site to try and forget his pain. Someone joins the game, introducing herself as Midnight.

Note: Excerpts from novel, "Midnight Hours, submission chapters"