15 Seconds

Chapter Nineteen

Carrie drove to her parents’ house in Atlantic Beach after work that day. Raef had just come back from the physical therapist.

It was a small, three-bedroom ranch backing onto a public golf course near the beach, but it was near the Wolfson Children’s Hospital, where Raef went every day to the rehabilitation center. He’d gotten most of his major muscle movement back, along with the majority of his speech. The therapists were still working on the fine-motor movements, such as writing and catching a ball; running was yet to fully come. But it was all improving. The doctors thought that in a couple of weeks’ time Raef would be able to move back in with her and, after the summer, be back in school.

They were hopeful that one day he wouldn’t even show the slightest sign that his brain had been deprived of oxygen for almost two and a half minutes.

“Hi, Mommy!” He ran up to her like any happy nine-year-old, maybe showing just a little weakness on his right side.

“Hey, Tiger!” Carrie exclaimed, lifting him in the air. “Ooof, you are getting to be a real handful. You know that, guy!”

“Roberta said I was very good today.” Roberta was one of his therapists at Wolfson. “We played catch. Look…” He picked up a blue-and-red, soft-cushion baseball, tossed it in the air, and caught it in his right hand, his lagging one. Papa and I have been practicing!”

“Pretty soon we’ll see him pitching for the Marlins.” Nate, Carrie’s dad, the ex-New Hampshire police chief, walked in. Then his face became more serious. “So how’d it go, baby? Some first day back. We saw the news.”

“I’ll tell you about it,” Carrie said, with a roll of her eyes. “I’ve got quite the story. But first… I want to see my Number One Dude here in action. See if he can handle my best heater.” She took the cushiony ball and pretended to rub it up like a real pitcher. “What do you say, A-Rod…?”

“If you throw it slow, Mommy.”

“Slow it is. Just the right hand, Raef.” She went into a windup and tossed it to him underhanded from around four feet away. Raef plucked it out of the air.

“Whoa!” Carrie said, eyes wide. “Awesome job!” She turned to her dad, who was nodding with a glow of grandfatherly pride. “You’re not joking. I think he might well be filling out that pitching rotation pretty soon.”

Raef grinned proudly. Every time Carrie looked at his freckled face, she saw Rick’s smile. He surely did have her husband’s will and determination. He never once felt sorry for himself. Most of the tears he shed were when he was trying to comfort her. Even now, her thoughts roamed to the incident that had taken Rick, and as always, the memory seemed to come to her against her will.

She was down in St. John’s County. At the opening of a JSO-sponsored youth center there. She got the call from Rick. Trying his best to appear calm-that was his way, after two tours in Iraq-but it was impossible not to hear the worry in his voice. “Carrie, I don’t want you to panic, but something’s happened…” The ensuing pause became the dividing line in her life. “To Raef!”

She remembered how every nerve in her body seemed to go dead.

He’d fallen on the soccer field at school and never got up. No one was really sure what precisely had happened yet, but “his right arm started shaking and then he said his leg felt numb and then he just fell…”

Carrie knew from her husband’s tone that he was trying to hold it together as well. This was bad.

“He’s not conscious, honey,” Rick said, sucking in a bolstering breath. “But the EMTs are there. They’re taking him to Memorial Hospital.”

Oh my God! That was close to a two-hour drive from where she was. With traffic. Only about ten minutes for Rick. “I’ll meet you there,” he said. “Okay?”

“Okay,” Carrie answered shakily.

“And, Carrie, baby…”

“Yes,” she said, her eyes already overrun with tears and her heartbeat racing.

“He’s gonna make it, Carrie. I promise he will. He’s gonna come through this-you know that, don’t you?”

“I know that, Rick,” she answered weakly.

She knew it because he was saying it. Because nothing could happen to Rick. He was part of the first Marine platoon to arrive in Iraq, and he did two rotations as a field commander, ending up with the rank of captain. He had come through the war fine. Everything always came easy for him. He played third base at U of F and probably could have been drafted as a pro. He had a 3.8 GPA as a history major. He was on the short list for a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford, but instead decided to enlist. He was the most capable man she knew.

Raef had to be okay if Rick was saying it.

“I’m on my way,” she said, already heading toward her Prius. “I’ll see you there.”

“You drive safely,” he told her. “I love you, baby.”

“I love you too.”

The drive should have taken close to two hours, but she made it in an hour and a half. A patrol car escorted her, flashing lights and all. When she got to the hospital, she ran through the sliding-glass doors of the emergency entrance, her heart out of control. “My son! He’s being operated on,” she blurted to the attendant at the desk. “Raef Holmes. He’s in the OR…”

“Second floor to the right,” the attendant said. “I’ll call up. You can take the elevator…”

Carrie bolted up the stairs. She pushed through the OR doors, searching frantically for Rick. She didn’t see him anywhere. He must have stepped out for a second to make a call. Instead a nurse introduced her to the surgeon. “My son’s in there. Raef Holmes…”

“Your boy’s had what we call an AVM,” said the surgeon, a young-looking Asian in green scrubs. “An arteriovenous malformation. It’s a tangle of abnormal arteries and veins in the temporal lobe of the brain. We operated on him to relieve some of the pressure. He’s a strong kid, but I’d be lying if I told you anything other than that it’s touch and go right now. We’ve got him sedated in the ICU. We placed him in a coma-”

“A coma!” Carrie put a hand to her mouth. My poor baby…

“To control the swelling. The next forty-eight hours will be key. But, Ms. Holmes…” The surgeon took her by the arm and walked her over to a bench. “I’m afraid there’s more…”

More. Carrie remembered saying to herself, What could possibly be more?

Then she focused back on Rick. Why he wasn’t here. “Where’s my husband?” she asked, suddenly seeing something in the surgeon’s eyes, something held back, that raised her anxiety level even more.

“He collapsed,” the surgeon said, easing her down onto the bench. “In the waiting room. While we were working on your son. It looks like a dissected aorta. He’s in the OR now. We’ve got our top cardiac team working on him now. It could have happened anytime…” He went through a rough explanation. It was lurking and likely been there for years. Probably congenital. “It just blew.”

“Blew…” Carrie muttered back to him, eyes flooding. Oh, Rick. Rick…

It just blew.

They let her look in at him. For the next six hours, she had a husband in the OR and her son in the ICU. Both of them fighting for their lives as she raced back and forth, afraid to leave either one for any time. She didn’t know who needed her more.

“I love you mountains and oceans,” she said to Raef as she sat by his bed, squeezing his small, unresponsive hand. She remembered Rick’s vow: “He’s going to be all right, Carrie. You know that, don’t you?”

Yes, she had said, I know that, Rick. Because you said so.

“You’re going to make it, Raef,” she whispered in his ear. “You’re going to be healthy again, and do all the things young boys do. You know that, right? You know how we love you, don’t you?” Her eyes filled with tears. “You know that nothing could happen to you…”

She remembered closing her eyes and praying. “If you save my boy’s life…” She was never the religious type, but right now… “You can take anything from me. Anything. I swear to you…”

Not long after that, a nurse touched her shoulder. Carrie turned. “Ms. Holmes, they need you down in the OR…”

She looked at the nurse’s face for a sign that it was okay.

Rick died on the table. He had a stroke caused by an aortic rupture, and they couldn’t stem the flow of blood or get oxygen to the brain. It had probably been there from birth, the doctors said. Through college. Through Iraq. Through law school. Maybe it was the stress of what happened to Raef that caused it to finally rupture, the doctors speculated. Trying to be strong for all of them. The doctors did everything they could.

Now every time she looked in her son’s resilient eyes, she saw him.

Rick.

“So what do I always say to you?” Carrie said, pulling Raef close to her. “C’mere…” The stress of her first day back on the job returned. Losing Martinez. Fielding the call from Steadman. “I need a really big hug.”

“I love you mountains and oceans, right, Mommy?” Her arms nestled around him, tears of joy filling her eyes.

“Right. Oh, that’s pretty big!” Carrie said with a halting breath, lifting him off the ground.

And as she held him, the oddest thought wormed into her brain.

What Steadman had said on the phone. As if only to her. “I swear on my daughter’s life, Carrie. You’ll know what I mean…”

Yes, I do know what that means, she thought now. She gripped her sweet-smelling boy a little tighter.

“Whatever it looks like, whatever anyone believes, it wasn’t me!”

That’s why the words had hit home the way they did. There was a space in her heart that seemed to open for those very words.

“I swear!” Those words meant everything to her.

Yes, she said to herself, hugging Raef. I know exactly what that means.

Chapter Twenty

I spent that first night in the Lexus in the empty lot of a large office park.

I also did what that bastard told me to do. I stopped in an Office Max and picked up a couple of disposable phones. I texted the number to Hallie’s phone.

Then I waited. I waited until I couldn’t hold my eyes open anymore.

No reply.

Earlier, I’d found a tool set in the car’s emergency kit and drove around a movie complex until I came across a Honda with Tennessee plates and switched the front plate onto mine. With luck, the owners might not even know it was missing for a while, and even if they did, a stolen, out-of-state plate wasn’t exactly the biggest story of the day with everything else going on. And Lexus SUVs were a dime a dozen on the roads.

I hoped this would buy me some time.

I had my first meal of the day from a Wendy’s take-out window, chomping down the double burger in maybe three large bites along with a box of chicken tenders and a Coke. I normally watched what I ate and would rather die than stuff down a meal like that, but the day’s events had left me empty and ravenous, and, showing up at Ruth’s Chris going, “Table for one, please!” wasn’t exactly an option tonight.

The only plan I had was to assert my innocence and focus on that blue car.

My thoughts drifted back to Hallie and Mike. I tried to think of every possible way he and Martinez might somehow have been connected. Mike was a prominent real estate attorney in town. He would have known police. Then there was the gamecock thing. South Carolina.

But the only real connection between them was me.

I turned on the news, basically just to keep me company, until my eyes finally got heavy and I started drifting off to sleep.

What I heard almost sent my heart through my chest.

“The Jacksonville Murder Spree suspect,” the commentator said. “This is not the first time. He’s done it before.”

Chapter Twenty-One

The news report said that a television station in New England was claiming that as a student at Amherst, I’d been involved in a fraternity hazing accident in which someone had mysteriously drowned.

“No,” I shot up in the car and shouted. “No, no, no, no…”

I pulled out my iPad and clicked on Google news until I found the link. It was from the website of a WNME in Portland, Maine.

How did they know what had happened back then?

The article read, The Palm Beach surgeon wanted in connection with the murders today of a Jacksonville Florida policeman and a successful businessman has apparently done it before.

My eyes almost bugged out of my head.

A college classmate of Dr. Henry Steadman, a person of interest sought in connection with the cold-blooded killings today, claims that while a student at Amherst College in the 1980s, Steadman and a fraternity brother were involved in the unexplained drowning of a fellow student in a fraternity hazing ritual gone tragically wrong.

Thomas E. Boothby of Bangor, Maine, claims he was a member of a student judiciary board at Amherst called to investigate Steadman’s role in the mishap, which occurred at a local swimming hole known as the Quarry.

As Boothby recounted, a freshman pledge at the Chi Psi fraternity, Terrence Gifford, plunged into the lake from a fifty-foot height in the dead of night, struggled in the icy water, with Steadman near him, and drowned. The incident was ultimately deemed to be “accidental,” and while Boothby claims, “No one can be sure what actually happened in the waters that night,” no charges were ever filed.

“This poor freshman from Minnesota was dragged out at night and ordered to jump into the freezing pond,” Boothby, an EPA administrator in Bangor recalled, “which was about fifty feet down. All anyone knew is that three students went up there and only two came back. While there was never any firm evidence to warrant an arrest or expulsion, there was significant drinking going on; other people nearby heard arguing and thrashing in the water.” He recalled that although Steadman was ultimately dismissed from the fraternity, he was not asked to leave school.

I felt the blood rush in anger into my face. Who the hell was this guy? Boothby. I’d never even heard of him. Whoever he was, he’d twisted the entire thing around. The article also provided details about the events in Jacksonville today and how the suspect’s successful and likable veneer and his stature in the medical community seemed at odds with the heinous nature of the crimes.

“I know everyone feels that way,” Boothby went on to say, “but when I heard who it was, it immediately took me back. All I can say is, I always felt something suspicious took place up on those rocks, a lot more than ever came out. So this doesn’t surprise me.”

School officials have not yet commented on the twenty-two-year-old incident.

“Screw you!” I shouted in the darkened SUV, my blood hitting a boil. A cold sweat sprang up all over my back.

The story wasn’t completely made up, at least not technically, but everything else was twisted. Nothing happened up there. Only a tragic accident. The kid fell. He didn’t want to go through with it and he panicked up on the ledge. I was actually the one who told him he didn’t have to go through with it. And “the argument” this asshole was referring to was actually between me and another Chi Psi dude named Luke Chappelle, who kept insisting that if Giffie didn’t jump, he could kiss Chi Psi good-bye. The kid tried to break away from Chappelle and head back down when he tripped and tumbled over the edge. I’m the one who jumped in after him and tried like hell to bring him back up. The incident killed me for a while. I almost left school. But it wasn’t because I was guilty. We never pushed him. This Boothby jerk had it all wrong. It was a frat ritual. We’d all made the jump multiple times.

I knew this was bad. It was only going to throw more hot coals onto the fire of my alleged guilt. Worse, anyone who happened to believe me would now have doubts.

And it would make it even harder for anyone to believe me about the blue car.

I’d never told anyone about it before. Well, maybe I told Liz once, years before. I mean, it all happened twenty-two years ago. It didn’t have any bearing on who I was. And while the event was tragic, I hadn’t done anything wrong.

I lay back and closed my eyes, and I realized how trapped I was. How the person who was doing this to me must be cackling with enjoyment.

I was even burying myself now!

Chapter Twenty-Two

Cars were already streaming into the office lot the next morning as I woke up in the backseat.

I remembered finally falling asleep, still fuming over that Google post, praying I’d wake up in my own bed and that everything in the past twenty-four hours would have been nothing more than a horrifying dream.

No such luck.

I wiped my eyes, reality colliding into me again. Realizing that I was on the run. That my college buddy Mike was dead. That my daughter had been abducted. Kidnapped by a killer who had turned my life into a living hell.

I looked up at the car owner’s evergreen air freshener hanging from the dash. Other than that, everything was just peachy!

Then it hit me. With the sudden clarity that only comes when your mind is completely at rest.

I went over the sequence of events for maybe the hundredth time: how Martinez was writing me out a summons from his car; the blue car pulling up beside him; how I was thinking how the whole barrage of questions had just been some kind of made-up cover; out of nowhere, the two, crisp pops. The blue car lurching away.

But this time I saw it! Coming into focus as if I was once again looking through my side mirror:

ADJ-4.

That was it! The license plate from South Carolina. There were more numbers, of course, but I was sure it began with those. Not ADF or A4N, or whatever I’d come up with the day before.

In the panic of all that happened yesterday, I hadn’t been able to fully bring it to mind.

For the first time, I had something to act on. If I could somehow get access to motor-vehicle-department records in South Carolina. I didn’t know whom to call. An attorney might be able to get it done. The police, of course. Fat chance of that! I could call Liz, but I wanted to keep her out of this as much as I could.

Then I suddenly thought of Marv, my business partner in the walk-in clinics. Marv was the ex-VP of Operations in the Lauderdale Hospital system. He knew the world. Police. Government officials. Movers and shakers. When it came to public records on anything, Marv could get it done.

He’d already sent me e-mails, conveying his shock and disbelief at the news reports and begging me to call him.

I picked up one of the disposables and punched in Marv’s number; it rang three times before he picked up.

“Marv Weiss…” It sounded like he was on a speakerphone.

“Marv, it’s me!” I said, in a hushed voice. “Are you able to talk?”

“Henry…! Wait just a minute…” I heard him get up, probably to shut the office door. Then I heard the tone come off the speakerphone. “Yes, I can talk. Henry. What the hell’s going on? This is all so crazy! I know you. These charges can’t be true.”

“Of course they’re not true, Marv! And I know it’s all crazy-and I wish I could go into it all right now. But listen: if you want to help me, I need something from you.”

“Of course I want to help. What…?”

“Marv, first, I want to give you my word-we’ve known each other a long time-that I didn’t do one thing they’re accusing me of. Not one thing. I swear!”

“You don’t have to explain that to me. I know you didn’t do it, Henry.”

“Including that last bit of nonsense from college that came out last night. It’s all a crock of shit. But what I have to do is prove it right now, and for that, I need some help.”

“I understand. I just can’t believe you’re in this mess. What line are you calling me on? I didn’t recognize the phone. You have to be careful…”

“Don’t even ask, Marv. I’m learning on the run. I think we’re safe. For now…”

“I know. I know. I can only imagine…” He tried to laugh. “Listen, the local police called here yesterday. They wanted to know if you’d been in touch.”

I hesitated a second. “So what’s the story on that? What are you going to tell them?” After Jennifer, I guess I was running scared of everyone right now. And I also didn’t want to drag Marv into trouble.

He didn’t hesitate. “Like you said, Henry, we’ve known each other a long time. What is it you need?”

Those words were like rain to me in a long drought. The drought of people’s trust in me. “That means the world to me, Marv. You’ve no idea. I’ve got to locate a car. I saw who did this to that cop. Or at least, I saw his car. I just don’t know where to turn.”

“You saw it happen?”

“I was looking through my side mirror. The officer had pulled me over for some kind of a bogus traffic violation. It was a dark blue sedan. I couldn’t tell the make, but I did catch part of the plates. They’re from South Carolina. I couldn’t make them out completely, but I’m positive on the first four characters. ADJ-4… You’ve gotta find that plate for me, Marv. It’s my only way out of this. I know you’ll know someone who can get it done.”

“A-D-J dash four…?” he said, writing it down.

“Yes. I mean, how many plates can possibly begin like that? And registered for a blue sedan?”

“Don’t get your hopes up totally. The car could have been stolen.”

“I know. I know. Believe me…” I’d taken two cars myself in the past day. “But it’s a start. It’s all I have as a start, Marv. It has to lead somewhere…”

“I’ll try, Henry, I’ll try… Listen…” He lowered his voice. “I’m sure I’m not the first one to say this to you, but maybe the best course of action is simply to turn yourself in. Let the police pursue this. We’re living in America, Henry, not Syria. If you didn’t do this, the truth will come out.”

“The police up here seem to be shooting first and asking questions later. You ever been shot at, Marv?”

“No,” he said. “I can’t say that I have. Then how about making your way down here. We’ll find you the best representation. Then we can look for your car-”

“Listen, Marv…” Hard as it was, I couldn’t find a way to tell him about Hallie; about what had happened to her. “I’m sure if the tables were turned, I’d probably be telling you the very same thing. But I can’t. Something’s happened and I can’t. And I can’t even share it with you. I know that sounds crazy. You just have to trust me. Not to mention that even if I could-two murders, one of them of a cop-with my means and ability to flee, I wouldn’t be getting bail anytime soon. Half the Jacksonville police force saw me in cuffs in the backseat of Martinez’s car. They don’t have any doubts it’s me.”

“Cuffs…?”

“There’s no way to explain it.” And I couldn’t now. No time. I just went through it as fast as I could. Just enough so Marv could feel the nightmare I’d been through. “Which brings me back to that car…”

“Okay. Let me go. So how do I get in touch with you?”

“I’m going to give you a safe number. Or text me. On my cell. I’ll call you back.”

“All right, all right. I’ll get on it right now. But, Henry, you have to promise me you’ll stay out of sight until I can get back to you. Then we’ll figure out a way.”

“I’m not exactly a pro at this, but I’m learning fast. You have no idea what this means to me. I knew I could count on you, Marv. And hey, at least there’s one good thing I can think of that’s come out of this mess.”

“What’s that?” Marv replied dubiously.

“You remember a couple of years ago when we were going back and forth about what to name the clinics?”

“Yeah, I remember…”

“Now aren’t you glad I convinced you not to put my name over the front door?”

Chapter Twenty-Three

I wasn’t sure what to do while I waited, other than stay out of sight. I snuck into the men’s room at a Wendy’s and washed up. I was gritted out and had no idea how long it would take for Marv to get back to me. Or what the result would be when he did.

Or even what I would do once he found something.

Every time a police car passed by, if they did an electrocardiogram on me my heart rate would be off the paper!

Around 10 A.M., going out of my mind, I finally decided, The hell with it! I did have one other option.

I called the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office and said to the operator, “Carrie Holmes, please.”

Yesterday, I detected the slightest wavering in her voice, and right now my book was pretty empty on whom I could trust. I wasn’t sure what I would say if a secretary answered or if her voice mail came on, but to my relief, Carrie picked up.

“Community Outreach. Carrie Holmes…”

“Guess the glory days are over,” I said. “Back to the same ol’ grind…” Then I immediately felt foolish for being so glib.

I was met by a lengthy silence on the line. “Who is this?”

“Carrie, please, don’t hang up! Or alert anyone,” I said. “I just need to tell you something, without worrying if you’re tracing this and that I have to hang up. Can we do that, for just a second?”

She still didn’t say anything; just let the call go on in silence. I figured I’d misjudged her.

“Carrie, please, I know what you’re about to do, but I found something that can help prove my innocence. I know you’d be taking a risk, but just hear me out. Just for a second. I don’t have anywhere else to turn…”

Still more silence.

Then she said, “Yeah, back to the same ol’ grind… Dr. Steadman, you should not be calling me,” which felt like kind of a miracle, momentarily putting my worries at ease.

“Just give me a second!” I said. “So did you do what I asked? Did you try to find that car? The blue sedan I told you about yesterday. With South Carolina plates…?”

“Dr. Steadman, I told you yesterday, I think you have to turn yourself in,” she replied in a lowered, but firm voice. “If you don’t, things are going to go very badly for you. I think you’ve seen that already. And I honestly can’t be talking to you, other than to say-”

“You didn’t, did you?” I interrupted her. “You didn’t look for it?”

She didn’t answer right away. I heard her release a breath. “No.”

I let out one myself. “So are you tracing this?” I suddenly didn’t know why I had thought to put myself in her hands and realized I should end the call immediately. But I didn’t. “Just tell me. If you are. I don’t know why, but I have this sense you’re the only one there I can trust.”

“You’ve got no cause to trust me. I work for the sheriff’s office, Dr. Steadman. I’m not on your private security team… And I’m not your confidante.”

“So are you tracing me?” I asked her again. Then I waited. I felt something strangely empathetic in her tone. “Look, I’m gonna put myself in your hands, Carrie. Right or wrong. Maybe I’m stupid. I’m gonna tell you something that can help clear my name. Just please tell me, are you tracing this call?”

She didn’t answer.

But I knew what the answer was. She had to trace it. It was her responsibility. And as I checked the time I figured that gave me maybe about another minute and a half before I had to cut it short and move on.

“So how long do I have,” I asked, “a couple of minutes…? Then just hear me out. Why the hell would I kill those people, Carrie? Why would I kill my own friend? We were going to play golf, for Christ’s sake. I’d known him since college. He was a lawyer! The only reason I even went to his house was to get his help in turning me in. Check-I made two calls to him from my cell phone immediately after Martinez was killed. But he was dead by the time I got there. I realize I took his phone and his car-and how that makes me look. But I needed to get out of there and there was no other way. And my phone was compromised. And who the hell was going to believe me anyway after what happened to Martinez?”

She didn’t reply. The clock was ticking.

“And I told you, yesterday, that I was back in my car when Martinez was shot. He was letting me go; just writing me up a warning… You can check that too. What possible reason would I have for shooting someone if they were about to let me go? Not to mention, with what gun? Last I checked, they didn’t let you keep one on you when you traveled by plane. Has anyone given three seconds thought to that?”

“You could have ditched the gun when you say you took off after the car,” Carrie said.

“But I didn’t. And how would I get one? Did I know in advance that Martinez was going to pull me over?”

“So then turn yourself in, Dr. Steadman. To me, since you seem to trust me. I’ll make sure you’re treated fairly. You’ve done wonderful things. In Nicaragua. You built a school there. I saw your daughter’s photos-” She suddenly stopped herself, as if she’d revealed too much.

To me, it was the smallest crack in her armor. “You were on my website, weren’t you?”

“No,” she answered, as if she’d been caught red-handed. “Okay. Yes. I was.”

“Then I’m not wrong, am I? You do have doubts. Carrie, I need you to take this down. Please. I recalled the plate number from yesterday. From that car I mentioned. Not the whole thing, but part of it. It began with the letters A-D-J dash four… There were three additional numbers, but I’m sure that’s how it began. There have to be security cameras around. On the lights, or near one of the scenes. The guy headed down Lakeview after he shot Martinez and went onto I-10, heading west. There are always cameras! Please, Carrie, I need you to do this for me. That car is the only chance I have!”

I didn’t know if I had reached her or not, but I knew my time was rapidly coming to an end and that I’d better get on the move. I put the phone on speaker and the car in gear and headed onto the road. I knew that my partner Marv was a long shot, if he even could come up with something. But there was something that made me feel that Carrie Holmes was someone I could trust.

She asked, softer, “What did you mean yesterday when you said you couldn’t turn yourself in? You mean because you were afraid?”

“Yes, I was afraid, at first. But no, it was something else. I just can’t tell you.”

“I’m not sure I see how you’re in a position to be keeping secrets, Dr. Steadman…”

“I can’t.” Part of me wanted to; I’d sensed that something I’d said yesterday had hit home. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t take the chance. The stakes were too great if it got out. “All I can say is that it’s bigger than whatever happens to me. It’s bigger than Martinez. Or even Mike. I wish I could tell you, Carrie, I just can’t.”

I heard a commotion. Voices in the background. They were probably coming up with my number at that very moment. Just a matter of seconds, then, to hit on my location. Or maybe they already had it! I was playing with fire.

“Did you do this, Dr. Steadman?” she asked me directly. “I knew Bob Martinez. He had a wife and three kids. I want to hear you say it. Did you kill those people?”

“No. I wish I was in front of you so you could see my eyes. I swear, Carrie. I swear on anything. I swear on what I said to you yesterday… My own daughter.” It hurt to even say it. “No.”

“And all that stuff that came out about you at college…?”

“All totally twisted,” I shot back. “Yes, it happened. That fellow drowned. I was there. But it was an accident. He panicked on the rocks, that’s all. I never killed anyone. I wasn’t even suspended from school. Talk to the people at Amherst. It was an accident. They didn’t find a thing. I was even the one who was arguing on the kid’s behalf.” I turned on the main street, leaving the Wendy’s way behind.

“Then what the hell do you think is going on, Dr. Steadman?” I heard exasperation in her voice. “If it’s not you doing this-who is?”

The words had the feel of an accusation more than a question. And God knows, over the last twenty-four hours I’d asked it myself a hundred times. “I wish I knew, Carrie. But please, just look for that car. That’s all I’m asking. There have to be cameras. I guarantee you’ll spot it at, or near, both crime scenes. Please… ADJ-4. Did you at least write it down?”

She didn’t reply. I didn’t know if she believed me or not. Or if she had been tracing the call all along, and cops were on their way to pick me up right now.

“Did you write it down, Carrie?” was all I could ask.

Suddenly two police cars raced past me the other way, lights flashing, sending shock waves through my heart. Now the answer to whether she’d traced my call was clear. “Thanks…” I said, and cut off the connection, my disappointment morphing into outright panic. There were sirens echoing all around. I fully expected the cars to do a U-ey, realizing they’d just gone past me, and surround me on the street. Cops jumping out of their cars with weapons drawn.

But they just kept going. Maybe to that McDonald’s. Maybe to some other fixed point they had triangulated.

I was still free.

I melded into traffic, getting away from there as fast as I could.

My only hope now was to wait for Marv.

“Great job,” Bill Akers said, ducking his head back in. “We missed him. The initial fix was on a fast-food place out on Cassat. We almost had him.”

“Too bad,” Carrie said. “Bill, you think we ought to check out his story? About that car?”

Akers chuckled, indicating that he didn’t give it much credence. “Just let me know if he calls in again. There’ll be other chances. He won’t get far.” He gave her a thumbs-up sign.

She’d done the right thing. Right? Carrie wondered after he left. She’d put out the trace. She’d gotten the proper people involved.

Still, she felt an anxiousness come over her.

She looked down at the sheet of paper on her desk. At the partial plate number staring up at her.

Yes, there probably were cameras around somewhere. And yes, it all did seem just a bit improbable. Why would Steadman kill Martinez? Over a traffic violation, no less. While he was letting him go. Not to mention killing his friend?

And with what gun?

Her heart beat nervously. She’d be a fool. A fool to get involved. What with Raef. And she wasn’t even a detective.

But, yes… She slid the number under her desk mat, answering him. I wrote it down.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Carrie drove, later that afternoon, out to Lakeview, pretending to be on department business, just to see for herself where Martinez had been killed. Her eyes darted back and forth across the steadily trafficked street as it led toward I-10.

She wasn’t sure why she was doing this, other than because somewhere deep in her gut, a part of what Steadman had said must have made sense to her. Was it the fact that he’d had no reason to kill Martinez, who was in the process of letting him go? She’d checked on that. Or, like he’d said, where would he have gotten a weapon? And why? Or that it made perfect sense for him to go to his friend’s house, the only person he knew in town who could help him turn himself in. And no sense at all to kill him. Or was it the good things he had done, which she had read about on his website? Or was it his kind face, which didn’t look like a killer’s face, and the way he defended himself. Or, lastly, was it what he had said about his daughter? As if he’d known exactly what she had once said about her own son. Then you’ll understand…

Maybe it was that that had hit home the most.

Or maybe it was simply because nothing in Steadman’s story fit the profile of a killer. And everything he had said rang true. He was in town to deliver a speech at a Doctors Without Borders conference. Martinez would have been no more than a random interaction. Not to mention this car, this “blue sedan” he pressed so hard on. What would he possibly have to gain if they couldn’t find such a car? If it didn’t exist. There have to be cameras.

But he was right on one thing-Steadman. That there was no one in the department-not a detective or a patrolman or anyone in the brass; not even the guy who mopped the floors at night-who didn’t want to see him thrown into a cell for Martinez’s murder.

Or who was focused on any other suspect.

No one other than Carrie herself. Carolyn Rose Holmes-she smirked to herself as she slowly drove her way up Lakeview-when did you become the patron saint of lost causes?

Her heart picking up, she passed the turnoff where Martinez had been shot-Westvale, it was called-and stopped for a second to look. It was still cordoned off with police barriers.

To her knowledge, there weren’t cameras on any traffic lights on Lakeview. Which made her task all the more difficult. She’d have to go from business to business and ask around. Kind of like a detective. And do it without drawing attention to herself. At five feet four inches, with shoulder-length strawberry-blond hair, light blue eyes, and a scattering of orange freckles on her cheeks, she didn’t much look like a detective.

And she liked that.

Noting the time, she continued west from the murder site toward the highway. The direction Steadman claimed the blue car with South Carolina plates he so desperately wanted her to find was traveling.

She had taken a glance through the witnesses’ statements. None of the people who saw Steadman exiting Martinez’s car had mentioned the vehicle. Of course the killer would have waited for a gap in traffic before he pounced, and Steadman, rushing back to Martinez to check him out, might have been over him, what, twenty, thirty seconds?

Why do you believe him? Carrie asked herself. Are you in such a state now that you’re a sucker for anyone with a smooth voice who throws on a little charm?

ADJ-4, right…?

She passed a bank, Gold Coast Savings. They must have security cameras. At least, Carrie figured, ones facing in. But obtaining them might be problematic-given that while she had a perfectly valid sheriff’s office ID, it wasn’t exactly a detective’s shield.

Continuing, she passed a row of fast-food outlets and larger malls, all possibilities. But the big stores were all set back well off the street behind large parking lots.

I-10 was just a quarter mile ahead.

Then she saw a gas station. A tall Exxon sign that suggested that the place might have a fairly sweeping view of Lakeshore Drive.

She decided to turn in.

She parked near the office and asked herself one more time just why she was doing this. Then she opened her door.

She went into the service station’s office and asked the guy behind the counter for the manager. He got on the intercom, called out a name, and an affable-looking Indian with a name tag that read Pat stuck his head in from inside the garage. “Can I help you?”

“I’m with the sheriff’s office,” Carrie said. She flashed him her photo ID. Then she pointed toward the road signs. “You know there was a serious incident down the street involving a policeman yesterday?”

“Of course.” The manager nodded. “Traffic along here was backed up all day.”

Carrie asked him, “Any chance you have security cameras that have a view of the street?”

Chapter Twenty-Five

Business was booming for Dexter Ray Vaughn these days.

Booming enough for him to buy, in cash, the run-down row house in Cobb County outside Atlanta that he’d been renting-and fill it with a boss Bose sound system and a sixty-inch Samsung, which, other than a mattress in the bedroom, was pretty much his only furniture. Good enough to buy the tricked-out Ford 450 pickup he was driving lately.

Only problem was, he thought as he glanced around in his T-shirt and undershorts, his wife, Vicki, was always so stoned she couldn’t keep the house in any form other than “Early Shithole.” And the fridge never had anything in it but vodka and stale pizza. But considering the kinds of customers and business associates he had floating through here on a daily basis, it was, like, Who the fuck really cared?

The meth lab in his basement was turning out a hundred grams a day, when he got the urge to work. He had a distro network, both in town and even out in the boonies-if you called his half-witted cousin Del, who sometimes ran for him there, a distributor. More like a sloth who sat in the trees farting and scratching himself.

Not to mention the neat, little side business he had going for himself in pharmaceuticals. Diversified-just like Warren E. Buffett-he had once seen the word in a magazine at his doctor’s office. Local gangs moved some of it locally and provided protection, so Dexter didn’t even have to lose sleep at night worrying about the cops.

Shit, some of the cops were his best customers.

Life Was Fucking-A Good, just like the words on the T-shirt he was wearing and had apparently passed out in last night. He’d been partying most of the night and woken up at two in the afternoon on the couch, with a world-class hard-on. Vicki was nowhere around, probably blowing some Mexican up the street for weed. Dex didn’t really care. Shit, he could call up a half-dozen meth skanks who’d be over in thirty seconds and go down on him for what he’d left out on the table.

But, he got up and sighed, commerce called. His amigos were expecting more inventory mañana. He had to get to the lab. Dex stretched, still a little wobbly, and took the last chug from a can of warm beer he’d left on the rug.

Man, this steady nine-to-five crap was killing him.

The doorbell rang.

Fuck. Who the hell was there? He groaned. Winston, the Jamaican, was supposed to come by, but that wasn’t until around six. Dexter shuffled over to the window, scratching his crotch. He parted the curtain, but was unable to see who was there. He pushed the hair out of his face and reknotted his ponytail, all-presentable like. “Who is it, man?” he called, squinting through the peephole. “Speak and be recognized.”

“Del sends his regards,” the person said.

Fuckin’ Del… The guy looked like a rube from Okefenokee. Didn’t that pimply bladderhead know better than to send his hicks around…?

“Del oughta know better,” Dexter said, turning the knob and pushing open the bolt. “He-”

And then the door pretty much exploded in his face.

Before he even knew what was happening, this old dude had forced his way in. Heavyset. Arms like fucking ham hocks. Bald on top. Dexter’s hand shot to his mouth and there was blood on it. “The fuck you doin’, man…”

Then his eyes grew wide when he saw a shotgun in the guy’s hands.

“Dude, you outta your fuckin’ mind?” Dexter blurted at him, thinking he knew about ten people right off the top of his head he could get to blow a hole through this guy as wide as a highway. Stupid fool clearly had no idea where he was.

But then the guy’s elbow jerked and the butt of the shotgun caught Dex hard in the mouth. He felt his lip burst open, and when he looked down, he saw three of his own teeth staring up at him from the floor.

“On the couch,” Vance demanded, motioning to the dilapidated tweed thing that sat in front of the wide-screen TV.

“Listen, old man, you must be touched!” Dexter said, spitting blood onto his hand. “You don’t have any idea what the fuck you’re doing here. You think you can just-”

“Sit. On. The. Couch,” Vance said again, this time emphasizing each word with the muzzle of the shotgun.

“All right, all right…” Dexter said, lifting his palms. “I’m going. I’m going… Just keep it cool, old man.” He shuffled to the couch and sank down. He wiped blood off his mouth. “Look what you done, dude? What the hell is it you want? You need a boost? Weed? X? A little meth maybe? I can get it all. You surely look like you can use some X, there, dude, if you don’t mind me saying so. Got no cash-no worries, we can work something out.”

“I look like I came here for drugs?” Vance demanded, staring down at him. He grabbed the cane chair that was in the middle of the room and plunked himself down on it, facing Dexter Vaughn, the shotgun dangling loosely from his side. The blinds were already down. “You sold some Oxy to someone named Wayne Deloach, back in Acropolis. Through some poor fool named Del.”

“Roxies…? Acropolis…? Nah, never heard of Acropolis,” Dexter said, wiping the blood out of his mouth, surely wondering what was going on.

“You heard of him, though,” Vance replied.

“You some kind of cop?”

Vance shook his head. “Not anymore.”

“Then I’m sorry to tell you, I don’t the fuck know any Wayne Deloach. Though you’re surely right on one thing… My cousin Del damn well is a poor fool.”

“A dead one too,” Vance said, looking at him.

The ponytailed dealer swallowed. Vance could tell from the sheen of sweat that had popped up on his brow that he had gotten the guy’s full attention now.

“You said Wayne, right?”

Vance nodded, shifting the gun across from the guy’s knee.

“Still, don’t know him. In fact-”

Vance squeezed the trigger, sending a casing of Remington 341 buckshot into Dexter’s kneecap, causing him to jump up and howl clutching his knee, which, through his jeans, was mostly blood and exposed bone now.

“Look at that! Look what you fucking done, man!”

“I’m gonna give you one more chance to rethink your answer-about whether you knew this Wayne or not-before you become a dead fool too.”

“You fucking busted my knee, you sonovabitch!” Dexter rolled back onto the couch, writhing on the cushions, inspecting the hole in his jeans, blood all over them. “You must be fucking crazy, man. Ow…”

“That knee’ll soon end up the healthiest part of you”-Vance cocked the other barrel-“unless you tell me where your Oxy comes from. I know it was you and I don’t give a shit about whatever else is going on. All I want is a name. Whoever it is who supplies you, son. So unless you want to start losing more body parts by the minute and end up on the floor slithering around like a fish in a catch bucket, you better start thinking of some names.”

He lifted the barrel again so it pointed level at Dexter’s midsection. “I got a big fat target, son. The Oxy, boy. I want a name.”

“He’s no one! No one…!” Dexter cried out, putting his palms up for protection. “He’s just some jerk-off mule who earns a few bucks bringing them up to me once a month. Hell, it’s all small potatoes anyway. What’s the big fucking deal?”

Vance squeezed the trigger again and the Remington blasted a hole in Dexter’s other knee, taking away much of his shinbone as well.

“Aaargh,” Dex screamed, crying now, falling onto the floor and rolling from side to side in pain. His arms wrapped around both his shredded legs.

“The big deal”-Vance stood up and bent over him-“is that there are people who are dead, son. People who had a lot more worth in life than you, you miserable mess, because of what you do. And others, who won’t get a chance to live their lives out ’cause they were stupid and weak and easily preyed on by the likes of you.”

Dexter rolled around on his back, sobbing.

“Now, I can just leave you as you are, son, and you can get those legs mended-maybe-and you may well even walk one day and prey on some other fool’s daughter. You’d like that around now, wouldn’t you, son, if it turned out like that?”

“Yes,” Dexter said, moaning. “Please…”

“Or we can try another part. Say, right here…” Vance held the gun over Dexter’s groin. “Shit, probably gonna be useless to you anyway after today…”

“No, no, no, no, no…!” Dexter covered his crotch, his eyes stretched wide with panic.

“Then you give me the name, son. Who supplies you. Where’d that Oxy come from… You can spare yourself a lot of pain, not to mention eventually getting your head blown off.”

“All right, all right…” Dexter moaned, sobbing, his face a mishmash of blood and tears. “No more… Please, no more. He’s no one. Just some mule who brings it up. Pays for his own use. He’s just a mule. That’s all.”

Dexter gave him the name and told Vance where he could find him.

“Now you gotta get outta here. Please… I gave you what you wanted.” Tears ran down Dexter’s face. “Now just leave me. Please…”

Vance shouldered the gun, and for a moment he almost did leave Dexter be. After all, the guy would likely never walk in a straight line again anyway.

But then Vance stood there thinking for a minute or so, remembering all that had happened and why he was here. And what his vow was. His gaze bored deeply into Dexter’s helpless, pleading eyes.

“Can’t, son,” he admitted sadly.

He drew the gun over the dealer’s chest, who put up his hands and started muttering, “Please, no, don’t, don’t…” and turned his face away.

Vance said, “Sorry, just not the way it works here.”

He squeezed and the recoil lifted his arm all the way up to his shoulders. Dexter’s body jumped off the floor, his “Life Is Fucking-A Good” T-shirt with the winking smiley face on it pooling up quickly with blood.

“Someone’s gotta pay.”

Chapter Twenty-Six

Carrie left the Exxon station with an envelope full of security tapes from the morning Martinez was killed. A camera had been focused onto Lakeshore, but the angle was wide enough to catch a view of vehicles driving toward the highway.

She drove back to headquarters by way of Avondale, where Mike Dinofrio lived. Whoever killed him had likely driven via I-95 and gotten off at the Riverside Boulevard exit. From there, it was another six or seven minutes to Avondale. Martinez and Dinofrio had been murdered within about thirty minutes of each other, and Carrie calculated it would have taken approximately fifteen minutes or so to get to Dinofrio’s given traffic and the time of day. Whoever had done it-either the person in the blue car or Steadman via taxi-would have needed to get there fast.

She exited at Riverside and scanned both sides of the street as she drove past familiar office buildings-the Florida Times-Union, Haskell, Fidelity-until the structures along the road grew residential. Under a canopy of old oak trees, she passed the stately, historic homes that lined both sides, looking for cameras.

Nothing.

Eventually she hit Riverside Park, the neighborhood growing progressively more upscale, but still she saw no obvious cameras.

Until she happened on something that gave her hope.

A speed warning. YOU ARE GOING 35 MPH, the digital sign read. SPEED PATROLLED BY AUTOMATIC CAMERA.

Her heart rose with excitement. It would have definitely caught whoever had passed by two days before.

A couple of hours later, Carrie was back at the office, in the fourth-floor video station, reviewing the tapes. She’d gotten the speed-warning video from a friend who worked at the Transportation Authority. She began, frame by frame, with the tape from the Exxon station near where Martinez was killed.

The camera was focused on the comings and goings at the station, but it also took in the first two lanes of Lakeshore Drive heading west.

This was the best she had.

Carrie fast-forwarded to 10:06 A.M., the approximate time of the Martinez shooting. She sighed that it would have made this process a whole lot easier if Martinez had just had an in-dash camera in his car like a lot of the patrol cars now had.

She rolled the film forward, estimating that it was approximately two miles to the highway from the crime scene, and taking into account the traffic flow, which was steady, the blue car would have had to have passed by the station sometime between 10:09 and 10:11.

If it hadn’t turned off sooner.

And if Steadman wasn’t lying.

She watched the footage closely. It was going to be difficult to read the full license plate, especially on a car driving in the outer two lanes, because the camera angle wasn’t exactly positioned to capture that view. Steadman had said the car was a domestic make. A dark blue. Which wouldn’t exactly be helpful since the film was black-and-white.

10:07… Just a steady stream of traffic passing by. Nothing yet.

Carrie advanced the frames. 10:08… At the slower film speed, she studied every car she could. In real time, they had driven by in a flash, the camera picking them up for only a split second.

It was impossible to make out the car color, so she focused on the plates. South Carolina. ADJ-4…

10:09:23… Still nada. She was thinking a car might have already passed by this time. This was starting to feel like a giant waste of-

Something flashed by her on the screen.

A midshade sedan switching lanes. The camera picked it up for only a second. Carrie stopped the tape, rolled back, was able to zoom in. It was a Mazda. Not what Steadman had said, but he’d also said he wasn’t sure.

At the higher magnification the resolution grew even grainier. But she was able to make out numbers-at least some of them, though only on the right-hand side of the license plate: 392. The left side was completely obscured.

On the bottom of the plate she could make out a word that made her heart sputter:

Carolina.

Not South or North. The left side wasn’t clear.

Just Carolina.

It wouldn’t be hard to figure out which Carolina; however, she didn’t know state license-plate colors by heart.

And the plate also wasn’t ADJ-4, like Steadman insisted. Nor was it a Ford or a Mercury, whatever he thought it was. The only thing that stood out was the state.

10:09:46. Driving by at a high rate of speed. She wondered if that could be it. She made a note of the time and license numbers and continued forwarding the frames, just in case.

A minute later, another car passed by. This one she recognized immediately. It was Steadman’s white Cadillac STS. Carrie even verified the plate numbers.

He was clearly in pursuit, like he said, chasing the car that had gone before him.

She reversed the tape and replayed the first car over again. There was nothing, nothing even remotely suspicious about it. The plate didn’t match up, though she couldn’t make it out completely. The make was different. If she brought this information to Akers, or one of the detectives, as if it proved something, they’d look at her like she was crazy.

Shit, if she brought it to Raef, even he’d probably look at her like she was crazy.

Carrie sighed, filled with frustration. What the hell are you doing? she asked herself. This proved zero. She took the Exxon tape out of the player, marking down the one car that had caught her attention.

Then she put in the tape from the speed warning on Riverside Avenue.

Dinofrio had been alive at 10:15, when his wife left to go to her Pilates class. His killing had to have occurred before Steadman arrived, which, according to the cabbie was, 11:02. Accounting for the time it took for him drive back to the scene, escape the police, ditch the car, walk to the Clarion Inn, find the cab, and drive there.

Calculating the probable time it would take someone to get to Dinofrio’s house on Turnberry Terrace, she started with 10:30 A.M.

Carrie started advancing the tape. This one was a whole lot easier. While it was also black-and-white, the camera focused directly on an oncoming car’s front grille and license plate.

It was a speed trap.

But the work was still slow. There was no exact way to know precisely what time anyone would have passed there. Or, it occurred to Carrie, if they had even come by this route. Who could be sure?

Dozens and dozens of vehicles went by. With no matches.

10:35. Carrie started to grow disheartened. Give it up, said a voice inside her. Sometimes people who do bad things don’t fit the part. Look at Ted Bundy. He didn’t look the part. He could charm the pants off a-

10:40. Twenty minutes or so until Steadman would have passed by in the cab.

Still nothing.

Then suddenly it came into view. Her heart lurched to a stop.

Oh my God.

10:41:06. There it was. The very same Mazda. 392. This time with South Carolina plates. Perfectly clear.

And this time, Carrie saw all the numbers.

Her eyes doubled in size.

ADJ-4, the license plate read. Followed by what she had seen before. On Lakeview.

392.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

It took to the end of the day, but I did get a text message back from Marv. “Do you have a laptop handy?”

“Yes,” I wrote back from a Home Depot parking lot, trying to stay out of sight. “My iPad.”

“Check your e-mail.”

I found a document there, from the South Carolina Department of Motor Vehicles. I opened the attachment and ran my eyes over it like a starving man looking at a steak. There were names, addresses. All with plates beginning with ADJ-4.

Twelve of them.

Many were from towns I’d never heard of. Edgefield. Moncks Corner. I’d been in South Carolina only twice in my life. Once to Charleston, one of my favorite places, and once to Kiawah Island to play some golf with a bunch of doctor buddies.

Twelve… I eagerly scanned the list of names because possibly one of them was the killer I was looking for.

“How did you get these?” I called Marv back.

“Does it matter? I know someone. There’s a hundred ways to obtain things like this today. How much do you think a state employee actually makes for a living? But I’m hoping you’re simply planning on handing these over to the police after you turn yourself in. I want to repeat, Henry, what you’re doing is crazy. I know it seems like you’re alone. I know you think this is your only option. But it’s not. I did what I said I’d do; now it’s up to you. All you’re going to do is get yourself killed.”

I thought for a second about walking into a police station with my hands in the air and handing them this list. My gut reaction was that the cops would never even stoop to pick it up off the floor.

“I want to thank you for all this, Marv. I mean it. I’ll be back with you when I know something.”

“My little speech didn’t exactly move the needle, did it?”

“I wish I could tell you why I can’t, Marv. But the needle’s already moved. It’s way too late to dial it back.”

We hung up and I opened the document again, running my eyes down the columns. Names from all over the state. Four of them were women. Grace Kittridge, in Manning. Sally Ann Jennings in Edgarfield. A Betty Smith. Moncks Corner. Just to narrow it, I chose to cross them off for the moment.

Two of the plates on the list had expired. One in the past year and the other in ’06. Maybe they were just never turned in. Which didn’t really matter. They could have been stolen. Just like mine. Hell, for all I knew, the blue car I was searching might be stolen too.

Still, the remote chance that one of these names led to that car was the best chance I had.

I went into the Home Depot and bought a few things with cash. The first two were more throwaway cell phones, and the other was scissors.

I went into the men’s room toilet stall and started chopping my hair. Each lock of my long brown hair falling into the toilet was like a part of my life that might never come back. I had something I needed to do right now. I had someone who needed me more than I needed my old life. I was no longer someone who had been falsely accused of two murders. I was a dad, a dad who was trying to save the person he loved most in the world. I took one more glance at my old life floating there in the basin-and then I flushed.

I found a cash machine in the store and punched in my account number and password. I requested three hundred dollars. I knew it would likely trigger a response, probably just as it was happening.

Hell, there might even be a police team scrambling as I stood here now.

I didn’t care.

I wouldn’t be around long… and where I was heading, it wouldn’t matter.

I left, found another ATM at a bank nearby, and took out another three hundred. I stuffed the cash in my pocket, pulled down my cap, and jumped back into the car.

I-95 was only a short drive away. I turned on Sirius radio and found the Bridge. A bunch of oldies I knew.

I called Liz from one of the phones I had bought. I didn’t care about the risk. “I want you to know, I have a list. Of twelve cars, whose license plates begin with the number I saw. One of them has our daughter.”

“How, Henry?” she asked, surprised, but uplifted.

“Doesn’t matter.”

The next stop was getting my daughter back. You just hang on, Hallie. I’m coming.

Next stop, South Carolina.