15 Seconds

Chapter Thirty-Five

The first place I went to in South Carolina was a town called Summerville, north of Charleston.

It was actually a pretty place, nestled among woods of tall pines and, I guess, well named, as the road map said it had been a kind of summer refuge in the 1800s from the stifling humidity and heat of Charleston.

The name I had was a Donald Barrow. 297 Richardson Avenue. The map said it was just outside of town. The plate number ADJ-496. According to the information I had, it was registered to a 2004 Buick Marquis.

I ordered a sandwich in a local shop on Main Street, which was ringed with budding azaleas, then took it back to my car and drove to the address-an old white clapboard house on a street shaded by tall pines-and ate it, looking over the house, in my car.

I really didn’t know what to do. How to handle this. I wasn’t exactly a pro at this. What if it was the right place? What if the Buick was blue, and I went up to that door and the face came back to me and I stared directly into the eyes of the person who had done these horrible things? Realizing my daughter was there!

And he recognized me! He had to know my face.

What then?

I’d been running that scenario over in my mind since I’d left Florida.

I wrapped up my sandwich and placed it on the seat next to me. I tucked in my shirt and took a breath. You have to do this, Henry. Never any time like the present, right?

I left the car and walked up the short walkway leading to the house and onto the porch, trying to calm my heart, which was beating fast.

Anxiously I rang the bell.

I heard footsteps inside, and a middle-aged woman with flecks of gray in her short, curly hair came to the door.

“Hello,” she said, and when she didn’t recognize me, she asked in a pleasant drawl, “Can I help you?”

“Hi.” I stepped forward. “Is Mr. Barrow at home?”

“Mr. Barrow…?” The woman hesitated with a slight look of surprise. “May I ask why?”

I stepped forward. “I was sent by his insurance company. To take a look at his car.”

“His car…?”

“A 2004 Buick Marquis? Plate number ADJ-496… It was in an accident, I was told.”

The woman looked at me curiously and shook her head. “There must be some mistake. There hasn’t been any accident…”

“You’re sure?” I asked her again. “Maybe if Mr. Barrow is at home…?” Here in the Deep South people were generally polite and unsuspicious. If I were in South Florida, she’d already be asking to see my ID.

“I’m afraid my father isn’t here. He’s… He’s been ill. He’s been living in a nursing home in Ladson for the past six months.”

“Oh.” I stared back, suddenly feeling foolish and intrusive. “I’m very sorry. Is it here? Mr. Barrow’s car. Any chance I could just take a look at it? I don’t understand the confusion. Just to be sure…”

The plates could always have been stolen.

She thought about it for only a second, then stepped out and led me around the side of the porch. “It’s in the garage. But I assure you, it hasn’t been in any accident.” She went down another set of steps that led to the garage, pushed a button, and the garage door started to go up.

There was a white Buick in one of the two bays. With a South Carolina plate. ADJ-4967.

“You’re right. Clearly, it hasn’t been in any accident,” I said, shrugging.

“I can assure you, it hasn’t been out of the garage in the past six months,” the woman said. “Since my father left. For the life of me, I can’t see how anyone could have thought…”

“No, probably our error,” I said. This clearly wasn’t the car I was looking for. “I’m sorry to bother you. I hope your father gets well.”

“Well, thank you,” she said, “but I don’t know. He’s eighty-six. You know how it is.”

“Yes, I know,” I said.

I went straight back to my car, before it occurred to her to ask for some ID or for the name of the insurance company I represented. There was also the fear that she might call the police, especially after I noticed her looking at my car.

I drove away, out of town the way I had come, and when I thought I was safe, I pulled into a gas station, my heart still pounding.

You’re no Harrison Ford, Henry…

One down.

ADJ-4653. That was next. A town named Martinsville.

Chapter Thirty-Six

“Daddy? Daddy?”

I’d heard the ring and grabbed one of the phones from the passenger seat, and saw the call was from Hallie!

I didn’t know if I was alerting half the police in Florida, and I didn’t care! Over the past twenty-four hours I must’ve tried her cell a dozen times.

I pulled to the side of the road. “Hallie? Hi, baby, how are you doing?” My heart beat joyously. “I’m so glad to hear your voice! I’m-”

“Daddy, he just said I could tell you that I was all right, that’s all. And I am. But he said he has something to say to you. And whatever it is, Daddy, please do it. He’s-”

“Hallie, just hang in there!” Tears sprang up in my eyes and I cradled the phone in both hands. “Your mother and I both love you very much, you know that, honey, and we’re going to get you out of there. I promise, honey, you just be brave-”

“Aw, that’s sweet, Doc, really it is,” a man’s voice replied. Everything in my body turned to ice. “I did plan on filling you in on things just a tad more, but truth is, I’m really kind of enjoying thinking of how it is for you out there. Can’t go back, can’t go forward. How does that feel? You have to admit, that gun show thing was a pretty good piece of work, huh? So tell me, how’s it been for you these past few days?”

The ice now turned to fire. “What is it you want? Just tell me.” I felt myself gripping the phone like it was a weapon. “I’ll give it to you. Please… Just let my daughter go. She’s got nothing to do with anything.”

“Oh, that’s where you’re wrong, Doc,” the man replied calmly. “She’s got everything to do with everything. She’s part of you! But don’t you be too worried about her. It’s you I’d be focused on. Hopefully the police aren’t checking out where you are right now.”

“I told you before, you harm one hair on her head, you sonovabitch, and I’ll-”

“So how’s it feel, Doc?” He cut me right off. “How’s it feel to have your life taken from you. How’s it feel to lose everything you hold dear?”

My chest tightened. I couldn’t believe the hatred this animal seemed to hold for me. The blame. I was about to say, Why? What have I done to you? Why are you doing this?

But before I could get the words out, I heard him say, “More to come. More to come for sure, Doc.”

Another click and he was gone.

“Hallie!” I shouted, knowing I was talking only to a machine. “Hallie…”

I started to cry.

That old bromide came to mind: what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. And what was stronger than a father’s will to save his child? Nothing. It coursed through me like a river overflowing its banks, stronger than the urge to have my life back or the will to clear my name. It was everything.

But now I didn’t know how I felt. Closer to her or farther away? I didn’t know where she was. All I had was this stupid list of cars, and I didn’t even know if they would lead me to her. Or to nowhere. The clock was ticking.

And I couldn’t even let the people who might find her help me.

I called Liz. She answered on the third ring, expectantly. “Yes…”

All I could say was, “I spoke with her, Liz.” I felt so alone and helpless. I didn’t even tell her I had spoken with him. “She’s okay. For now.”

Chapter Thirty-Seven

“’Manda…?”

It took a moment for her to reply. And when she did it was clearly with hesitation. She didn’t seem so happy to hear from him. “Hello, Daddy…”

It felt good to Vance to hear her voice. Like he was back home, and on a Sunday, and she came out to ask what he was working on, in the wood closet, and things hadn’t happened as they did. “How they treatin’ you there, honey?”

“Okay. I guess. I’m learning. My cell mate scares me, though. She’s in here for hitting her husband with a pipe and cracking open his head. She makes me nervous, the way she stares at me. I don’t belong here, Daddy. You know, I don’t-”

“I’m sorry to hear all that, ’Manda.” He was sitting at the desk in his shabby hotel room, looking out at cars shooting by on the highway.

“I just don’t. But I’ve been reading. They got a lot of books here. I’m reading this one about a handsome lawyer from a small town in Alabama named Atticus, who’s defending this black man, who the whole town thinks is guilty of rape, but he’s not. It’s written from the point of view of his little daughter, named Scout. I know he’s going to get him off. It makes me feel good.”

Vance thought the man in the book sounded like a lot better father than he had been; that Amanda kind of wished he was her dad. It made him feel diminished, jealous of a character in a book he didn’t even know. “That’s good to hear, honey. I’m glad.”

“And I wrote this letter… To the husband of the woman I killed. He’s in Afghanistan. I told him I don’t know why things happen, but that they do, and I wasn’t old enough at first to understand my blame in all this, but now I do and how sorry I was. That if I could make it up to him, I would… How I would gladly change places with his wife if I could. That it was clear she deserved to live and have a family more than I did. And her baby…” Amanda began to sob.

“You don’t have to do that, ’Manda. There are others as guilty as you. That’s why I’m calling…”

“Yes, I have to do it, Daddy! I do. It made me feel good. To see myself for what I am. I know he won’t ever answer, and it don’t matter, but the counselor here says I have to face up to it. To what I did. To make amends-”

“I understand the concept of amends, honey. That’s why I’m calling you. I’ve-”

“So where you been anyway? I spoke to Aunt Linda and she said you haven’t been around here at all.”

“I’ve been working on your situation, ’Manda. How to make it right.”

“And ol’ Wayne, now there’s a fellow for ya. He’s suddenly not around here either. Just up and split. No one can find a trace of his ass.” She laughed bitterly. “I’m sure you don’t mind that none.”

“Wayne’s where he deserves to be, Amanda. For what he did.”

“Huh, Daddy…?” Her voice focused in more. “What d’you mean?”

“Nothing, honey. I don’t mean anything by it. ’Cept he deserves to be gone for what he did to you.”

“It wasn’t Wayne, Daddy. I understand that now. It was me!”

Vance didn’t answer her. She just didn’t see things clearly, didn’t understand about matters of personal responsibility and right and wrong. She still had the point of view of a child, he thought, and it was probably for the best.

All he wanted to tell her anyway was that he loved her.

“You know, I know I wasn’t always the best dad, Amanda… Like that person in the book.”

“You were all right, Daddy. You did what you could.”

“I remember I once went to visit you at school. On one of those father-daughter class days. You were maybe eight or nine…”

“Funny, I don’t remember ever seeing you at school, Daddy. Even once.”

“It was back in Florida. I was late. I couldn’t get off shift. But I went this one time. I got there, but everyone had left. Someone already drove you home. But this teacher let me go in. To your classroom. All by myself. And I saw this drawing you made. They had it on the wall. I think it was of me. It was a man in a uniform… with a blue cap. And he was chasing someone. With a gun. The teacher said it was part of some exercise your class was doing. How you were supposed to draw the person you admired most.”

“I remember that, Daddy. It was you. Before… Anyway, I don’t recall you ever telling me about it. You probably went straight to the bar afterward and got yourself drunk. You probably told all them about it.”

“I probably did.” That sounded about right, as Vance recalled. “But it made me realize, thinking about it, that there was a time where you did think of me in that way. As someone you admired some. Who stood up for the right things. Like that character in your book, Atticus…”

It took her a while to answer. “I suppose.”

“And I was hoping you might think of me like that again. Because that’s what I’m doing, Amanda. I’m making it all right again. For you. As much as I can.”

Vance had this thought that probably there was a time in all of our lives when we are all of us innocent. When we love our fathers and mothers. Because, what else did we know? When we all want to stand out and be someone good. And do good things. Before the world sets us on our paths and we become who we are.

Even his ’Manda had that inside.

John Schmeltzer too, no doubt.

“So, Amanda…” Vance cleared his throat. “I may not be seeing you for a while…”

She chuckled darkly. “You drunk, Daddy? You sure are sounding it.”

He was about to say no, and the silence grew deep before he could answer. And while it lasted, Vance wished he could say a lot of things to her. Like how he did love her. How he just wasn’t able to show it for a long time. Like how he was actually taking care of her now, as he knew he should have taken care of her back then. Making things right.

But instead, a smile crossed his lips, in his dingy motel room in South Florida. A drop of liquor hadn’t touched his lips in weeks, but all he said was, “Yeah, honey, I’m drunk.”

Chapter Thirty-Eight

On the morning he was sure his life would come to an end, Vance stepped through the door into the offices of the fancy medical building near Palm Beach.

A metal plaque on the wall read, Dr. Henry Steadman, Cosmetic Surgery.

He looked around and took a calming breath. The place was decorated to the hilt. Why would that surprise anyone? He stepped up to the counter. There was an attractive woman there, in regular street clothes. And a bunch of other women behind her, some in green nurses’ clothing; others on the phone, or doing paperwork. He felt for the gun under his jacket tucked into the back of his belt.

“Dr. Steadman,” he said. “I have an appointment.”

“Mr. Hofer, correct?” the woman behind the counter greeted him pleasantly.

Vance nodded. “Yes.”

“Good. There’s a bunch of forms for you to fill out. You know how it is.” She handed him a clipboard with several papers attached. “Dr. Steadman won’t be very long. Just bring these back up when you’re ready. And let me know if I can help you with anything.”

He tried to smile, and took it all back to a chair. That woman didn’t have to die. She hadn’t done anything. None of these people had. He was pleased to find no one else in the waiting room.

No, only Steadman had to die.

He filled out the forms as best he could, and went over what he would say when he saw the doctor. In truth, he hadn’t practiced anything. Other than, You are the man responsible for my little Amanda’s ruination. Do you understand that? Do you understand your responsibility? He’d written it all down, why he was doing this, tried to make his thoughts clear. He had this note on him. He’d hoped people might look at him as a kind of a hero-how’d he’d stood up. For his daughter. Found the source. And rubbed it out.

If not as a hero, at least as someone with the will to separate right from wrong.

Yes, that was enough, he decided.

He filled out the forms, writing down his real address for once, back in Acropolis, and gave them back to the pleasant gal at the desk.

“Great,” she said. “Why don’t you come through the door, and we’ll bring you into another room and the doctor will see you soon.”

His heartbeat picked up. “Okay.”

The woman led him down a hall through a maze of medical workstations and examining rooms, into a smaller waiting area where he was told to take a seat. There were magazines and newspapers spread on the table. Vance picked up a USA Today. “Egyptian Unrest Continues for Second Week. Mubarek Refuses to Go.”

He wondered for a moment how God would look at him. Whether there was a heaven or hell. He hoped there was. He thought he deserved heaven somehow. Maybe he had caused pain in his life, but life was a balance, right? A balance of good deeds and bad. And he hoped that God would find that he’d done good too. Just like that wave over there in Japan. Or this guy in Egypt. God does bad things too. And-

“Mr. Hofer, my name is Maryanne,” another woman said, interrupting his thoughts. Vance looked up. “I’m Dr. Steadman’s assistant. He can see you now.”

Chapter Thirty-Nine

The doctor’s assistant led him down the hall, gesturing him into a corner office.

“Mr. Hofer…” The man from the TV, about six feet, longish brown hair, a friendly smile, got up from behind his desk. “Come sit over here. I hope you didn’t have to wait too long. What can we do for you today?”

The office was modern and bright, with picture windows that looked out over the Intercoastal. It had a large, built-in bookshelf against one wall, a polished conference table with six chairs, bronze sculptures, what looked, to Vance, like African masks, and a handful of framed diplomas and awards on the walls. One of them was a magazine cover. Everything about the place was expensive, dizzying. Why not? It was paid for with people’s blood, right?

“Get you anything?” Steadman asked. “Coffee? A Coke? Water?”

“I’m fine.” Vance shook his head.

“Okay, then.” The doctor glanced at his assistant. “Thanks, Maryanne. We’re good. So please, sit down.”

There was a credenza behind him with a bunch of photographs and awards on top. Vance tried not to be taken in by the size and the fancy setting. His eye caught a framed magazine cover-“South Florida’s Best Doctors…”-on the wall. Steadman’s picture on it.

“You advertise enough, no telling what they’ll give you,” Steadman said with a grin, noticing Vance fix on it.

Vance saw why people might be drawn to him.

“So I have your paperwork here,” Steadman said. “I see you live up in Georgia.” He crossed his legs, palms pressed together. “So what brings you here, Mr. Hofer?”

Maybe this was the time, Vance thought, staring back at him. Why dance around with a bunch of meaningless questions and answers? Just tell him. Tell him why you’re here! Does he know what he has caused? Is he prepared to assume responsibility? Vance felt the gun digging into his back. Inside, his blood was racing.

Just do it now.

Instead he said, “I’ve got this thing.” He touched his collar. “On my neck. These wrinkles here… It’s always bothered me.”

It was true. His neck had always been prematurely wrinkled. He’d always tried to hide it, always worn shirts with high collars to cover it up. Whenever his photo was taken, he felt ashamed.

Steadman stood up and came around. “Do you mind if I take a look…?” He stepped next to Vance and gently pulled his shirt collar open. “Yeah, I see…” He touched his neck. Vance felt a shiver run down his spine and his heartbeat picked up. Maybe he ought to simply pull out his gun and shoot the man dead right now. Why drag this out? He’d waited for this moment so long… He wanted to see Steadman’s shock and watch him beg when he told him just why he was here.

“Yes, I see…” Steadman said. He ran his fingers against Vance’s bunched skin. “Okay…” He went back around his desk and began to type into his computer. “We can perform what they call a rhytidectomy… It’s basically a tuck. Just like a face-lift. Same principle. I can pull it up on the screen.”

Vance put his fingers against his neck and smoothed out his skin.

Steadman went on: “It’s not a spot I generally work on. But I can see how it might bother you. What kind of work are you engaged in, Mr. Hofer…?”

“I used to work for the state police,” Vance said.

“A cop?” the doctor asked him, scrolling.

Vance nodded. “Fifteen years. Before I had to move. Since then I ran a lathe machine in a die factory.”

“I see… And what brings you all the way down here?”

“Your reputation,” was all Vance said, picturing how Steadman would be with the barrel of a gun shoved into his mouth.

Like them all.

“Well, thanks; always nice to hear. Ah, here we go…” Steadman spun the screen around. There were two photos side by side on it. “My guess is that your skin texture seems fully pliant enough for surgery. If you’re interested, I’d like to take a shot of you, do some tests…”

A fury began to build in Vance’s chest. Steadman seemed like a nice guy, but he was the same as those others who had profited from his daughter’s fall. Worse, he hid behind all his big-shot degrees and this fancy office. He would never have to pay. Never. Not unless Vance did what he was here to do.

Now…

“I saw you have these clinics…” Vance said.

“Ah, pain remediation, yes…” Steadman spun the monitor back around.

“I was there…”

Steadman’s look shifted a little, like he thought Vance was really only here for some kind of pain matter, and not what he’d said at all.

“My daughter…” Vance felt behind him for the gun. “Back in Georgia… She’s-”

All of a sudden the intercom came on. “Doctor… Sorry to interrupt, but I have someone who says you’re expecting his call and that he’s traveling-”

“Who is it?” Steadman asked, over the speaker.

“Michael Dinofrio,” said his assistant. “He says you know him.”

“Yes, tell him to hold on.” Steadman turned to Vance. “I’ll only be a second,” he said apologetically. “I’m heading up to Jacksonville for a medical conference in a couple of weeks and I just need to iron this one thing out…”

Vance nodded, his rage starting to recede.

“Thanks! Mike…?” Steadman picked up the phone and swiveled his chair around. “How are you, guy? I’m with a patient, so I can only speak for a second. Yes, I’ll be up there on the nineteenth as planned. Three weeks from tomorrow. We’re on…! Fantastic! I’ll be practicing my putting starting this afternoon! I’m looking forward to it more than I am my own presentation…”

While Steadman spoke, Vance noticed the photographs on the credenza behind him. Some of the doc with some celebrities Vance thought he recognized; others… One was of a pretty young girl. Looked like a teenager. In a denim jacket with flowery embroideries all over it. Her head was tilted onto Steadman’s shoulder. The two of them beaming. Looked just like him. Real nice…

And the other-that same girl in a riding outfit and cap, on a horse, captured in midjump. Beautiful…

“Mike, that’ll be perfect,” Steadman finished up. “You can e-mail me directions to your house in Avondale. I’ll be flying up that morning. I’ll send you my travel details soon as I know them. Thanks again, buddy. And I can’t wait to see you and Gail…”

Steadman shifted back around and put down the phone. “Sorry about that. I’m giving a speech up in Jacksonville at a Doctors Without Borders conference in a couple of weeks…”

“Jacksonville…?” Vance said, blinking.

“Yeah. An old college buddy of mine is a member of this new Jack Nicklaus course… Impossible to get onto, know what I mean? So I’ll pop up early and we’ll get to play a few. You a golfer, Mr. Hofer?”

Vance shook his head. “No.”

“Lucky for you!” Steadman leaned back in his chair. “You would think the human race would have evolved enough than to whack a little white ball as far as possible, chase after it, and call it fun! Dogs maybe.”

Vance pretended to laugh, his mind off on a new path now, at its own fork in the road- something new formulating inside him. Even more satisfying.

“Your daughter…?” he asked the doctor, pointing toward the credenza.

Steadman looked behind him and nodded proudly. “My little girl… Not so little anymore; that was taken a while back, she’s actually nineteen. Just started college last fall. You say you have a daughter yourself…?”

“Yes. ’Manda,” Vance replied.

“Then you know what it’s like, right?” Steadman shrugged wistfully. “Always our little girls…”

“Yes. I guess you’d do just about anything,” Vance said, nodding, “to keep ’em from harm.” His blood began to throb again, but this time with a rush of delight at the plan he was forming. Far better than this.

Jacksonville.

That was near Yulee, where Vance used to live when he was on the force.

And he knew someone there. Someone who owed him a favor.

A real big favor, Vance recalled.

Three weeks. That would give him time. Things began to take shape in his mind. I mean, the object is to make Steadman suffer, right? Just like Vance had suffered. Just like the ball of misery and ill-fatedness that had come to Amanda’s door. He could make this greedy doctor see, Vance suddenly realized, just what a chain of woes he had set in motion. To end it here, he now realized, would be far too easy.

“I think I’m gonna have to think about all this,” Vance said, rubbing his neck. “Maybe I will take a name from up there. How about I let you know?”

“Of course,” Steadman answered, easing back upright. “You know how to reach us. Maryanne will be happy to answer any further questions you may have. As well as the costs.”

“Perfect.” Vance nodded, looking at him.

Steadman came around the desk. “We’ll be happy to print off any information about the procedure to help you in your decision.” He walked him toward the door. “In the meantime, it’s been a pleasure… Very nice to meet you, Mr. Hofer…” He extended his hand.

Vance took it, and looked back into Steadman’s unsuspecting eyes. “Pleasure’s all mine.”

Chapter Forty

It all began to take shape for Vance, on his way back to Acropolis, and he felt a renewed sense of purpose and life.

What he had to do to make Steadman properly pay.

Jacksonville. He had three weeks to make it happen.

It was all starting to come alive!

He spent close to a day driving around in his blue Mazda, hashing out the details. Simply killing Steadman now would be far too easy. He had to make him feel pain. The same pain Vance had felt. How it felt to have everything taken away. Everything he had built up in his life. Everything he loved. Cherished. Taken away.

He had to rob the man of everything he once held dear.

Because ultimately, Vance realized, Steadman was no better than any of the others, no better than Wayne, Dexter, or Schmeltzer. All those fancy degrees and accomplishments… put a gun to his mouth and he would shit in his pants like all the rest. Beg. Offer up everything he had.

How else could you make a man like him ever feel remorse? How else could you make him be accountable for his actions?

Vance knew that someone like Steadman felt that the way he was perceived by the world was just as vital as whatever he’d accomplished in his life.

His reputation. His prestige. Take all that away, and he was no better than a shit pile in a dust storm. You had to cut out his heart to make him bleed.

And that’s what Vance would do: cut out his heart.

Like Amanda’s had been cut out.

And he knew exactly how to do it.

Near Atlanta, he stopped and found one of those Internet cafés. Vance didn’t know a whole lot about computers, but the waitress helped him. He looked up Doctors Without Borders and located the meeting in Jacksonville that Steadman had spoken of to his friend. At the Marriott Sun Coast there. On March 19.

And he saw Steadman’s name on the list of speakers.

Everything knitted together. There was only one piece he had to add, and he thought he knew just how to do that. He needed some help to fully carry it out. And he knew where to find that help.

He’d waited years to use it.

Near his home, Vance stopped at a diner and found a phone. He dialed 411 and asked for a name. A name from deep in his past.

In Jacksonville.

Once, their lives had come together in a moment that could never be undone. It was more than a bond; it was a debt. A debt that had never been called or forgiven. Or even asked to be repaid.

Until now.

The line rang, and to his delight, a man picked up, kids shouting in the background. “Hello.”

Vance said the name that would unleash it all. “Robert Martinez, please.”

The Jacksonville cop hesitated. “Who’s this?”

Vance felt himself hurtled back in time. For a moment all the quiet mediocrity and held-in futility of his life fell away.

“It’s Vance. So what do you know, old friend…?”

Silence.

Vance leaned his elbow against the wall. “Been a long time, huh?”

Chapter Forty-One

Herbert Sykes.

Vance brought the image of the black man’s face back into his mind as clearly as if he were standing in front of him now.

Slim and wiry. Around forty, Vance had guessed. Reminded him of that comedian, Jimmie Walker, who was popular back then. Skin like blacktop, and those big, wide eyes. Slippery like an eel, Vance remembered thinking when he first came upon him. A water moccasin, slithering through the mud, looking for prey.

Except this time the snake bit him.

It was ten years ago.

Vance had just gotten off his four-to-midnight shift, and was finishing off a steak at a diner off the highway, about to head home, when the call came in.

“All available units, ten-twenty-four.” A home break-in. In Deerwood. Dispatch said the husband and wife were locked in a closet while the intruder ran through their house. Their young daughter was severely beaten. Possible sexual assault.

The suspect was spotted heading west on Southside in a black SUV. Suspect could be armed and dangerous.

Vance could have ignored it; he always knew this. He was done for the night, and on his way home to Yulee. But it was the part about the little girl that got him going.

Until that moment, Vance’s life had been going in a steady, if undistinguished way. And that was fine with him. He had joined the local force straight out of the reserves. Never more than a high school degree, but he knew how to do what he was told and he didn’t back down from trouble when it faced him.

Amanda was nine, and Joyce was working at the county clerk’s office. They had a two-bedroom home. Paid things off. Maybe he drank a stage. Maybe he used the back of his hand when his frustrations built up. He was never very good at controlling them.

But they had a life, a good life, simple as it was. They even went away on trips together back then. Myrtle Beach once, and another time to Elvis’s home in Memphis.

Vance threw on the lights and siren, tracking the chase on the radio. On a side street, he came upon them, second on the scene.

Martinez was on him first, and already had the guy spread up against his car. A black Land Cruiser.

“Sonovabitch claims he was nowhere near Deerwood,” Martinez said, recognizing Vance, a state trooper, but whose beat was local. “But lookie here what the boy had on him.”

Martinez held up a black handgun, his thumb and index finger around the trigger guard.

“Sumbitch is a goddamned liar,” Vance said, coming around the car with his nightstick. He could smell a piece of shit from a mile away, and this one, with those scared, buggin’ eyes and multipocketed North Face jacket, driving a car Vance couldn’t afford in ten years, had the smell all over him.

“You like to rob houses?” Martinez asked the guy, shoving him in the back with the stick. “You like to beat up on little girls…?” he pressed. He let the stick slide down to the guy’s ass. “Maybe do other things. Put your hands where they don’t belong?”

“I didn’t do shit to anyone,” the guy turned and said. Scared, but still indignant. “I was at my cousin’s. I-”

Martinez kicked out the suspect’s feet and made him fall to the ground. “Don’t you be talking back to me,” he told him. Laughing. “I simply asked you a question, boy. So that’s how you get your rocks off, playing with twelve-year-olds, you piece of gutter shit.”

He kicked him. Hard. In the stomach.

The dude curled up with a loud ooof. Then Martinez went after the legs and near his groin. Over and over. The suspect attempting to cover himself up and curling into a ball.

“I didn’t do shit!” he yelled out. “I want my lawyer.”

“ ’Course you didn’t do shit.” Martinez kicked him again. He pointed to the guy’s gun. “This is all just fun and games! Right? You lying bastard…” He kicked him yet again. “Don’t you worry, you don’t need no lawyer, rat filth. You ain’t ever gonna make it that far, boy, understand?” Martinez kicked him again, and the guy moaned. “So what’d you take from there? C’mon, we know where you were. We know what you were up to.”

This time he lifted his boot and stomped on the guy’s head.

“Oowww!”

Vance felt his temperature start to rise and his hands squeeze around the club. He leaned over and peeked through the SUV’s windows. “I don’t see anything in the car.”

“Don’t you worry about the car,” Martinez said to him. He put his boot on the black dude’s skull, pressing it against the pavement. “So that’s what you like to do… Put them slimy, little fingers up a twelve-year-old girl’s nightgown?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the guy moaned, scared shitless, eyes wide. “I wuz at my cousin’s. In Westside. Call there! Ask!”

“He didn’t do it.” Martinez turned to Vance. “What do you think about that? Says he didn’t do it. You didn’t do it, huh?” He stomped on the guy’s head again, the guy rolling over in pain. “Fucking piece of shit!”

That was when another car came up. Lights flashing, radio crackling. Martinez went around to meet it, leaving Vance alone, his blood pressure rising, alone with the pathetic, cowering animal who’d just put his soiled hands all over a twelve-year-old kid.

Slimy, black eel, he remembered saying.

He could smell it. What the guy had done. It was all over him. He could just smell the sick filth all over that eely skin.

“Lemme see those hands?” Vance told him, his fingers wrapping around the stick. At the station, the guy would probably lawyer up. Plead it down to nothing. That’s the way it all worked today. Justice, whatever there was of it, had to be administered out here… Here, you still had to pay up for what you’d done.

“I said show me those hands!”

The guy curled up, not quite understanding. “Look, man, I-”

“I told you to show me those hands! And don’t be looking around. No one’s gonna help you out here.” Vance bent over and whacked him across the back with the stick. Just to let him know he was there.

The slithering eel let out a loud grunt, air rushing out of him. Ribs cracked.

Vance hit him again. This time up on the neck, his head rattling against the pavement. “I said, show me those hands!” He reared back and hit him again. Vance wasn’t sure what had made him so damn angry. He’d arrested people all the time. People who’d done far worse. Martinez just seemed to open something in him. Things he’d kept inside for a long time. This sonovabitch eel just seemed to bring it all out.

“You don’t seem to hear me, son…”

The guy was bloodied. Not answering back now. But Vance stepped on his right shoulder, pinning the guy’s arm, and brought the club down on his extended hand, hard as he could, bone and knuckle cracking.

The eel yelped and started to whimper.

“This’ll teach you where to put those hands, son…” Vance did it again. With the other hand. The water eel howling like a baby now.

Two uniforms ran around to see. “Jesus, Trooper,” one of them said, “what the hell you done?”

“Motherfucker reached for something,” Vance said, staring into the guy’s eyes. “You did reach for something, didn’t you, boy? So I boxed his hands.”

Didn’t matter what he said-in Jacksonville back then, no one was going to buy the story of a black man who was carrying a gun over a state trooper’s.

Of course, Vance didn’t plan on the whole thing being caught on camera either, some kids who, hearing the commotion, had come to the window of a nearby apartment house, their camcorders catching every second of what went on.

Every second except the part when Martinez took the guy down and kicked the fucking daylights out of him, insisting he was the one.

And how after it was all over, there turned out to be nothing in the car. No loot at all. And it being a Land Cruiser and all, and the car they were after turning out to be a Jeep. And how the sonovabitch had been at a cousin’s birthday party not a half hour before, just like he said.

The real suspect was apprehended after a shoot-out around the same time, three miles away.

“He’d done something,” Vance said at the inquiry. “I could tell.”

But Vance never said a word about what Martinez had done. Throughout the inquiry that followed, when all that footage was shown, including the testimonies of the officers who’d arrived on the scene, Vance just sat there, taking the rap. Immediate dismissal from the force. Loss of benefits.

He just figured, why bring down someone else’s life needlessly?

But over the years… at his lathe at the plant or lying awake in bed… or watching his wife withering away to nothing… or hearing Amanda and that pond scum Wayne laughing and giggling and then not saying much of anything down the hall… he often wondered:

Why he’d done it.

Then. At that moment. To that man. Sykes.

Brought down his own life too.

He never quite came up with the answer.

But whenever he recalled the moment when his life spun away from him, Officer Robert Martinez was always there.

Chapter Forty-Two

Vance said, “I need a favor from you, Bobby.”

“A favor? What are you crazy, Hofer? Calling me up like this? After all these years. If my wife picked up…”

“But she didn’t pick up. You did, Bobby. And I need something from you. It ain’t much. I figured I’m owed that from you. Don’t you think so, Bobby-boy?”

“I’m not ‘Bobby’ to you, Hofer. I’m not anything to you. I’ve got a family now. I know what you did for me back then. And Lord knows, I guess I am in your debt some. But that was years back. We’ve all moved on. I can’t even talk to you now. I’m hanging up now-”

“No, Bobby, you’re not hanging up. Not if you know what’s good for you. Not until you hear what I have to say. I ain’t looking for much, all things considered. Not so much at all, to make things square.”

Vance knew if Martinez was still listening, there was hell in his eyes.

“What is it you want, Vance?”

“How’s life been for you, Bobby? Good, I suspect. I hear kids in the background. I think you’re still on the job. I figure probably a sergeant by now. Pension. What did you say, we’ve all moved on…?”

“Not sergeant,” Martinez said begrudgingly. “Patrolman, first class.”

“Well, ain’t that grand. Me, Bobby, shall we say I haven’t been as kissed by fate. Having fully moved on… My wife died. Lung cancer. My kid’s a fucking drug addict who’s now in…” He stopped, deciding not to say where Amanda was. “Been operating a lathe press these last ten years. But got laid off. Guess my temper’s always been a thing to deal with, but you know that. Even lost my home…”

“I’m sorry, Vance,” Martinez said. “I am.”

“Yeah, sorry…” Vance said. “I bet you are. It’s just that ‘sorry’ is a big ol’ luxury to me now. Know what I mean? ‘Sorry’ is like having a bagful of cash. But cash you can’t spend. You just look at it. And watch it. And it looks back at you with scorn. Kind of laughing at you…”

Martinez didn’t say anything.

“So I’m giving you a chance. A chance to square an old debt. And a damn easy one at that. ’Cause, make no mistake, Bobby, it was me who gave you that happy life you’re living now. Who gave you those kids I hear. That rank. That pension you’ll be spending one day… I don’t have to explain it all. I gave ’em to you. You understand that, don’t you, Bobby-boy…?”

Vance could all but feel Martinez seething on the other end. And weighing his reply. Finally, he came back: “What is it you want from me, Vance?”

“Good.” He had him! Vance told the cop about this person he owed a comeuppance to. “This doctor. From down south. He got my ’Manda all strung out on these pills. She’s done a bunch of bad things. I just want him razzed, Bobby. That’s all. You know what I mean. He’s coming up your way. In a couple of weeks…”

“Razzed?”

“You know the routine. Just take him out of his car. Scare the shit out of him a bit. I’ve seen you work. I just want him to know he’s not so high-and-mighty. He deserves that. Got my little girl all messed up. You have a little girl, don’t you, Bob?”

“I do. Becky. She’s ten.”

“So it should be easy for you. You just think of her. You’ll know what to do. I just want you to scare the daylights out of him. You can even bring some pals in on it if you like. Just make the guy feel like his fucking world’s falling apart…”

“And I’m gonna find this guy, how… ?” Martinez asked. “You said he’s not from around here?”

“No. South. Palm Beach. But I’ll take care of all that, don’t you worry. You just handle your end. You just make him shit those pants, and you’ll never hear from me again. We’re clean. So what do you say? Easy, huh?”

“When?” Martinez asked, after a bit of time, thinking it over.

“March nineteenth. He’ll be flying into the airport. I’ll pick him up there, and let you know what he’s driving and where he’s heading… But I think it’s near the Marriott Sun Coast Resort. You know that place?”

Martinez said he did.

“Just scare the daylights out of him. That’s all I ask. I told you, it’s not much. You can even tell him it was from me if you like when it’s all over. Yeah, I’d like that. Say hello to him. From Vance. Okay…?”

“And if I do this right for you…?”

“Then we’re done. For good. Won’t even light a candle at your funeral. ’Course, much more likely, you’ll be lighting one for me first.”

Martinez didn’t laugh. “March nineteenth?”

“March nineteenth it is, buddy. You free? I catch you on a good day, Bobby-boy?”

If Martinez had agreed with a bit more generosity of spirit, or at least a bit quicker, acknowledging his debt, Vance might have regretted how this “favor” would ultimately end for him.

But since he didn’t, Vance decided not to waste a whole lot of pity on him. A debt was a debt, and Martinez was no angel. No angel at all.

“Just make him soil those fancy pants of his, Bobby-boy.”

Chapter Forty-Three

The last part came to him while he was working with his saw in the toolshed in back of his house.

The Mid-Carolina Gun Fair was at the town armory in Tracy that weekend.

Vance drove up. He’d been firing a gun since he was five. Knew how to handle a Winchester 70 hunting rifle, and an M24 bolt-action sniper’s rifle too. Sometimes, around his house, he would shoot off rounds at squirrels or possum, just to keep his eye sharp.

But this time he wasn’t here just to mill around.

There was a specific dealer Vance had come to see. One, he’d been told, he could deal with. The hall was ringed with long aisles of display booths. Gun dealers, small and large, their wares displayed on backlit walls. Lots of people with their kids milling around.

He found the booth he was looking for along the back row.

Bud’s Guns. Mount Holly, NC.

The owner was a ruddy-faced guy in a golf shirt with a thick red mustache. As Vance came up to him, he was occupied with a customer. Vance looked on the pegboard wall among the inventory, for something that might catch his eye.

He stopped at a Heckler & Koch USP 9mm.

Vance took it off the wall; it was attached to a metal wire that ran through the trigger guard. He put his hand around the handle. Nice. He checked the magazine and pulled back the slide, feeling the action. Light and smooth. He thumbed the slide release and gently squeezed the trigger. Click.

This would do the trick.

Bud freed up and came over with a salesman’s grin. “Looking for something compact and reliable, that’s a nice piece of equipment there.”

“Yeah, I am.”

“Accurate too. Less than one and a half pounds. H and K’s are used on several police forces around the country. Don’t hardly even need to sell ’em-they kinda sell themselves, if you know what I mean. I’m pretty sure I could work you up a dandy price.”

“It is a beaut.” Vance nodded.

“Shoots regular nine-millimeter ammo, or I got these custom, hollow-point, Hydra-Shok babies if you want to blow the door off the barn. I can do seven-forty, if you get me now. Show discount. I’ll even throw in a shoulder holster. You won’t find a better one here…”

“It’s nice…” Vance pursed his lips, thinking. “But I got this problem…” He set the gun down on the counter and looked the dealer in the eye. “Joe Tucker down in Waynesboro said you might be able to handle it for me. Lost my driver’s license, if you know what I mean. I was hoping to, I think you know… find my way around some regulations. That’s why I thought this show might be the right way to go.”

The dealer gave Vance a tight smile from underneath his mustache. “I know Joe.” He turned his back to the aisle. “I assume we’re talking cash?”

Vance shrugged. “If that can get it done.”

Bud scratched his walrus-like jaw and nodded. “How ’bout we say, eight seventy-five, and you can take it with you just as is. No questions asked.”

Vance picked up the gun and squeezed the trigger one more time. Do the trick just fine. “Lemme see that holster.”

Bud grinned. “You’ll have to fill out an invoice, though. That much there’s no getting around.” The dealer bent under the cabinet and came back out with a form.

“Got no problem with that,” Vance said.

“Here…” Bud handed him a pen. “Have a start at the paperwork while I box it up. Mister… ?”

“Steadman,” Vance said to him. “Henry Steadman.”

“Pleased to meet you, sir.”

Vance began writing Henry Steadman’s name under “Buyer” and his address in Palm Beach. Palmetto Way.

“And while you’re at it,” Vance said, reaching into his pocket and bringing out a wad of bills, “throw in a box of those hollow-points as well.”

Chapter Forty-Four

From Summerville, I went north on Route 26 toward Columbia, the state capital. Two people on the list of license plates lived up there and another was on the way.

About an hour in I came into the town of Orangeburg. A James A. Fellows lived about twenty miles away in Blackville on Tobin Ridge Road. But I wasn’t exactly optimistic, as his plates expired two years ago.

I took the turn onto 301 West to Blackville.

The road wound through a bunch of backwater, roadside towns, basically shacks on the road with a church and a barbecue stand. A boarded-up market with an old sign for something called Knee High Cola actually made me smile. But not as much as the billboard I passed for the New Word Baptist Church, with the pastor pointing at you as you drove by, with the dire warning, referring to the brutal Carolina summer: “If you think it’s hot here…!”

That might’ve been the first time I truly let out a laugh in days.

I saw the sign for Blackville, and then for Blanton Road, which I knew from MapQuest fed into Tobin Ridge Road.

Truth was, Fellows didn’t hold a lot of promise for me, since plates had expired in August, two years back. As I drove out on the rutted, sun-cracked pavement, I couldn’t imagine anyone with any connection to me living all the way out here.

About a mile off the main road, the blacktop ended. There were houses-run-down farmhouses with low fields of lettuce and okra. A couple had aboveground swimming pools. Dog cages in the yards. The occasional Confederate flag.

I passed number 442. Fellows was 669, still a long way down. There was a bend in the road. A dog jumped out of nowhere, running out at me, barking wildly. As I passed, he dropped back and looked after my car like I was driving into hell. A mile farther along, I passed 557. Mostly woods and fields now.

I felt myself starting to grow nervous. Let’s say Fellows was the guy. How would I know? What would I even do? Take a picture of the famous blue car? I didn’t have a weapon, but it was likely he did! It dawned on me, a guy could get killed out here and no one would even know he’d disappeared.

Finally I saw a red house ahead on the right. On the mailbox was a hand-scratched number, 669. I blew out my cheeks. This was it! There was a beat-up, black pickup in the driveway. More like a rutted clearing in front of the house. There was a two-car garage, open, with tools everywhere, and another vehicle in it up on blocks.

I pulled in. Dogs started barking, and I saw three Dobermans jumping against the wire in a dog cage. Something told me, Henry get out of here… A huge elm shaded the front of the house. Laundry strung on an outside line.

I heard hammering.

A guy who was working on the front porch stood up when he noticed me approaching. He didn’t come toward me; he didn’t avoid me either. What he did do was give me a look like he wasn’t into visitors.

“Help you?” he said, putting down his hammer.

“Mr. Fellows?” I asked, opening the car door and walking toward the porch.

He nodded. Barely. He had on denim overalls, a sweaty white T-shirt, and a blue cap. He had a gaunt, angular face, a scrabbly looking, gray growth of whiskers, sharp, distrusting eyes, and as I got closer, a gap in his teeth.

He could have been anywhere from forty-five to sixty.

“My name’s Dawson, Mr. Fellows. I’m tracking down a license plate for an insurance company. It appears it was part of an accident.” Nervously, I checked my sheet. “South Carolina ADJ-dash-four-three-nine-two. It’s registered here to you at this address.”

“Accident, you say?”

I felt my heart start to gallop. Fellows surely didn’t look like the guy I’d seen through my mirror. And I didn’t see any blue car around the house. No surprise there. But what if it was him. If he had killed Mike, he would surely recognize me.

And here I was.

“In Georgia,” I said, though if he was connected he surely knew this was a lie.

“Georgia?” he said, as if surprised. He spit a wad of tobacco into a paper cup. “You say this plate belonged to me?”

“According to the South Carolina Department of Motor Vehicles,” I replied. “But they’ve expired.”

It crossed my mind that the guy could just take out a shotgun and shoot me right here. Instead, he scratched his beard, nodding. “C’mon with me.” He took me into the garage. More like an open shed, a car on blocks with the hood open. Tools, cans of oil, tires, hubcaps everywhere. “Sounds familiar. You say expired?”

“August. 2010. You a Gamecocks fan, Mr. Fellows?”

“Gamecocks? Sure.” He looked back with a gap-toothed smile. “They’re my team. Why…?”

I felt a surge of optimism mixed with fear. He led me around the raised-up car to the back of the garage, where, against the wall, I saw a cardboard box. He kicked it.

Maybe a dozen license plates clattered inside.

“I know maybe I should turn ’em in,” he said. “Some do go back a ways. But the DMV’s all the way up in Chambersburg. And now and then my wife sells ’em at tag sales and such. Every penny helps these days…”

I bent down and leafed through the box. He read the disappointment all over my face. ADJ-4392 wasn’t among them.

Fellows shrugged. “I could check inside, but I’m pretty sure you’re right about the plate number. Could be anywhere by now…” He grinned again. “You’re welcome to any of the others if you like.”

“No.” I forced myself to make a thin smile. “Won’t be necessary.”

“So this was an accident, you say?” Fellows asked again, walking me back outside.

I nodded in frustration.

“In Georgia, huh?” Fellows asked, his eyes suddenly turning dubious. “So you mind if I ask you… you a cop as well?”

“As well?”

“ ’Cause if you are, that’s exactly what I told the one who came by a while back. That someone must’ve took ’em. Could be anywhere.”

I looked at him. “A cop came by here earlier. About this?” I wasn’t sure whether to be excited or alarmed.

Fellows nodded. “Hour, hour and a half ago… Looking for that same plate. ’Course, she said it was Florida, not Georgia, and that it was a criminal thing.” His gaze seemed almost amused. “Whichever-sure seems a popular one for one day…”

“You said she… ? It was a woman?”

“Pretty little thing… Here, even left me this card…” Fellows dug into his overalls. “Said if I recalled anything, I should…”

He brought it out and handed it to me.

It was excitement. A tsunami of excitement. And no matter how I tried to stop myself, I broke into a wide-eyed smile.

The card read, Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office. Director, Community Outreach.

Carolyn Rose Holmes.

Chapter Forty-Five

I stepped into the Azalea Diner, a roadside truck stop next to the Motel 6 a mile or so out of Orangeburg.

There were a couple of locals around the counter; a young family at one of the tables; a large trucker type in a booth draining a cup of coffee.

Then-

I saw her! Or I was sure it had to be her. Strawberry-blond hair. Pretty little thing, Fellows had said. And that she was staying the night in case anything else came up. The kid at the front desk of the Motel 6 where Fellows said he had sent her confirmed that she was there, and that she’d gone out around half an hour ago to get something to eat. And where else was there to go? I didn’t know what I should do. Go right up to her? Fancy running into you here… The last thing I wanted was to alarm her. Or draw unwanted attention to myself. She had no idea I was anywhere nearby.

But as I stared at her, in the end booth by the window, alone, a cute button nose, freckles maybe, in jeans and a hooded gray sweatshirt that I thought read, U.S. Marines, texting on her phone, two things became clear.

One was that Carrie Holmes believed me. Why else would she be here?

And two-which lifted me even higher-she had the plate numbers! And if she was here, they must have belonged to Fellows.

And I had found him too!

Looking at her, I realized that I had never felt as much gratitude toward another person as I was feeling toward her. I realized just how much she had to be risking just to be here. Who, back home, would have even believed her? And then there was the kind of courage it took for her to follow through.

I almost felt the tears sting in my eyes. It was as if I was connected to her in a way I couldn’t describe.

I took a table at the other end of the restaurant. I grabbed a menu from the holder and held it in front of my face.

I was petrified that if I just walked right up to her, she might scream-I was still a wanted murder suspect. So I took out the cell number she had written down for Fellows and dialed it.

My heart jumped with excitement. I saw her look at her phone and, curious at the number-it probably read, Unknown Caller-answer in a halting tone.

“This is Carrie.”

“What’s old, rusted, and jangles around a lot in a box?” I asked.

She hesitated, checking the number again, confused. “What?”

“ADJ-4392. Or I sure wish it did!”

I watched as Carrie Holmes’s eyes went wide.

“How’s the food here? I hear it’s the best north of Blackville!”

This time her eyes jumped up and darted around the restaurant, finally settling on me, my menu lowering, the cell phone at my ear.

I took off my glasses. Peered at her through the four-day-old growth and the golf cap.

Her jaw dropped. “What the hell are you doing here?” she blurted.

It sounded a lot more like a demand than a question.

“The same thing you’re doing here. I just saw Fellows. He told me you were here. I didn’t realize I had the right plate number until now!”

The color began to rush from her face, giving way to a look of distrust or bewilderment. Or maybe even concern.

“I didn’t mean to alarm you,” I said. “Please, please, don’t be afraid. I want to come over and talk. You don’t have to worry about me in any way. You know that! Can I do that? Can I come over, Carrie? I-”

“No!” she barked. “Stay where you are!” Then, grasping how ridiculous this all was and that she had nothing to fear, she kind of took a step back and said nervously, “Okay. Okay. But look, I-”

Neither of us seemed to be finishing sentences very well.

She was flustered. A bit unnerved. The same way I was flustered. I pushed out of my seat and headed toward her down the aisle. My legs, a little rubbery. I could see she wasn’t sure whether to yell out or jump up and arrest me. And I didn’t know whether to hug her in gratitude or make a run for it.

I sat down in the seat across from her.

I couldn’t help but grin. “I was right, wasn’t I? You found the blue car. You traced the plates. To Fellows. That’s why you’re here. Which basically means the car was at both crime scenes. Just like I said.”

She nodded tentatively.

“Which then means you know I’m completely innocent, don’t you? You know I’m being set up.”

Suddenly I couldn’t control my grin.

“Look, all I know is-” She barely got the words out of her mouth when the waitress came up. A little chunky, her hair up in a bun, the name Nanci embroidered on her blouse. She plopped a menu in front of me.

“Well, you two seem to have hit it off… Specials are on the board. Chili’s Southern style, which means no beans. It’s always good. Chicken and biscuits seem to be crowd-pleasers too.”

“Just gimme a second,” I said to her, maybe slightly abrupt. Then, softening my tone: “How about I take whatever she’s having…”-pointing to a bowl of soup in front of Carrie.

“Turkey okra,” Nanci said. “Crackers… ?”

“Yes, crackers! Thanks…” She continued to stand around as she wrote my order on her pad.

My eyes went back to Carrie. Both of us seemed to smile.

“You know I wasn’t in North Carolina the day that gun was bought,” I finished my thought. “The same blue car was at both crime scenes! What was it, a Mercury or a Ford?”

“Mazda,” she said, chuckling. “Look, I don’t know anything for sure. It’s possible you could have sent someone else to get that gun. Gun shows are notorious for being loose with records…”

“Carrie…”

“And that car at both crime scenes doesn’t actually prove anything. It surely doesn’t prove you didn’t do it, only that there could be some other possible explanation. Or that you had an accessory…”

“Carrie,” I said again.

“What I do know is I work for the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office. And you shouldn’t be here, Dr. Steadman. I shouldn’t be sitting-”

“Carrie!” I said one more time, raising my voice. “You don’t have to be afraid. I know you believe me. You’re here.”

Her eyes slowly relaxed and she curled her hair around her ear as she blew out her cheeks and leaned back against the padded booth.

And nodded.

I said, “It’s okay.”

Nanci came back with my salad and soup. “Bowl’s hot,” she said, setting it down.

“Thanks.”

“And free refills, just so you know.”

“Good.” I shot her an exasperated glance. “Thanks.”

She went away, and Carrie looked at me. She took off her glasses. “What did Fellows tell you?”

“I figure the same thing he told you. That he has no idea where the plates might be. He showed you the box?” I took a sip of the soup. “Jeez.” It scalded my tongue. “This is hot!”

Carrie nodded, holding back a thin smile. “Guess we both got the same spiel.”

“So it was Fellows?” I said, taking another sip of soup, and I had to admit, after living out of fast-food drive-through windows for the past four days, it tasted good. “Where those plates came from.”

She nodded again. “How did you get here?”

“Had someone I know spiff a DMV worker in South Carolina. I had them pull everything that began with ADJ-4… Then I worked my way down the list.”

“Not bad.” Carrie smiled. “Do you believe he doesn’t know where the plates went? That he has nothing to do with it?”

“I don’t know… You’re the detective… But it still means something, though… It means whoever is involved is from around here. They had to have had some contact with Fellows.”

“You know anyone from this area?” she asked.

“No.” The South Carolina connection stumped me. “I don’t.”

“So why would someone be doing this to you?” Carrie fixed on me. “If they wanted to kill you, they could have done it at any time. Instead, they went after Martinez and your friend. Why?” Her gaze stayed tight on me.

“I don’t know. I’ve gone over this a hundred times. And I still have no idea.”

“But the person who did do it… he not only had to be connected to Fellows, but in some way he also had to know about you. When you’d be in Jacksonville. What you were doing there. Where you were headed. He knew about your friend Dinofrio…”

I hadn’t thought about Mike for a day now and it hurt to bring him to mind all over again. That he had died while trying to help me hurt even more. I nodded emptily and closed my eyes.

I wanted to tell her about the calls. About my daughter. Keeping it from her was killing me inside. She had already put so much of herself on the line for me.

“I’m starting to think, if this whole thing is simply to entrap me, for what I don’t know, Martinez had to have been in on it too. I mean, killing him was either a spur-of-the-moment thing, or… Or it was planned. That could be why he stopped me and pulled me out of the car in the first place, for basically nothing… But how could anyone have known where I’d be? At that exact time? And what I’d be driving?”

“You were followed,” Carrie said, her blue eyes fixed on me. “Probably right from the airport.”

“From the airport…? This is all insane!” I said, cradling my head in my hands. It was wearing on me, but the more I thought about it-the rented Caddie, my destination, Mike-someone must have known. I thought back to Martinez. His insistence about the insurance thing and how I was driving down a one-way street… Had that all been meant as a kind of provocation? To anger me? To make me react? Sir, if I have to tell you to shut your mouth again, it will not go well for you…

Had Martinez been a part of it too, and…? As I racked my brain searching for answers, I suddenly heard those two loud pops all over again and saw him slumped over the wheel.

Had this whole thing been set up to have him stop me and then kill him-and then have his murder pinned on me?

Light-headed, I pushed myself back against the banquette. “Who could hate me so much to want to cause me this kind of pain? You’re right, he could have killed me. He could have done it a dozen times. But he’s not trying to kill me. He’s-” He’s trying to torture me, I wanted to say. He’s stolen my daughter! “How does it feel to have everything you value taken from you? Everything you hold dear. …” “He’s trying to pay me back. For something I did to him. It’s like he’s got me trapped and he’s just toying with me before he comes in for the kill. And it’s incredible how my life has somehow managed to fit into their plan…”

“Toying with you…?”

I looked at her, drew in a breath, and sat back. I realized how crazy it all sounded and started to make a joke out of it. “Sorry. It’s a hell of a lot to go through if someone simply didn’t like how their boobs came out.”

Carrie’s eyes twinkled with an awkward smile.

“I’d have gladly redone them-gratis…” I shook my head and smiled. “Anyway, I just want to say, you’re very brave. Hell, I know how I felt just driving out to that godforsaken place… They obviously breed those community outreach gals pretty tough.”

She put her glasses back on and smiled at me. “You’re proving to be pretty self-reliant yourself. Given your occupation.”

Nanci came up again. “Everyone doin’ okay? Seems you’re liking…” We both nodded. She asked if we needed anything else, and we shook our heads no. “Then I’ll be right back.”

I looked at Carrie and something came to mind. From the first time I called her. “So what was it?” I asked. “The first time I spoke with you, you said you were just coming back…?”

“Sorry?”

“The first time we spoke. You said it was your first day back. From being out for a while…” I noticed a wedding ring. “Honeymoon? Maternity leave…?”

“No…” She tilted her head and shrugged, her expression shifting, lips pressing together in a tight smile. “It was nothing.”

“Nothing…?” It occurred to me that maybe she’d been sick, and I shouldn’t have pried. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to get personal.”

“Dr. Steadman, we really have to figure out what the next step is here.” Her gaze returned to business now. “You just can’t keep on running.”

She was right, of course. But she didn’t know the truth. All my hopes had been based on tracking the killer through the license plates, and now we had found the source, and that hope was gone. Now there was no place left for me to go, except to keep running.

I tried to convey with my eyes that there was more going on than I could possibly explain. “I have no choice, Carrie.”

“There is a choice. Look, I know I haven’t slept in a night and my thinking might well be off, but we have things now… We have the video of that car at both crime scenes. We have you in your office, operating, the day that gun was bought. That’s all something. We have Fellows-somewhere, somehow he connects to whoever’s doing this. This isn’t like before. They’ll have to check these things out.”

“No, you just don’t understand…”

“You have me.” Her gaze was powerful and resolute, but then she allowed a self-deprecating smile. “I know that’s not exactly like having the attorney general on your side… But I can guarantee that these things will get looked into. And your safety. You can even do it from up here, if you like. There won’t be any guns blazing.”

“You’re suggesting I turn myself in?”

“What other way is there? We’ve both done what we can. Let’s let the professionals put it together now. Look…” she said. “I think you deserve a real detective working for you, don’t you agree…?”

“I think you’ve done just fine,” I said. “But I just can’t… There’s stuff I can’t tell you.”

“You have to, Dr. Steadman. We’re done. I don’t see any other way.”

If I told her the whole story, that the person who was trying to destroy my life also had my daughter, and it got back to the police, and they looked into locating Hallie… I couldn’t take the risk.

“I wish I could,” I said, and looked at her. “Turn myself in. But that’s not an option anymore.”

I shook my head, tears of frustration burning in my eyes. Frustration that I couldn’t tell her what I knew.

“Then don’t you see-then I can’t help you anymore, Dr. Steadman. I’m totally in over my head as it is. I can’t go on with you.” She shook her head. “I shouldn’t even be here with you now… What I should do is…”

“What? Arrest me? You’re not even a cop, Carrie. You’re in community outreach!”

“What if I screamed, then? I could yell out who you are. I doubt you’d even make it out of this diner. You definitely wouldn’t make it to the next town.”

I looked behind us, and saw there was a group of good ol’ boys standing around near the entrance who, I could imagine, would just love to raise a beer one day about how they had tackled the Jacksonville killer.

“Then scream… Go ahead. I’m in your hands. There’s your posse over there. I can see them all on the Today show tomorrow …”

Carrie gave me a pleading, no-nonsense smile. “What? What is it you can’t tell me? Look at what I put on the line for you.”

“I hope to think it over. In the morning. Just put in a little more-”

“So if it’s a yes, you’ll be at breakfast. And if it’s a no-you’ll be outta here.”

I shook my head. “I won’t be ‘outta here’… You put a lot of faith in me to do what you did. I’ll do the same for you. I promise.” I put up two fingers. “You have my word. I just need to run it all through one more time. Scout’s honor…”

“Right, like you were ever a scout.” She rolled her eyes.

“Accused murderer pack. Tiny chapter.” I smiled. “Never meet in this same place…”

She looked at me, as if she was trying to read something on my face. How much she could trust me, how much faith to put in me.

“What was it that made you believe me?” I asked her. I moved my hands close to hers. “You had no reason to look for that car. I’m damn sure no one else there would have. What was it?”

“Something you said.” She cleared her throat. “Seems kind of stupid now. In light of everything.”

“Try me.”

She shook her head. “I’ll tell you,” she said, the twinkling disappearing in her eye, “after we turn you in and they dismiss your case. Deal?”

“I guess trust is a two-way street. Takes more than a single bowl of turkey okra, huh?”

“Guess so.”

I stood up and left some bills. I smiled and put up the same two fingers. “See you in the morning. Either way.”

“Are you in the motel?” she asked me.

I shook my head. “No. Lexus.”

Chapter Forty-Six

James Fellows sat in his padded chair, smoking, long after his wife, Ida, had gone up to bed. And long after he normally would have gone up as well.

He was thinking about the two visits he’d gotten today. One, from that pretty gal who worked for the Jacksonville police. The other… he didn’t know who the other one really was. Just that he wasn’t no claims adjuster. Of that much, he was sure.

Both of them looking into the same set of plates.

Truth was, he didn’t have a clue where they’d ended up. (Though now, after he had seen the picture the woman had brought, maybe he had some idea.)

He surely didn’t want to find himself drawn into some kind of investigation. Hell, these days, he didn’t much like even showing his face in town if it wasn’t totally necessary.

Any more than he liked covering up for someone else’s trouble.

But he was also the kind of man who stood by his friends. He didn’t know just what had been done, but it must be of some matter, he reckoned, if people had come here all the way from out of state.

And he always knew, if there was a fellow who was capable of something, well, the man who drove a car like that, or at least, his daughter’s car, he was it. He’d always been kind of a lit fuse. Not one to hold his liquor well. And now, with what had gone on with Amanda, who could even blame him.

Still, it was one thing when they worked together, something else, given what happened, now…

Fellows picked up his phone and called. The man’s cell phone, the only number Fellows now had. Anyway, this hour, he’d no doubt be asleep himself.

He answered on the third ring, not sounding sleepy at all.

“It’s Buck,” James Fellows said. “Hope I’m not disturbing you none. Just giving you a friendly heads-up. You been driving your daughter’s car around? Down in Florida maybe?”

Vance remained silent for a while before he answered. “Why you asking?”

“These people were up here looking for a license plate. My license plate, in fact. And they seemed to have seen your car. Or hers…” Fellows laughed darkly. “Seems you got yourself in a lick of trouble, huh, partner?”

Chapter Forty-Seven

It was hard to sleep that night. Carrie was kind enough to get me a room so I didn’t have to sleep in the car, or show my face again at the front desk, and I lay awake in the spartan motel room, long after Letterman and Craig Ferguson had ended, hating how I’d had to hold back what was really going on from the one person I actually trusted, and slowly coming to the conclusion that there was no other choice now, at least no better one, than to put myself in her hands and turn myself in.

I was scared to death of what this might mean for Hallie.

But with Fellows’s license plate no longer a lead to follow, maybe there was no other way.

And Liz wasn’t going to go on blindly trusting me forever.

Tomorrow I could be in the hands of the police. How could I ever trust that they would act in Hallie’s best interests after how they’d already acted to me?

I tossed and turned, feeling like I was hanging my own daughter over a cliff. I had found the source of the license plates and it led nowhere. I had nowhere left to go.

I sat up against the pillow and racked my brain for maybe the thousandth time trying to figure out who had a reason to do this to me.

Certainly Marv didn’t. My shares in the clinics didn’t even revert to him if anything happened to me. Anyway, he was like an uncle to Hallie. And as Carrie noted, it wasn’t like someone was trying to kill me anyway.

In fact, I seemed to be the only one this bastard seemed intent on not killing!

I knew I wasn’t perfect. I’d played around a bit and screwed up my marriage. Maybe I’d gone for the bucks a bit in my practice instead of devoting myself to saving lives. But I had tried to do good for people. I gave my time and energy and built up a pretty good life. And I was a good dad. Who could want to cause me such suffering?

Who could take innocent lives and end them so coldly, just to hurt me?

I was scared. Scared of the decision I had to make. Scared of what might happen. If I told her… if I let Carrie know about the abduction…

Maybe I should just go. In the morning. Not put this one on her. But where…?

Teeming with frustration, I took out my iPad, logged onto MapQuest, and called up the town of Blackville, South Carolina, where we currently were.

The only thing that did make sense to me was that whoever was doing this at some point had to have had some contact with James Fellows.

I looked at all the surrounding towns around Blackville. Bamberg. Denmark. Williston. Places I’d never heard of. Perry. Barnwell.

Of course, this person didn’t have to have been anyone I might have met. He could be a hired hand. An accomplice. He could live anywhere. I enlarged the map to a wider radius.

Suddenly my eyes focused on something.

Not exactly a “eureka!” moment at first. More like a faint throbbing deep in my memory. I had to clear my head just to narrow in on it. The town.

Acropolis.

It wasn’t actually in South Carolina, but in Georgia. Just over the state line.

But I’d seen it before, that name. I just couldn’t recall where.

I checked the scale: Blackville and Acropolis were maybe thirty miles apart.

You’ve seen this name before, Henry. You have. Where do you know it from…?

Then suddenly it hit me.

I’d seen a patient from Acropolis. In Georgia. A few weeks back. I tried to bring the guy to mind.

He was heavy. Bald on top, orange hair around the sides. Ruddy. He had come about something on his neck. Those heavy wrinkles. I pictured it. He had fallen into the memory bin of patients I’d only seen once and never saw again. He had seemed a little odd. As I recalled, I told him I could recommend something up his way, then…

All of a sudden it was like a jackhammer was drilling me in the chest.

That’s when Mike had called that time!

It suddenly was a “eureka!” moment. Yes, when that guy was in the office, Mike called. To set up our golf date at Atlantic Pines. I tried to bring it all back. Adrenaline surged through every part of me. I had told Mike I was heading up to Jacksonville to give a speech. Did I mention a date?

I couldn’t recall. But then I realized it didn’t matter. I’d mentioned the Doctors Without Borders conference I was speaking at.

That was enough. Anyone could put it together. And I’d mentioned Mike. I remembered now:

“You can e-mail me directions to your house in Avondale…”

My eyes shot back to the MapQuest map again. I couldn’t recall the guy’s name, but I did remember his face, and a certain oddness about him. And I damn well recalled where he was from…

Acropolis. Georgia.

I didn’t know if I was just imagining something. Or if I was fabricating it, out of sheer desperation. I didn’t know this person from Adam. I’d never seen him before in my life. It made no sense.

What could he possibly hold against me?

But as I fixed on the map, clouds of doubt and uncertainty opening up in front of me, light shining through the night, I fixed on that town:

Acropolis, Georgia.

Could it be?

Chapter Forty-Eight

I did my best to hold off until morning. I barely slept a wink.

At five-thirty I called Maryanne, my assistant.

“Maryanne-it’s Henry!” I said. “I realize I’m waking you up, but this is important!”

“Dr. Steadman?” she muttered groggily. I could hear her husband, Frank, stirring next to her, wanting to know what the hell was going on.

“Maryanne, I’m sorry to disturb you so early-but I need something from you. It’s important-or I wouldn’t be calling you like this…”

She cleared her throat and gradually gathered her wits. “What is it you need?”

Frank was probably calling the police on the other line, but I didn’t care.

“You remember that guy who came in about a month ago-heavyset, bald, fuzzy reddish hair around the sides. From out of state. I can’t think of his name, but he came in about his neck. Wrinkles…”

“Yes. I think so,” she answered. “Hofer…”

“I need his records, Maryanne. As soon as you can get them to me. I need his name and address, whatever he left, as well as his Social. And a photo. I’m pretty sure I took one while he was there. It has to be in the system. I need you to get that for me…”

“Sure. Of course…” Maryanne said. “I’ll go right now.”

I could hear her already out of bed and in motion. The gears must have been turning in her mind as she mobilized herself because she suddenly asked: “You think he’s involved…?”

“Fast as you can, Maryanne! That’s all I can say. You have no idea how much is depending on this.”

Chapter Forty-Nine

I couldn’t wait for breakfast to show Carrie what I’d found. I was far too wound up.

By 6:15, Maryanne had e-mailed me what I’d asked for. The patient’s name was Vance Hofer. The address he’d left was 2919 Bain Road. In Acropolis. He’d left a Social Security number as well.

And a photo. I always took one as a “before” shot to scan into my patients’ files.

And there he was! My eyes swarmed over the round, pink-complexioned face. The dull gray eyes that seemed to stare off past me with the slightest hint of a smile in them. I’d never seen him before he walked into my office that day. Was he the one? The one doing this to me? What possible motive could he have to want to harm me?

Excited, I knocked on Carrie’s door with the iPad at a quarter of seven. She opened it just a crack, a towel wrapped around her. “Okay, you’re still here,” she said. “I can see that. Can you give me a couple of minutes, though? I’m dressing…”

“Carrie,” I said excitedly, “I think I know who it is!”

The door edged open wider. Her hair was still wet from the shower.

“Something hit me during the night. I just received a file back from my office. A patient’s file. I need to show it to you.”

“I shouldn’t be more than a minute or two, okay…?”

Seconds later Carrie opened her door.

She was in a baby-blue Gator basketball warm-up T-shirt over jeans, her hair combed out a little. A bunch of clothes was strewn all over the second bed. No makeup. If I had been there for any purpose other than to save my daughter’s life, I might have thought she looked totally adorable.

“What are you talking about, Dr. Steadman?”

I told her how it came to me during the night, this town where a patient of mine had come from: Acropolis, Georgia. Not a patient actually, a prospective one, and how I’d just bumped into the name kind of randomly as I searched through MapQuest. How he’d been in my office a couple of weeks back at the same time as Mike happened to call about my trip.

I opened the iPad, and showed her what Maryanne had sent me.

“Vance Hofer…” Carrie muttered to herself. “Acropolis. I don’t understand, what’s his connection to you?”

“There is no connection!” I sank onto the bed across from her. “At least none I can identify. Only that you asked last night if I knew anyone from around here and then I saw this town on the map where he said he was from, and it’s only about thirty miles from here. And then it hit me that he happened to be in my office the day Mike called in. I took the call while he was sitting right there in front of me. And I’m certain I mentioned the conference I was going to and about playing golf; I’m not sure, but I may even have mentioned Atlantic Pines… And I even think I told Mike to e-mail me his address in Avondale… I’m sorry”-I could barely hold myself together-“but I’m not really into coincidences right about now…”

More seemed to fit together the more I recalled.

“Go on,” Carrie urged.

“I remember him being kind of odd… I don’t know…” I got up, my blood racing, like I was on speed. “I can’t exactly put my finger on it. Just not my usual kind of patient. He came in about some rhytid tissue on his neck. Heavy wrinkling. I told him what I could do. I even told him I could recommend someone closer to his home if he wanted. That’s why I recall where he was from.” I stopped pacing. “I never heard back from him.

“But it all kind of fits. It’s the only thing that has fit! I don’t know what his connection to me is, or any motive, only that he was there! He heard all those things on the phone. And he’s from fucking here …”

Carrie nodded, slowly at first. I wasn’t sure she was totally buying it.

I told her, “I’m thinking we can take this back to Fellows and see if he knows him…?”

Then she looked up at me, blue eyes beaming, resolute. “I’m thinking I can do you one a whole lot better than that.”

She grabbed her cell and found a number on her speed dial, and I sat on the bed, expectantly. The person picked up.

“Jack-I need you to look someone up for me,” Carrie said, cutting right to the chase, “and I don’t want to have to tell you why, or how come the JSO isn’t able to do it for me. I just need you to do this for me-no questions asked. Okay? If it’s what I think…”

She stopped herself, and looked at me, one knee curled to the side, like a yoga position. “If it’s what I think it is, I may have a headline here for you.”

She waited, seeming to gird herself for the barrage she was anticipating.

“I know. I know. I know all that, Jack…” After a pause, she exhaled with exasperation. “I can’t tell you that, Jack. And I can’t tell you where I am either. Only… Just write this down, okay?” She spelled out Hofer’s name. And his address. And she gave him his SSN. I heard a trace of excitement in her voice. I knew she was putting herself out on a line. This wasn’t exactly part of the community outreach routine.

My blood throbbed with the certainty that we were finally getting close to the truth.

“Just e-mail what you have back to me as soon as you have it. Whatever you can find on him. With a special emphasis on anything that might have caused him to become violent, okay? That’s not important,” she said. Then, in answer to another question: “That’s not important either. You just have to trust me on this. Like ol’ times… And, Jack…” She waited. “This is important. This has to stay one hundred percent between us, okay? I need your promise on that.” She nodded. “Thank you, Jack. And I will be careful. I promise…”

Carrie hung up and looked over to me, a crooked, little girl’s smile conveying, I hope that was smart. That this was terrain she had never been down before.

Neither had I, for that matter.

“Someone you work with?” I asked curiously. “At the sheriff’s office.”

“Brother.” She shook her head. “At the FBI.”

Chapter Fifty

There wasn’t much Carrie and I could to do until we got more information on Vance Hofer, and that could take hours.

So we agreed that the best thing to do was to drive back out to the Fellows property and talk with him again.

This time I stayed in the car and let Carrie do the talking. What could I have offered, anyway, that was any more persuasive than a Jacksonville police ID?

Fellows was outside watering plants when we arrived. He didn’t seem exactly eager to see who it was who had come back a second time.

The conversation was brief. He was even more guarded and distracted than he’d been the day before, trying to ignore us. But Carrie showed him the photo of Hofer that Maryanne had sent me, which made him brusquely turn away, his glare pretty much saying, I think it’s time for you two to get the hell out of here now…

Then Carrie came back to the car with a look of frustration and disappointment on her face, but also a gleam of something promising too.

“Well…?” I asked her.

“He said he never heard of him. At first.” Carrie backed out of Fellows’s drive and continued about a hundred yards or so before stopping and turning to me. “But then he basically admitted he was lying.”

“How? What did he say?” This could save me!

“He asked to see my ID again. Then he told me, ‘Next time, come back here with a real cop, and I’ll tell you.’ ”

Carrie’s brother reached us back at the motel.

She put her hand on mine, motioning for me to stay silent, and put the call on speakerphone.

“Are you with someone, Carrie…?” I heard her brother ask.

My heart was beating so loudly I was worried he could hear me through the phone.

“Don’t worry about that, Jack. Tell me what you found?”

“You wanted to know if anything could have possibly made this guy resort to violence?”

“Yeah…”

“Well, find your ticket, sis. I think you hit the lottery.”

Carrie and I locked on each other’s eyes.

“I’m looking through it now. The guy lost his home, a year and a half ago. His wife died, which pretty much broke him. He’s been living in a trailer since. Not to mention his job… The past ten years he worked as a lathe operator in some metalworks plant in South Carolina which went under…”

“Do you happen to have the name of the place, Jack?” Carrie’s eyes lit up with anticipation.

I heard the sound of a page being turned. “Lemme see. Here it is. Liberty Machine Works. Bamberg, South Carolina. Mean anything?”

Carrie stared at me hard, her eyes expansive. “Yeah, Jack. It does mean something. That’s where Fellows worked as well.”

“Who?” her brother said through the phone.

“Never mind, Jack. Sorry.” But her look to me was lit with elation. And vindication. Fellows had been lying. He and Vance had worked together! That was how they knew each other.

That was how Hofer would have come upon the plates.

“That enough, or you need any more?” her brother asked, as if he were daring her to say yes.

“Keep it coming, Jack. You’re on a roll.”

“Seems your guy is an ex-cop as well. He was with the Florida State Police for almost fifteen years. Accent on ex, though-he was dismissed in an IA investigation back in 1999. He seems to have taken the fall for his role in an excessive-force incident.” I heard a whistle. “I’d say…! It says here he held down a burglary suspect and busted both his hands with a nightstick. All caught on film. It all happened back in Jacksonville. Right in your own backyard.”

“Jacksonville?” Carrie turned and fixed on me.

“That’s right. It was a joint investigation with your very own sheriff’s office there. Very public back then. There were other officers involved, but they were all cleared.”

Carrie’s gaze grew serious, and though she only shot me the briefest of looks, I knew what was on her mind. Because it was on my mind too.

“Jack, is there any mention there of just who those other officers were?”

I heard him leaf through his report. “A couple of reprimands maybe. Hofer seems to be the only one who was directly implicated. Dismissal. Loss of all benefits.”

I could read Carrie’s mind: If we looked it up, would Robert Martinez’s name be there?

That had to be how he and Hofer knew each other. From back on the force in Jacksonville. Did Martinez somehow owe him? For Hofer taking the fall?

Everything was beginning to fit together. It was kind of like peeling back a dark curtain and finding a secret, parallel part of your life you never knew existed, but one that was going on all the time, and eventually collided with yours.

Head-on.

It had to be Hofer. Everything fit! He knew where I was going and when. He’d taken the plates from Fellows’s garage and gotten in touch with Martinez, his old cohort from Jacksonville, who owed Hofer a favor. So Hofer got him to agree to pull me over. Scare the shit out of me!

And then he’d killed him! Killed his own friend. And then he went out and killed Mike. With a gun he’d probably purchased using my name.

All to make it look like it was me!

But why? Our paths had never crossed until he came in my office. I was a blank trying to put anything together from that time. He had looked at my photos on the credenza. Asked about my daughter…

“So, you got enough?” Carrie’s brother asked. “You find what you were looking for?”

“Yeah, Jack.” Carrie nodded somberly.

“In that case, I guess you don’t need to hear the kicker,” her brother said, with a slight note of teasing in his voice.

“The kicker?” Carrie said. “C’mon, Jack, no holding back now.”

“The guy’s daughter was just convicted on a vehicular homicide charge. Two months ago she ran over a mother and her newborn son. She pleaded guilty. Sentenced to twenty years…”

It suddenly hit me: Hofer had mentioned something about his daughter in my office. He was looking over the photos on the credenza. He’d noticed Hallie. He asked me-

“Apparently she was whacked out on OxyContin at the time of the accident,” Carrie’s brother said.

“Oh my God!” I suddenly understood why Hofer had asked me about my clinics. The pain centers… His daughter had been high on OxyContin at the time of her accident. Somehow he blamed me for what had happened to her. OxyContin had taken a piece of her life. Now he was taking mine.

“I know. . . !” I turned to Carrie. “I know why he’s doing this to me.”

“Who’s there with you?” her brother asked. He sounded alarmed. “Look, I know from Pop what you’re doing up there. You’re in totally over your head. Do you understand what you’re getting yourself into…?”

“I have to go, Jack. But it’s okay. I’m not-”

“Carrie, listen to me. I’m starting to get concerned that all this has gotten to you. After what happened to Rick and Raef… If you’ve got something to share, it’s time to turn it over. To me, or to the JSO. But you can’t be putting your neck out, least of all with someone like this.”

“Steadman didn’t do it, Jack.” Again, her gaze locked onto mine. “This other guy did. Hofer. I’m positive.”

I grabbed her phone and put my hand over the speaker. “I have these pain centers. Hofer asked about them. We prescribe Oxy, but only with a doctor’s scrip. But a lot of the others are merely shills, storefronts…” The color drained out of my face. “Somehow he’s blaming me for what’s happened to his daughter!”

“I’m sorry, Jack, but I gotta go,” Carrie said, taking back the phone. “Don’t do anything. I’ll call you later, and when I do, I’m gonna be able to prove it. I give you my word.”

“Carrie, listen to me, please. This guy-”

She disconnected the line, her face clouded with both resolve and worry.

“You have proof?” I asked.

She nodded, though a little tentatively. “I can get it.”

“Where?”

“A couple of hours from here.” She started up the car again. “We’re going to see a guy about a gun.”

“Wait.” I put my hand on her arm and stopped her. “Carrie, before you do, there’s something you have to know. This guy, Hofer…” I took a breath and felt all the anxiety of the last few days finally come to the surface, my whole body going weak and numb. “He has my daughter!”

Chapter Fifty-One

Carrie’s face went pale. She looked at me, her blue eyes wide, starting to put it all together.

“That’s what I wasn’t able to tell you,” I said. “Why I can’t turn myself in. He told me if I did, or if I happened to get caught, or if the news somehow got out about Hallie being kidnapped-he’d kill her! Just like he killed Mike and Martinez. He called me on Hallie’s phone-she was away at school-and he put her on. She’s terrified, Carrie! You can imagine! She’s sure he’ll do what he says.”

“Oh God…” I saw her look change from resolve to sympathy and she put her hand over mine.

“That’s what I tried to say when I first called you. When I asked about your son. And why I couldn’t just give myself in. Any more than I can now. No matter how much evidence we have.”

“Why do you think he’s so determined to ruin your life?”

“I don’t know why! Maybe his daughter came to one of my clinics. You need to have a scrip for Oxy, or be evaluated with a set of X-rays by a doctor, but I don’t know, I can’t completely control where these things might end up. You know what’s going on out there.”

“We have to tell Jack,” Carrie said firmly. “You can’t keep this to yourself any longer.”

“No, no!” My heart almost jumped out of my chest in alarm. “You can’t! You can’t!”

“We have to. This is what they do. They’re professionals at this. We’re just… You can’t get her back by yourself.”

“Can you promise me that word won’t get out the minute the JSO finds out I’ve turned myself in? My name is already on every newscast across the country! You’re saying they won’t go public when I land in the hands of the FBI? They still think I’ve killed one of their own! They’ll think I just made this whole story up, to shift the blame. I can’t live with what might happen!”

“I’m sure I can get Jack to keep it under wraps. These people aren’t savages. They’ll know what to do. What other possibility is there?”

“I know who it is now. He’ll contact me. It’s me he wants! Me he’s put in this rat’s trap. Not Hallie. He’s just using her to lure me.”

“He’ll kill her too,” Carrie said, steadfast. “You know he will. You’re playing with fire.”

I brought my hands up to my forehead. I didn’t know what was right. Or maybe I knew what was right, I just didn’t want to lose control. Now that I was finally so close.

“Once he tells me where he is, then I can call in help.”

“And what if he never calls. What if that phone never rings again. And that’s his revenge. How will you live with that?”

I didn’t answer.

“We need to get the proof,” Carrie said, letting her words sink into me. “Once we can prove it’s Hofer who’s behind it, then you have to let me bring in Jack. Or whoever his team is. I won’t walk away from you.” She clasped her hand over mine. “I promise. I won’t! But this is the only way I can go on with you. This is a murder investigation. I can’t withhold evidence. Not if I know-

“You’ve done everything you possibly can. You found out who it was! But you can’t get her back…” She shook her head. “Not by yourself. You trusted me enough to tell me this, now you have to trust we can work out the rest of it. It’s the only way.”

I think the only thing that scared me more than the unknown surrounding Hallie was the thought of what I was capable of doing to get her back once I had the proof I needed. I also knew it wasn’t all my call. Liz had a say as well, and I knew exactly what she’d say. She’d agree with Carrie in a heartbeat.

I nodded, about as halfheartedly as I ever had in my life.

Carrie blew out a breath and nodded too. “We get the proof it’s Hofer, and then I call Jack. He’ll get her back for you. Are we all right?”

I slowly nodded again, and Carrie squeezed my hand one last time. And I squeezed hers back.

She smiled. “Now let’s go see a man about a gun.”

Chapter Fifty-Two

We doubled back to Orangeburg and picked up Interstate 77, which headed north. It was only a couple of hours straight up to Charlotte.

To Bud’s Guns. In Mount Holly, North Carolina.

I leaned back and shut my eyes for a while. For the first time in ages I actually didn’t feel freaked out. No one would be looking for us in Carrie’s Prius. No one had any idea where we were headed.

In a matter of hours, we’d have the proof that Hofer was setting me up.

Carrie turned on the news, and a troubling report came on: I’d been spotted in Orangeburg at the diner. Apparently the waitress, Nanci, had recognized me, after seeing a newscast that evening, and once word got out, the night clerk at the motel did too, and they had found the Lexus I’d stolen.

The report also said that I’d been spotted with a woman. And might be heading north.

Carrie’s name would eventually come out.

“Congratulations.” I turned to her. “You’ve graduated from Community Outreach. You’re now an accomplice.”

“Hopefully not for very long.” She smiled at me through her sunglasses. “I intend to set the record straight on that in a matter of hours.”

“I’m sorry to have gotten you into this,” I said.

“You didn’t get me into it. I got me into it. And you know what?”

“What?” I shrugged.

“Whether it’s crazy or not, I’m glad I’m here.”

“I’m glad you’re here too,” I said. “Your brother, Jack, however, may not be equally ecstatic when he hears the news.”

“I can handle Jack,” Carrie said, pressing her lips together. “I always have. Now my dad, the ex-police chief, he’s a completely different story…”

I dozed for a bit, and when I came to we were on the highway, doing seventy.

“You were out for a while.” Carrie smiled, glanced over.

“Guess something’s been keeping me from getting my usual eight hours lately,” I said back. “Can’t imagine what that is…”

I looked at Carrie, her pretty blue eyes firm with both determination and resolve, and I suddenly felt something else there, how much courage there was in this tough little package, how much she had risked for me.

“Can I ask you something?” I said.

She shrugged. “Sure.”

“I was wondering, what did your brother mean when he said he was worried how everything might have gotten to you. He mentioned Rick. And Raef… It made me think, when I spoke to you that first time, you said it was your first day back at the job…”

Carrie glanced away, checking her mirror, and changed lanes.

“I know you said you’d tell me, later on, when I turned myself in. But it’s not like we don’t have a couple of hours here to ourselves… Your husband?”

“Uh-huh.” Carrie finally nodded, letting out a breath. “And my son.”

She drove on a ways, still seeing I was waiting for an answer if she felt like giving me one. “Last September, my son, Raef…” She drew in a breath. “He was eight. He went into a seizure on the soccer field at school. He lost consciousness. Rick got the call and I was about two hours away…”

I nodded.

“I rushed to the ER, but Raef was already in the ICU. A ruptured AVM. You know it?”

I nodded again.

“The doctor said it would be touch and go for the next forty-eight hours. He’d lost a lot of blood flow to the brain. He said Raef was putting up a good fight, but that something else had happened. He sat me down…”

She blinked and again pressed her lips tightly together. “Rick was in the OR, undergoing emergency surgery. He had what’s called a dissected aorta. You probably know what that is too…

“They said he probably had it from birth. Apparently he’d sat down in a chair in the waiting room and all of a sudden he just felt woozy. It had to be dealt with immediately. The procedure took four hours.” Carrie forced a smile, different from any I had seen from her thus far. “I had a kid in the ICU clinging onto his life and a husband in the OR who could go either way… I kept running back and forth, checking on Raef, holding his hand, telling him to hang on, then I’d go back up and watch Rick…”

I frowned and swallowed. “How did he do?”

“He didn’t make it,” Carrie said, with the slightest shake of her head. “He stroked out on the table. Like a ticking bomb, they told me. I suppose it could’ve gone off anywhere. It just happened there. You would have thought…” She glanced in the mirror again and shifted lanes.

“Would have thought what?” I asked her, noticing the tears shining in her eyes.

She shrugged. “Rick did two tours in Iraq. Before law school. He lost a lot of friends there. You would have thought if it was simply a matter of stress, it might’ve happened over there…”

“What do you think it was?”

She blinked almost distractedly and shook her head. “I don’t know…”

She held the wheel with one hand, and I reached out and put my hand on her arm and squeezed. “I’m sorry.”

“Thanks. I don’t really talk about it much. I suppose it’s all still pretty new. Raw…”

“I didn’t mean to make you go through that.”

“Here…” She reached behind the seat, pulled out her purse, and opened her wallet. There was a picture of a nice-looking guy with short, light-colored hair, wire-rim glasses, and bright, intelligent eyes. “He was a lawyer,” Carrie said proudly. “Damned good one. He handled military cases. Rape. Sexual assault by superiors. Even Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell defendants… He pushed to have them adjudicated in civilian courts. Rick was a stand-up, guy… About the most stand-up guy I ever knew.”

“I think you do him proud,” I said, “when it comes to that measure.”

Our eyes met, and we didn’t say anything for a few seconds. I saw a Florida driver’s license next to Rick’s photo. “You mind?”

She shook her head.

I pulled it out. With my new cropped hair and glasses, I kind of resembled him.

“I should probably take that out now,” Carrie said. “I guess it still makes me feel like he’s here. There are times I just want to feel close.”

“I think you should keep it there as long as you like,” I said. Our eyes met. “I think you’ll know the right time.” I was about to put the photos back in her wallet. “So how’s your boy doing?”

“He’s doing great,” Carrie answered with a resurgent smile. “He’s back at home now-at my parents’ actually. He suffered some cognitive loss that they’ve been working on at the hospital, as well as some motor paralysis on his left side. But he’ll be back to school in the fall. Little guy’s the love of my life. But you must understand that, Dr. Stead-”

She caught herself, in an awkward pause. “Sorry.”

I looked at her. “You think it’s time you start calling me Henry? Nothing special, it’s just that I kind of let everyone who saves my life call me by my first name. It’s a rule with me…”

Carrie smiled, brightness coming back into her face. “I don’t know. Maybe we should keep it like it is for now…”

“You’re right. Anyway, Doctor Steadman will probably get us a better table at the Denny’s in Mount Holly if we have lunch there…”

Suddenly I realized what the answer to my question about Carrie was.

It had to do with what I had said to her that first time I called in that somehow made her trust in me and look for that car. When everyone else had me tried and convicted as a ruthless killer and just wanted to bring me in.

I had asked if she had kids… And now I remembered, after a long pause she had answered yes, she did, a son. Her first day back, from such an abominable tragedy…

And then I had said: “Well, then you’ll know exactly what I mean…”

Then I swore, on Hallie-the love of my life-that I was completely innocent of all the things they were saying.

And somehow that had cut through all the convincing evidence and the rush to judgment. And it had made her believe me. In spite of everything to the contrary. All the evidence, all the crimes Hofer had managed to pin on me-

“What?” Carrie glanced at me staring at her, and it suddenly was like she was reading my mind as she smiled, a bit fuzzily. “So you want me to tell you what it was? That made me believe you that day. Seems a little stupid now, in light of everything, but-”

“No.” I shook my head at her, smiling. “I think you just did.”

Chapter Fifty-Three

Mount Holly was a sleepy North Carolina town, like so many I’d been through lately. We made it there by 2:30 that afternoon.

Around Charlotte, the traffic narrowed to a single lane, a bunch of police lights flashing. Carrie pushed Rick’s license back to me, saying, “You may want to hold on to this. And while we’re at it, maybe this too.” Underneath it was Rick’s business card.

Worriedly, I started thinking maybe those sightings of me were more dangerous than I’d thought.

But it was just an accident. We passed right on through the line of police cars. The road was clear the rest of the way.

Bud’s Guns was located in a small strip mall on the outskirts of town, in between a wheelchair outlet and a Dairy Queen.

“Ready?” Carrie asked, parking the car and reaching around to the back for her file of photos and my iPad. She took in a breath.

“Totally ready,” I replied.

Carrie went into the store, the iPad armed with two bookmarked photos: one, from the Jacksonville News, of me, which must have been found on my website. Clean-shaven, smiling, confident, the way I looked just days ago.

And the other of Vance Hofer, which I had taken in my office three weeks before.

I followed her in, but stayed back in the aisle.

A barrel-chested, wide-shouldered guy with curly reddish hair and a thick mustache was behind the counter, just hanging up the phone. Carrie went up to him, resting my iPad on the counter.

“Help you, ma’am?” the amiable gun dealer asked with a wide grin. “Hope I’m not saying something wrong, but you look like just the kind of gal who’d line up pretty nicely with an extended-mag TEC-9.”

“Already got one.” Carrie smiled, as if he had complimented her hair. “You the owner?”

“That be me.” He nodded. “Bud Poole. And you…?”

“My name’s Carrie Holmes.” She pushed her sunglasses up on her head, all business. “I’m with the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office.” She flashed her JSO ID.

“Jacksonville, you say…? Been getting a bunch of you folk up here these past few days, you must know what I mean…”

“I do… Hope you don’t mind if I ask you some questions… You were at the Mid-Carolina Gun Fair a few weeks back?”

“I was.” Bud nodded again. “Make it every year… Some of my steadiest customers are up there… But somehow I thought this business was all wrapped up…” He shifted a little uncomfortably.

“Just a question or two. Kind of a follow-up. You were the dealer who sold the gun to Henry Steadman?” Carrie opened her file. “An H and K nine-millimeter… I can show you a copy of the invoice here…”

“Save the effort,” Bud said obligingly. “Everyone in the damn country has seen that invoice by now. That was me.” He shrugged, his ruddy face sagging a little like an old orange. “Look, I told all this to the people who were up here before. I always do things by the book. Anyone got a problem with it, write your congressman and change the law…”

“I assure you I’m not up here to hassle you about sidestepping some red tape, Mr. Poole… I just want to show you a couple of photos, and ask if you’d be kind enough to let me know if you recognize the person you sold the weapon to.”

“Hard not to recognize him,” the dealer grunted. “His face’s been on the evening news as much as that guy Gadhafi. But like I’ve been saying to anyone who’ll listen, I was busy; it was crowded that day. You make a lot of quick sales at these shows. Everyone has a way of melding together…” Bud glanced up and saw me in the aisle. “Feel free to look around. Be with you in just a moment…”

“I’m sure they do.” Carrie nodded. She placed the iPad on the counter and brought up the photo of me. “Is that him?”

Bud stared, fingers rubbing his chin. “I keep saying, could’ve been in a cap or a beard or something. Or sunglasses. My reputation is my Bible, I always say. But yeah, looks like the guy.”

“You’re pointing to a picture of Dr. Henry Steadman,” Carrie confirmed, “of Palm Beach, Florida, who’s been accused of committing those killings down in Jacksonville.”

Bud shrugged again. “I can’t exactly vouch for what people chose to do with ’em once they pay me the cash.”

“Or I’m wondering, is it possible it could have been this man that you saw?” Carrie said, switching to the second image on the iPad. “I just want you to look again and think back carefully. I understand that you were very busy…”

This time she showed him the photo of Vance Hofer.

Bud didn’t have to say a word. His eyes pretty much told it all, fastening on the new face, flickering in surprise and then thought, nodding.

“Just take a close look. I know it’s hard to admit you might have been wrong…” She switched back to the photo of me. “But what if I told you that this person, Dr. Henry Steadman, was actually in South Florida on the day of that sale, operating on a patient in the morning and in meetings for much of the rest of it?”

Bud bunched his lips.

“But that this man…” She switched again to Hofer. “Vance Hofer. Is there any chance, Mr. Poole, that it might have been this man who bought that gun from you that day?”

He drew in a deep breath, his ruddy complexion replaced now by a dim pallor, staring and seemingly reevaluating. He tapped his index finger on the counter.

“No one’s trying to get you into any trouble, Mr. Poole. Like you said, you did exactly what was required. But I’m sure there are security cameras somewhere that might show Mr. Hofer coming into the hall that day. And not Dr. Steadman. So which person was it,” Carrie asked again, “this man or this one?”-flashing once more between the two. “Truth is, we’re going to have to clear it up at some point, whether here or in front of a jury, where you’d be under oath.”

My blood began to race in anticipation, vindication only seconds away, as I watched the wall of Bud’s conviction begin to crack, and he cleared his throat, the lump in it almost visible.

“Guess it coulda been that guy…” he said, flicking his index finger toward Hofer’s photo. “Like I said, it was crowded, and it’s always a good show for me.”

A sense of elation surged through me.

“Sorry”-Bud scratched behind his ear-“if I gave anyone the wrong impression.”

“No worries.” Carrie turned and shot a happy glance my way. “I have the feeling you’ve made at least one person very happy today.”

Chapter Fifty-Four

For Vance Hofer, there was only one place to go. One place where he felt at home and knew that no one would find him.

He had driven for hours, with Steadman’s daughter asleep in the backseat, her wrist bound to the door in his old cuffs from his days on the force, her ankles tied.

When he finally turned on the old familiar road, pulled up to the remote, ramshackle house, the last place he had been before it all fell apart, everything suddenly felt right to him.

It looked a little the worse for wear, the grass overgrown, the porch sagging and stripped of paint, no one doing the chores for a couple of years.

But he’d been happy here.

“Wake up now, darlin’,” he said to the girl in back. Vance was proud of how he’d set everything up. Lifting him, he felt, from the speck-like unimportance of his life’s past mediocrity.

He was proud, after his visit to Steadman, about the way he had found her up at college as she was coming from the stables, about how he had posed as an admiring spectator who was watching her ride. A picture of perfection if he’d ever seen one. Unlike his own daughter, who’s only after-school activities, he suspected, had taken place in the boys’ bathroom of the local high school.

And he was proud about how he’d followed Steadman as he got off his plane that day, giving Martinez the heads-up about what he was driving-that fancy white Caddie-and when Martinez might expect him by. How he’d stayed a short distance behind all the way from the airport until he saw the flashing lights and sirens.

Watching it all beautifully unfold.

Surely there were bad things that were a part of it too. Martinez. Vance thought of the cop’s look of befuddlement when he turned and saw Vance pull up beside him.

The gun in his face. No clue in the world what was happening. And then pow…

And Steadman’s friend. In that fancy house. How Vance had found him at his desk, the garage door left open, after polishing up his clubs…

They would require some lengthy conversations with the Man Upstairs.

But Vance felt he’d done his share of good as well, bringing ol’ Wayne and Dexter to mind, plus that Schmeltzer maggot. Ridding the world of vermin like that surely cleaned it up a lick, and might earn him, he hoped, upon his ultimate judgment, the smallest measure of thanks for making the world a better place.

But he always knew… Always knew sooner or later that they’d come for him. Fellows’s call showed him that.

Yes, he’d done it well. Still, that didn’t quite make them even.

Not quite yet.

He opened the door to the back and uncuffed the girl’s wrist. “What? Where are we?” the frightened girl called out, pulling back from him. “What are we doing here? Get your hands off me!”

He didn’t care-she could kick and scream all she wanted. She could scream until she was blue in the face; there was no one around to hear. He cuffed both her wrists, then picked her up and carried her into the woods, kicking overgrown branches and brush out of his way, a place he hadn’t been to in a couple of years but that used to be home to him. He found the shed. There was a lock on the door. His own lock. He set her down and opened it.

“No, no,” the girl said. “I don’t want to go in there. I don’t-”

“Better get used to it,” Vance said to her. “It all gets interesting from here.”

He picked her up again and kicked the door open, flicking on the one light. Many of his old tools were still on the walls. It was dark and damp, with cobwebs all over.

He opened the storage hut.

“No, no, please,” she begged, shaking her head. “What are you doing? Don’t. Not in there…”

“What’d you think, you were here on vacation?” Vance grabbed her wrists and undid the cuffs.

Pretty as a picture, he recalled. The horse and rider coming around. The beating of its hooves. The rider leaning. Toward the jump. The graceful bunching of the muscles in the animal’s hind legs, then leaping, clearing, horse and rider frozen momentarily in midair. Then the landing on its forelegs, without missing a stride.

“What are you doing? What are you staring at?” she asked, trembling.

Pretty as a picture, right?

Vance was all set to throw her into the dark compartment, when that gave him an idea.

Chapter Fifty-Five

Carrie and I drove from the gun shop into the center of town, where we got a coffee and sat in the small green off the main street, under a stone pillar commemorating the town’s World War II dead. It was a warm afternoon. A couple of kids were riding their bikes, BMX-style, up and down the stone steps. A woman on a nearby bench was feeding a few birds. All around the square and main street was the languorous still-life of the South.

The sudden proof Carrie had just gotten made me both elated and a little scared. Now I had to turn myself in. That was our agreement. I had to hand myself over to the very people who’d been trying to kill me just the other day. Back in handcuffs probably and in a jail cell. Interrogated in a room, hoping I could convince them, probably the FBI, that they had to hide that I was innocent. Fending off all the media frenzy I knew would follow.

Not even the Jacksonville police could doubt it now.

“So what do you say,” Carrie asked, holding her phone. “You ready to do this now?”

“Yes.” I nodded, tossing her a halfhearted smile. Then: “No. Listen, Carrie, I don’t know how I’m ever going to thank you enough for what you’ve done. Without you, I would have driven away from Fellows’s house, not even knowing it was where the plate was from. And I wouldn’t have known a thing about Hofer. I’d still be driving around, confused and panic-stricken.”

“You found Fellows yourself. And you would have found Hofer. Let’s just say it was a team effort.” But I could see the sense of satisfaction on her face too. “So I’m going to call Jack. We’re going to explain it to him. From the start. I’m going to ask him to send a team, maybe out of the Charlotte office. We can arrange to meet somewhere neutral. Maybe in the lobby of that motel over there…” She pointed toward a Comfort Inn. “Or maybe outside of town, so it doesn’t create a stir.”

“We can’t create a stir, Carrie.”

“Or get the local police all involved. That’s just what we need, right?”

“Then you can go back to your life…” I said. “Community outreach.”

She looked at me. “I made a decision. I think I’m gonna put in for something else. Maybe a detective’s shield. It’s what I wanted to do all along, I just put it aside while Rick finished up school and then got called up in the reserves… What do you think? You think I’ve got the goods?”

“I think you’ve got all the goods,” I said, unable to stop myself from smiling.

“If the JSO doesn’t toss me in jail, just on principle… You might well get out first.”

“Look, when this is over…” I didn’t know quite how to say it. “I’d like it very much if… if we could…”

“Still pushing for a client?” Carrie’s blue eyes twinkled playfully.

“No, that’s not what I meant. I…”

She stopped me. I saw my own feeling reflected in her expression. “I know what you meant, Doctor…”

“Henry.”

“Henry.” She shrugged and smiled, this time, from the heart, and I felt my whole being-the one that had been alone and in the dark, separated from any connection for the longest time-light up like a warm lamp had just gone on. She said, “I hope you get your daughter back, Henry. I’d like to meet her when you do.”

“I’d like that too.”

“I’m going to call now…”

“Okay…” I exhaled a breath and nodded.

Carrie shrugged. “This is either going to be one of the most fulfilling things I’ve ever done-or one of the dumbest. Here goes.”

She smiled, punching in her brother’s number. We both waited with a bit of anxiousness for him to answer. I know I surely did. Carrie looked at me, this time not turning away.

Then I heard someone pick up and Carrie went, “Jack.”

She cleared her throat. “Jack, I have something to tell you… Yes, I’m okay. I’m in Mount Holly, North Carolina-it’s about twenty miles out of Charlotte. And I have Dr. Henry Steadman with me. I want you to know-he didn’t have anything to do with the crimes he’s been accused of and we now have the evidence to prove it. He’s ready to turn himself in. But before you do anything, you have to listen…”

I drew an anxious breath and looked past her, toward the main street of the small town where we had left Carrie’s Prius, as I went over in my mind what I was going to say.

My thoughts suddenly took the oddest turn, and I found myself recalling images from my marriage with Liz. How I had failed to keep it together. Regardless of whose fault it was. How I had just drifted ever since. Never quite put to the test. But now… I looked at Carrie. She curled her hair around her ear as she went on with her brother. Now I was somehow being given a second chance. How life does that. How it provides many chances. Chances to redeem yourself. How-

Suddenly a phone rang in my pocket. Not my cell. One of my prepaids!

Hofer!

I pulled it out while Carrie was on the line with her brother. I saw Hallie’s number.

“Hallie?” I gasped.

“Hey, Doc,” I heard Hofer reply.

My blood instantly heated, just hearing his voice. “Where’s my daughter?” I barked at him-though in some deep place in my heart, I already knew.

“Oh, sorry, Doc,” Hofer said, sighing, “she’s no longer here.”

Chapter Fifty-Six

Bud Poole got on the phone after the woman from Jacksonville left.

He just wasn’t sure if he should call his lawyer first-or the police!

He chose the police.

It had been a strange conversation right from the start. Showing him those photos-Steadman and that other guy. Hofer. And how she wasn’t even a detective, just some employee at the sheriff’s office down there. No badge, only an employee ID.

Even if he had gotten a little carried away with all the attention about Henry Steadman… he knew it had shaken him up, thrown him off his game.

And then that other guy, the one who was milling around the aisles. He and the woman had come in together. He remembered how their eyes clearly ran to each other’s after he looked at that photo. There was something between them. He saw it. And then the guy looked up and Bud got a good look at his face.

Henry Steadman.

When they left, Bud went to the door and watched them climb into the same car… A white Prius.

This was the biggest news Mount Holly had seen since snow.

The lawyer, he could come later.

He punched in the number, and when the duty officer answered, “Mount Holly Police,” Bud asked for Lieutenant Pete Toms. Shit, he could’ve asked for practically anyone there-he’d sold them all a weapon or two over the years.

“This is Lieutenant Toms.”

“Pete…” Bud said. “Bud Poole. Over at Bud’s Guns… You’re not going to believe who I just saw! That guy from Jacksonville. Steadman. Who’s wanted on those murders?”

“Bud, you seem to be seeing him everywhere,” Pete replied with some levity.

“I know. I know. But this is different! He just drove away in a white Prius. With Florida plates. He’s with a woman. This is for real, Pete,” he said, almost huffing on the words. “They just left my store!”

Chapter Fifty-Seven

I froze, as if a syringe of ice had been injected directly into my veins. “What do you mean she’s no longer here?” I shouted into the phone in alarm.

“What’d you think this was-some kind of game?” Hofer said. “I told you, didn’t I? You go to the police, you knew what was going to happen. Still have your old cell phone? Take a look. Picture coming through now…”

No. No… I almost retched right there. How could he have known? Was it Fellows? But he could have only told him Carrie and I were up there at two different times. I grabbed my cell from my pocket. “I didn’t go to the police. I swear! What did you do to her, goddammit? What did you do?”

My phone vibrated in my hand. I saw the message come through from Hallie. Tears of helplessness started to burn in my eyes-and of fear. Fear at what I was about to see.

My own daughter…

I pressed the open option. The photo flickered for a moment, uploading; then it came in.

It was Hallie. Oh God…

But to my joy her eyes were open and she didn’t appear to be harmed.

Her mouth was taped and her eyes were focused in anger and humiliation, and there was a sign hung around her neck. In her handwriting.

JUST KIDDING, DAD .

My pulse started to calm, like a tide receding, but then the relief turned immediately into rage. “You sonovabitch Hofer.”

Another pause. This time I realized I’d made a mistake. Saying his name. Telling him that I knew. But I didn’t care.

“Oh, relax. I was just trying to get a rise out of you, Doc. You can be sure, the call will be for real soon enough. Maybe even tomorrow. So you know who I am, huh? Well, all congratulations to you.”

I turned back toward Carrie and she noticed the pallor on my face. I mouthed a single word to her. “Hofer!”

Her eyes went wide. I heard her tell her brother she needed a minute, that she’d call him right back.

“Yeah, I know who you are, Hofer. And what you’ve done. I know it was you who killed Martinez. And Mike Dinofrio. I know you bought that gun pretending to be me. That’s where I am now. Up in Mount Holly. I also know you knew Martinez from back when you were on the force, and that you knew Fellows from work-and that you got the license plate from him. I even know why you did it-your daughter. Because you somehow blame me for what happened to her. And I hope it was worth it, Hofer, because however long it takes, I’m gonna find you myself and wring the life out of you!”

He snickered. “You’ve been a busy little bee, haven’t you, Doc. A busy, busy little bee. But hell, there’s only one thing missing. You’re up in North Carolina, and all the fun’s going on down here. And you don’t know where we are.”

“What do you want from me, Hofer? Give me my daughter back. Please… What do you want me to do?”

“I want you to know what a man is truly capable of, when you take everything he has away from him. What it used to mean to be human.”

“I didn’t do any of that to you, Hofer.”

“Oh, yes you did. Yes, you did do it to me, Doc. You may not fully know it, but you damn well did it and profited from it, probably laughed about it at parties or bought some fancy car from it, it’s all the same to me. The man who looks away bears all the guilt of the man who sins. Just like all the rest, Doc, you are accountable…”

“The rest…?” He was rambling. What did he mean by “all the rest”? Who had to be made accountable?

“In fact, you are the very source of it, Doc. The heart of the beast. Whether you knew or not, that’s no matter. It came from you.”

“What are you talking about? What came from me?”

Suddenly I realized what he meant. The OxyContin that his daughter must have been on. At the time of the accident. Had it come from me? Had he traced it?

I felt sickened.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry about what happened to your daughter. I’m sorry if I played a role in it. But let it be over now, Hofer, please. You want me. I’ll go wherever you want. Just tell me where to find you. I give you my word. But Hallie’s innocent. Just let her go.”

“I’m not getting through to you, Doc. A little baby was killed. Along with her mother. They were innocent. Not your little Hallie. They were the ones you made bleed.”

“No. It wasn’t me. Your daughter did that, Hofer. And surely not Hallie. Please, I’ll come to you. I’ll do what you want. Just let her go.”

For a moment I thought I might have him convinced. In the background I heard my daughter whimpering. He might be crazy, twisted with blame and guilt. But there might still be some speck of human feeling left in him.

“Don’t worry, Doc. I’ve got something nice cooked up for her. And soon. But for now… remember, our arrangement’s still on. You remember that, don’t you, Henry…?”

“I remember,” I said, squeezing my fists, feeling the blood come to a stop in my veins.

“I don’t have to remind you, do I? How I’m gonna start with her feet, Doc, by skinning them, and then I’m gonna skin my way all the way along her back up to that pretty, little neck of hers…”

I clenched my teeth. “Oh God, you sonovabitch, please…”

“And I’ll be thinking of you, Doc, thinking of how you poisoned my daughter, every inch of the way. Thinking of how you caused those deaths, and knowing I’m doing good, every second I watch her die. You hearing me right…?”

“Yes, Hofer, I hear you. Just don’t touch her. I’m begging you.”

“But don’t worry. Show won’t start until you’re here to see it. I promise you. I’ll call you again, and we’ll figure how we can pick up on that discussion. About the role you might have played in my daughter’s life. About accountability. Your daughter and mine…”

“Let me talk to her again,” I said. “I’ve done everything you asked. Let me talk to Hallie again. Please…”

“Nah, you just get a move on, Doc. Worry about keeping yourself alive. ’Cause you just told me where you are. Bud’s Guns, right? And as soon as I get off this phone, I just might dial up the police over there and tell them who I think might be in their town… Just for the sport of it. And that would mess up all our plans. Wouldn’t it, Doc? Mr. World-Famous Surgeon.”

I didn’t answer.

“Wouldn’t it? Mess up all our plans. Must be a bad connection. I didn’t hear you.”

“Yes,” I said, looking at Carrie, seething, “it would.”

“Now shoo away. She’ll be all right. Least for a spell. I’ll take care of her, like she was my own. So best get yourself along… Before you don’t have any choice. Ta-ta, there, Doc…”

I heard one more chuckle and then the line went dead.

Chapter Fifty-Eight

“What did he say?” Carrie asked.

“He played a sick joke on me. He told me she was dead. He’s going to do it, Carrie, if we don’t find him soon.”

“I’ll call Jack back.”

“No.” I put my hand on hers, stopping her in mid-dial. “Not yet. He warned me not to do it. There were others, Carrie,” I told her. “Martinez and Mike were shot. But he said he’d skin her like the others…”

“Others?” Carrie eyes grew frightened. “Oh my God! He’s going to kill you, Henry,” she said, looking at me. “You know that, don’t you? And then he’s going to kill her.”

“He’s got my daughter, Carrie!”

She took my hand and made me sit down. My legs felt rubbery. Just feeling her steady grip, her smooth fingers massaging and warm… it made me feel stronger, like there was some way out of this. “We’re going to find a way to get her, Henry. We’ve got to let him think he’s got his way with you. And you have to keep demanding proof that she’s okay. We’re going to get her back. Soon as you give me the go-ahead to bring in people who can handle this kind of thing.”

“I don’t know,” I said, thinking of Hofer’s promise. “What if they bungle it? Or if word gets out of what they’re planning? Then Hallie would be dead. I couldn’t live with that. Think about Raef, your son. What would you do?”

I saw by the silent breath she drew that she knew exactly what she’d do.

I had to stay out.

I also knew there was no way we could remain here in Mount Holly. Carrie had already told her brother where we were. If she didn’t get back to him, he’d surely get the local police involved. And I didn’t know if Hofer had been for real when he said he would alert the local police. It sounded just like him! Then I realized, Carrie had given her brother Hofer’s name.

They knew about him! They could easily go to his home. I suddenly realized I might not be able to control the FBI.

I was about to tell her this, that she had to doubly warn them-not to do anything-when I looked past her, to where we had left the car on Main Street.

My stomach fell off a cliff.

Two local cop cars had stopped next to Carrie’s Prius, and a couple of officers were inspecting the car. The plates.

They were on their radios.

“Oh, shit!” My eyes stretched wide.

“What?” Carrie muttered, turning around and saw for herself. “Oh, Jesus, no!”

I think it dawned on both of us at the same time that everything was about to change. That she couldn’t cover for me anymore, and I couldn’t remain here. Not for a second longer. No matter what we had proven. I had to run, and Carrie… couldn’t. I didn’t know if it was her brother who had called it in, or Bud. Or Hofer… It must have been Bud, I realized, if they knew which car to look for.

But it didn’t matter. All I knew was that if they caught me, Hallie would be lost!

I got off the bench, my heart in a frenzy, and started to back away, my eyes fixed on the two cops, and their patrol car lights flashing. A small crowd had gathered around. Flashing lights clearly weren’t routine here. It would only take a minute for them to scan the area and spot us here.

“I’ve got to get out of here, Carrie.”

She nodded, not trying to stop me. “Go. I’ll do my best to cover for you, Henry. I’ll have to say something… I’ll explain it the best I can to Jack. About Hofer and Fellows and Martinez. I’ll say we split up when I told you that you had to turn yourself in…” She had a look of worry and helplessness on her face. But behind it, I saw something deeper. She was scared. For me.

“Don’t try and call me,” she said. “I have your number. The one you called me on at the diner. Henry…” Tears welled up in her eyes. She was as terrified as I was, and I could see that a part of her wanted to take off with me. My heart was going ka-bang, ka-bang against my ribs. If we had seconds more, I would have gone up and hugged her right there. Carrie glanced around at the cops. “You better go…”

Suddenly one of them looked our way. He saw us! He put his hand over his eyes to shield the sun. I saw him motion to one of his partners.

“Henry, just go!”

Chapter Fifty-Nine

I ran.

Actually, I started to back away at first, across the green, hoping not to draw any attention. I kept one eye on the policeman who was staring at me, no doubt starting to realize that Carrie and I fit the description he’d been given. My other eye was on Carrie, with a sinking feeling in my stomach that I had to run away. I’d only known her, really, for a day, but having to take off, so suddenly, after everything she’d done for me, was tearing at my heart.

Then suddenly the cop called to his partner and took a couple of steps in our direction, and I bolted across the green. Behind me I heard one of them shout: “Hold it there!”

The street was heading toward the main road out of the town, mostly fenced-in yards and old Southern homes, and I didn’t see any cover, other than weaving in and out of people’s yards, hiding, until I was ultimately caught. I ran onto a small bridge that crossed a river leading into town and peered over the edge, hearing shouts behind me. The small, narrow river ran parallel to Main Street.

I took a quick glance back at the officers, who had now set off after me, Carrie going up to them, and leaped over the stone ledge onto the embankment, slipping on the dry, loose dirt and sliding down the edge, about twenty feet down. I landed on the rocks of the riverbed there, which was more like a narrow stream.

This was insane! I was running from the police all over again. They didn’t know anything about Vance Hofer or Bud’s Guns. All they knew was that they had a wanted murder suspect here. In their little town.

They could very well start shooting at me!

I looked back up to the bridge and didn’t see anyone, but I knew that was only a matter of seconds. The word had probably already gone out to every cop within two townships! I didn’t have a clue where to run or how to get out of here. Not just out of this riverbed, but out of town. Out of the area! All I could think of was that if I got caught, in this Podunk place-the famous plastic-surgeon murderer!-there would be no containing it. They’d be crowing to every news station in the country! And even worse, Hallie would be at the mercy of that monster.

I couldn’t even let my brain wander there!

The river cut behind the main street and I knew, if I kept along the rocks, I’d be in full view and they’d track me down in minutes. It must’ve been a dry spring here because the river seemed more of a stream and offered no protection.

I saw a giant, iron spill pipe along the bank, maybe six feet tall and rusted-it seemed to open directly under the bridge. I wasn’t sure where it led-only away, and that was okay with me. In about ten seconds cops were going to be all over me. I pawed my way down to it, scrabbled over the rocks, and made it to the opening in the pipe under the cover of the bridge, and ducked. The opening was large, about two inches shorter than I was, at six-two, and I quickly found myself in the cool, dark, iron-smelling cavern just as the two cops who were pursuing me must’ve gotten to the bridge and peered over.

I heard shouting above me.

It was dark, clammy, and creepily cool in here. I had no idea how far it led or where to. There must be a bend somewhere. I couldn’t see an opening at the other end. It was at least a quarter mile. There was a layer of filmy water on the bottom; my moccasins were soaked, not exactly cut out for this kind of thing. I went along in a crouch, a hand on each side of the pipe, knowing that in a couple of minutes the cops would make their way behind me, and praying, my heart ricocheting against my ribs, that there wouldn’t be a party to meet me at the other end, complete with dogs and brandishing rifles.

I tried not to imagine the kinds of creepy things that called this place home: spiders, leeches, even rats… “Oh God, Henry, how have you found yourself into this fucking mess?” I said, my words echoing against the sides, which were rusted and slick with moss, and metallic smelling.

I was about a hundred yards in when I spotted the light of an opening at the other end. I didn’t know if I felt lifted or afraid. I just knew I had to make it there before the cops crawled in after me or radioed in reinforcements.

Okay… As the light grew larger I racked my brain for what to do. The thought flashed through me that I could climb out of this tunnel and duck into the woods for a while. Maybe I could call Carrie and she’d be able to find me… Then I thought, Henry, who are you kidding? They’ll be all over here, and you’re not exactly an outdoorsman. Liz always joked how I’d be voted off Survivor before the first commercial…

And there was still Hallie. If I was apprehended, it would be a death warrant for her.

The sad truth began to sink in that, sooner rather than later, I’d be caught. I’d be kept in jail in this stupid town until I could be handed over to the Jacksonville police. No one was going to listen to me; they would only believe I’d concocted this story to save my own skin. By the time they found out that I was telling the truth, Hallie would be dead.

Hofer was going to win.

No, no… You’re not going to let him win, Henry… You’re going to find a way out of this and get to Hallie… Do you fucking hear?

A voice echoed behind me and I spun. The bright circle at the entrance had disappeared and someone was screaming, “Police! Steadman! Whoever you are, get down on the ground! There’s no way out!”

His words reverberated against the walls.

In front of me the opening looked about fifty yards ahead.

I didn’t know if they would shoot. They still weren’t a hundred percent sure who I even was. But these small-town cops might well be itching to pull a trigger. I crouched lower and picked up the pace, the opening in front of me growing larger. And then I could see rocks straight ahead, where the pipe met the river, and my heart picked up and I even heard the sound of rushing water.

I heard someone yell, “Shit,” maybe a hundred yards behind me. It might have been the heavy one, taking a tumble in the murky water. Meanwhile, my feet were cold and soaked, and the opening was in front of me. I had finally made it to the end.

Cautiously, I stuck my head out, and to my joy, I heard nothing-no shouts to get down on the ground! No dogs barking. No sign of police. The river wound its way behind the main street, and I could see the backs of shops up on the hill above me. I heard the sound of water picking up speed. I climbed out of the pipe and onto the slick rocks and looked down.

I was on a kind of elevated levee, a makeshift dam with a fifteen- to twenty-foot drop-off to the level below. The town was directly above me, an easy climb back up the rocks. But there were cops up there to contend with. I scurried along the shore, slipping on the slick, wet rocks, until I got close to the edge. I straddled the dam along the embankment, spray rushing up at me, hitting me in the face. I noticed two anglers a couple of hundred yards down the stream, their lines in the water.

I couldn’t get across here.

I could jump. I looked over the edge. The rocks were larger and jagged below. But I could do it! I could let the river take me. But where? I thought of the movie The Fugitive. Harrison Ford had jumped. From a much higher and more dangerous height than this. Into the swirling spray. And the river had taken him. But that was Hollywood. These fishermen would only point out my escape. Assuming the police didn’t witness it themselves. They were only a short way behind.

No, I had to make my way back up into town.

I looked up and saw the back deck of the motel Carrie and I had passed while driving through town. I balanced along the edge, took off my jacket, and hurled it as far as I could into the river. It landed in an eddy and managed to catch on a rock. I hoped it might distract them for a while. Make them believe I had jumped, and spend some seconds looking for me.

Then I started to paw my way up the sharp embankment, groping at rocks, weeds, anything that might hold me.

If they came out now, I’d be a sitting duck. I made it to the top and hurled myself over a small retaining wall onto a gravel patch underneath the motel’s concrete foundation.

My breaths jabbed like needles in my lungs.

I looked below and saw the two cops who had been chasing me finally emerge from the pipe, shielding their eyes and looking up the embankment, gingerly making their way along the rocks over the dam, scanning downriver.

Then they spotted my jacket. The two of them inched closer to the river’s edge and got on their radios, calling it in.

I could see the two anglers downstream, waving at them. Their words were unintelligible, but I knew exactly what they were trying to tell them, pointing up the hill at me.

Finally grasping it, the two cops looked up the hill, and I ducked behind some brush and rolled away from the bank.

Someone shouted my name!

I spun, and was face-to-face with another policeman, this one young, crew-cut light hair and sunglasses. Maybe forty feet away. He leaned out over the edge above the embankment, his gun drawn. Shouting down to the other two, “Up here! Up here!” He was about two storefronts away, his weapon trained on me.

“Henry Steadman, get down on your knees! Stop!”

I stood, completely frozen, realizing that he was at an awkward angle leaning over the edge, still maybe forty feet from me.

And more alarming, every cop in two townships was going to be here in about twenty seconds!

I took off, throwing myself out of his line of sight as the young cop squeezed the trigger, a shot ricocheting behind me off one of the posts supporting the motel.

God, Henry, are you insane? He’s shooting!

My heart was in a sprint, my thoughts jumbled and unclear. All I could think of was Hallie, and how I had to get out of here… And if I couldn’t…

Well, then it didn’t matter what happened to me!

I ran around the side of the motel and hoisted myself over a redwood fence and onto a balcony-the restaurant. I hurried through an open sliding-glass door to the main room, hurrying past a young kid, probably an off-duty waiter or kitchen help, who smiled accommodatingly. “Anything we can do, sir?”

“No,” I said, hurrying past him. “No. Thanks.”

“Kitchen opens at five o’clock,” he called after me.

I rushed out through the dining room, knowing that the cop who had shot at me was probably only a minute away, probably followed by several others. Surely the two who had been in the spill pipe behind me had to be up here by now as well.

I figured my one reasonable chance was to somehow get out of town, then call Carrie and hope she could pick me up somewhere. Or, at this point, hand myself over to her brother, which all of a sudden seemed like a far better option than ending up in a local jail.

But even that seemed a million-to-one now.

I ran into the main lobby and looked out the sliding front doors, and saw the cop who had shot at me running up the driveway, his gun drawn.

Oh no, no…

I looked down the hallway and heard the two cops who’d been behind me in the drain coming up the outside stairs.

It’s over, Henry.

I was cornered. I thought about putting my hands in the air and ending it all right here. I was so damn beat from all this running… I felt like a prisoner who’d been forced to hold his arms up, over his head, for hours, and if he let them drop he’d be killed, and all he wanted to do was let them down, just for a second, to feel what life was like, regardless of the cost or the outcome, whatever fate was in store.

I looked at the guy behind the desk, tears welling in my eyes, and was about to simply say, It’s me! It’s me they’re here for! And raise my arms.

Then I realized that I couldn’t do that. No matter how much my arms hurt. No matter how long this had to go on.

Because the outcome wasn’t about me, but about Hallie.

The cost of dropping them was my daughter’s life.

I turned to the guy behind the counter. I said, “Something’s going on! There are police all over here. I heard shots. I think the guy they’re after is that doctor from Jacksonville. I think I just saw him run upstairs.”

The guy looked alarmed and then craned his head to look out the front door, at the policeman coming up the driveway. I went over to the staircase, pretending to head after the culprit, and while the desk clerk’s attention was focused on the cop, I ducked down a hallway around the back and found a door marked EMPLOYEES ONLY. Which, thankfully, was open! I slipped through it and found myself in a janitorial staging area, with buckets and mops, shelves stocked with cleaners, and another door that seemed to lead outside to a delivery staging area.

A driverless white van marked CAROLINA PIE COMPANY was pulled up there, clearly delivering that night’s desserts. As I passed by I looked in for the keys.

And then I saw it.

A black delivery guy in a gray work uniform was saying to a hotel employee in the delivery bay, “So this is all, then? Guess I’ll see you Monday, sugar.” He had a large laundry bin with him, stuffed to the brim with white sheets and linens.

And just outside there was a delivery truck, R &K INDUSTRIAL LAUNDRY, CHARLOTTE, with its cargo door open and a metal ramp leading into the bay. While the driver had the female hotel staffer signing for his pickup, I slipped outside and looked into the truck, its cargo bay filled with identical large laundry bins.

Jesus, Henry, you’ve got to do this now.

I heard a commotion back inside the hotel-people shouting-and I realized that at any second the town’s entire police force was going to converge right where I was standing.

I hoisted myself up, crept to the back of the truck, pulled up some dirty sheets from one of the bins, and jumped in, covering myself up.

Now, if the driver could just get on with it and get the hell out of here!

It took a few agonizing seconds, seconds that seemed to stretch into minutes as I lay curled up in the bin, until I heard the grating metal sound of the loading ramp being yanked up and the heavy cargo door slamming shut.

The bay went dark and silent, and all I could do was pray for the driver to get moving!

It seemed like an eternity, and then I finally heard the cab door close and the truck’s engine start up. Yes! The cargo bin rattled.

Let’s go! Get the hell out of here, I begged from inside the bin.

Then the truck lurched forward.

I was sure that at any second I would hear someone order him to stop and the truck brake to a halt.

But I didn’t. We just went on. The truck stopped for a second at what I took to be the main street and slowly made a left turn.

My God, Henry, you’re going to get away!

I allowed myself a yelp of joy inside the bin as it chugged into third gear and steadily picked up speed, my mind flying back to the motel, which must now be flooded with cops, closing it off from all directions, the three who were first on the scene calling to their partners from the second floor. “Up here! Up here!”

I’d made it!

Chapter Sixty

I bounced along for what seemed like an eternity, alternately exhilarated at my escape and petrified that at any second I’d be surrounded by police cars with blaring sirens and the truck would come to a stop.

Joyfully, after about twenty minutes of advancing along slowly and around turns, we went into fourth gear and it felt as if we had now gotten onto a highway.

Probably I-77. Heading back to Charlotte.

I did my best to come up with some plan for what to do. First, I had to get out of the area; then I had to wait for Hofer to get in touch with me. This meant getting myself on a bus headed south, or if I was lucky, doing what I’d done before-finding a car.

Or getting back in touch with Carrie. She would surely bring the evidence we’d uncovered to the FBI and the police.

But first, I had to call Liz. She was Hallie’s mother. She had to know what was going on.

I took my own cell phone-I needed to make sure she would take the call. I was pretty sure the driver wouldn’t hear me over the engine noise. It rang a couple of times. It was 4 P.M. and I never knew Liz to leave the office much before six. I knew she’d recognize the number.

Hopefully, it wasn’t being monitored by the police!

At last she picked up. “Henry…?”

“Yeah, it’s me, Liz. Liz, listen, I know who’s got her!”

I told her what I’d discovered. About Hofer. And why he was doing these things to me.

His daughter.

The Oxy.

“I spoke with her, Liz. Or at least I saw her.” I didn’t tell her about the details of the photo. About the ticking clock that was over her head. “She’s alive. Probably scared out of her mind, of course. But she’s alive.”

There was an immediate lift in Liz’s voice. “Now we can go to the police!”

“No. We can’t. Everything’s still the same. I had another run-in with the police. In North Carolina. I was on the line with him and then the cops showed up. It was a million-to-one shot that I got away. You’re probably going to hear about it on the news…”

“What’s that rumble I hear? It sounds like you’re in a train station.”

“No, I’m not on a train. I’m…” I decided not to explain that either. “We still don’t know where he is, but I do know he’s going to find a way to bring me to him. If we get the police involved now, even in the strictest of confidence, because of how crazy everything is with me, it might blow everything. They may release his name… They may still even use it as a wedge to get to me. Anyway, listen, we’ve already made contact with the FBI-”

“We. Who’s we, Henry?”

“This woman from the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office. Who’s looked into my case.”

“A detective?”

“No. Not exactly a detective, Liz…” How could I tell her? That Carrie was from the Community Outreach department. It would make me look like a fool! “Liz, you have to trust me. We’re getting close. I don’t want to blow everything now. I just don’t know how much time we have…”

“Henry, I’ve done nothing for three days! I’m going out of my mind! Now you know who it is. How much longer can you expect me to sit back…?”

“Liz, I’m dying too. I could clear my name in an hour now if I could turn myself in. But I can’t… I know you have no reason to trust me right now, or to believe me, other than you know that I want Hallie back as much as you. Maybe more! This all happened because of me, Liz. We have to find out where he’s got her. Give me one more day.”

“Oh God, Henry, you can’t be serious, to keep doing nothing. It’s our daughter…”

“I am serious. I’m deadly serious. But until I know where Hofer wants me to go, where he’s taken her, we have to keep doing this.”

She didn’t say anything. I just heard her weeping. My tough-as-nails wife, whom I never saw as much as shed a tear.

“Just bear with me another day, Liz. A day to figure out where he is and what he wants from me. Can you do that, baby? I know what I’m asking you. Is that okay?”

Just then the truck veered to the right and slowed its speed. We were exiting the highway. We were probably nearing its base. In Charlotte.

“Liz, I have to go now. I don’t know when I’ll be able to call you. But I will. As soon as I can. Soon as I know something.”

“Henry, you can’t just run out on me like this-”

“Liz, I have to go…” We came to a stop. The truck made a right. And then proceeded, as if along an access road. I knew I didn’t have much time. And now the driver might easily hear me. I lowered my voice. “Liz, I’m sorry, but I have to run. I’m gonna find her, Liz. I give you my word. Can you trust me on this?”

She sniffled and drew in a breath. The truck went down a short straightaway, never getting out of second gear. I knew we were close. It might be reaching its destination at any second.

Liz said, “Yes. Yes, Henry I trust you. I don’t know how much longer I can go on like this, but… Get her back for me, Henry. You get this bastard!”

“I will, Liz. I will. You take care.”

I pressed off the line. I felt the truck slow and make another right turn. The driver bounced over a speed bump and seemed to pull into a driveway.

Then the truck came to a stop.

My heart was beating with dread. I knew I was in Charlotte.

And there were two possibilities:

Either I’d have to find a way to get back south, where I assumed my daughter was being held captive…

Or ten cops would be waiting for me with guns drawn as the cargo bay opened.

Chapter Sixty-One

The truck’s door rattled open. I peeked out from under the sheet in the back of the cargo bay. Bright light flashed into my eyes.

All I heard was the grating sound of the loading ramp being pulled down to the ground. And the driver calling out to someone, obviously a ways away, “Hey, John. Givens still around? Dude owes me thirty bucks…”

“Yeah, man, he’s still here. In the spin room. You need help unloading?”

“Thanks. Give me a minute. Need to take a leak.”

My blood sped into overdrive. I had to get off the truck before the driver came back. I had no idea where I was.

I climbed out of the bin and crawled up to the front of the cargo bay and looked around. I didn’t see anyone. I steadied a hand on the ramp and jumped down. There were a bunch of similar trucks in the lot and an open slot to a loading bay. I headed off at a steady pace toward the open gate and didn’t look back. I didn’t hear anyone call. I just walked right through. Like a man leaving prison behind. All the while my heart was thumping.

I took a look around. I was in an industrial neighborhood. Warehouses and light manufacturing businesses. Queen City Restaurant Supplies. J. Crawford and Sons Glass. One thing I did know. We weren’t more than a half mile from the highway.

I picked up my pace, hoping no one called me from behind. Hey, you! You there. What are you doing?

I let out a loud sigh of relief when I was sure I was free.

I had about sixty bucks left. And no jacket. I had flung that into the river. It was March, and it still got chilly at night. And no more iPad. That was back in Carrie’s car. No good to me now.

I could make my way to a bus station and try to hop a bus. But the police might be watching and that would mean putting myself on the street for a while.

I spotted an Exxon station a couple of blocks away. And a sign for I-77, heading south. I saw an overpass and figured that was the highway straight ahead.

I hurried over to the station, figuring I’d use the restroom and find something to eat. That maybe I’d just put my thumb out on the entrance ramp and try my luck.

When I got to the gas station, three cars were filling up. I went into the men’s room and splashed cold water over my face, still reeling from the harrowing escape I’d made, and still surprised to see my newly cropped hair and glasses.

In the mart, I grabbed a hot dog and a coffee. I got on the cashier’s line.

There were two TV screens above the counter. One was a black-and-white security camera that showed who was coming in and out. I turned my face away. The other had on one of those courtroom reality shows. Judge Roy Brown. As I got to the front and dug in my pocket to pay, a breaking news flash interrupted the programming. A local announcer came on: “This just in… Dr. Henry Steadman, wanted in the shooting deaths of a Jacksonville Florida police officer and a local lawyer, was said to be spotted today right here in North Carolina, in the tiny town of Mount Holly, thirty miles east of Charlotte. News Four has received word that a chase did ensue with the police, and that shots were fired. There is no word of whether Steadman is in police custody. And there is said to be a female accomplice apprehended there as well. That’s all we have for you right now. More on this as it comes in…”

I saw my picture flash on the screen. The way I looked a week ago-longish hair, dark glasses, a broad smile. Carrie, apprehended? My heart sank. Though I knew they would only want her as a way to get to me.

I threw out a couple of bills for my food and nodded agreeably when the heavyset guy behind the counter shook his head. “Unbelievable, huh?” he said.

“Yeah.”

“Better hope he doesn’t come in here, if he knows what’s good for him…”

I had to get out of there, and fast. Not just out of the city, out of the state. It was only a matter of time before the police put everything together. How I’d gotten away. For all I knew, they were searching the whole area already.

I headed back outside and ate my frank around the pumps, watching the cars pull in and sipping my coffee.

Of course, standard procedure on 99 percent of people pulling into a filling station was to take their car keys if they left the car to go inside. But now and then someone left them in the ignition. I’d surely done this from time to time myself.

And that’s what I looked for. I mean, I was smack in the heart of the Deep South, right? Everyone was trusting here…

The next two or three drivers just filled up their tanks and didn’t stray far from their vehicles. A middle-aged woman in a Honda drove in, parked, and went inside the mart, but took her keys with her.

This could be futile.

But then a heavyset black guy in long denim shorts and an oversize Hornets jersey drove up in a gray Buick. I watched him start to fill up his tank, the keys still in the ignition, then, almost as if it was an afterthought, take a run into the station. Maybe to pay. Maybe to buy a Ring Ding or something. Or use the john.

I tossed my coffee in the garbage and meandered over to his car. I saw the keys still in the ignition. I felt like a creep, loitering around, but I had no choice. Hallie’s fate necessitated it. I glanced inside but couldn’t see the guy. Maybe he’d gone to the john.

I didn’t care.

I disconnected the pump and hopped inside his car. No one seemed to notice.

Heart racing, I hit the ignition and pulled out of the station. If anyone had seen me, no one ran after me. No one shouted.

I hit the light as it was just turning yellow and made a sharp right, following the sign to I-77.

I shot on the ramp for the highway, heading south, whooping with relief and exultation.

In twenty minutes I’d be in South Carolina.

Chapter Sixty-Two

Carrie was held in the chief’s office at the local police station in Mount Holly, looking at pictures of Chief McDaniels fishing and with his grandkids, until they squared her story with the Jacksonville police.

Hours.

Around six, she heard some discussion going on outside. The door opened, and her brother, Jack, stepped in.

He was the last person she wanted to see. “Before you even go there, Jack…” Carrie stood up.

He had one of those reproving-older-brother looks on him, like when she’d drunk a few too many beers back in high school (he was always the straight one) or when she left their bathroom looking like a shit storm had passed through it. Except this time it had kind of melded with one of those serious, more official looks Jack had learned at the FBI.

He sank into the chair across from her. “What the hell were you doing, Carrie?”

“He didn’t do it, Jack. No one back in Jacksonville wanted to hear me. You can check with this guy Bud at the gun store in town; where Steadman supposedly bought that gun. He never did. Vance Hofer bought it. Here…” She handed him a piece of paper she’d taken from her bag, Henry’s daily schedule for March 2, which he had e-mailed her. “If anyone had done their homework, they’d have known that Steadman was in Jacksonville operating that day…”

Jack looked it over, scratching his bushy hair and squinting his intelligent brown eyes.

“It’s all pretty clear, Jack. In fact, Hofer just called him earlier today. I have photos of his car in the vicinity of both murder sites. We traced the plate on the car to one of his work buddies. He knew Martinez from that incident you described, and he also knew when Steadman would be in town, and had Martinez stop Steadman and come up with this song and dance about him talking back, maybe just to razz him at first, and then he killed him. He also killed Steadman’s friend. He admitted as much to Steadman. And apparently there are others as well…”

“Others?” Jack put the schedule back on the table.

Carrie nodded. “You already know about his daughter. He claims he traced the OxyContin back to a clinic owned by Steadman, so no doubt there are a few gaping holes in the chain of supply that may turn up somewhere. And there’s motive. His life was in shambles. The last straw was his daughter. He twisted the blame to Henry-”

“Henry?” Her brother raised an eyebrow.

“Gimme a break, Jack. If anyone back in Jacksonville was doing their police work, they could have found the car at both scenes. They could have checked that Steadman was at his office the day the gun was supposedly bought. They could have asked where he would possibly have gotten a gun, just getting off a plane. Instead of running around pulling triggers… Check with this gun-store guy Bud in town. He’ll tell you-”

“I’ve already spoken with Bud,” her brother said. He let out a breath and loosened his tie. “Chief McDaniels said he was the one who alerted him, so I stopped on the way in. I also traced that plate back to a guy from that metalworks factory, where Hofer worked-”

“So then you know! You know Steadman didn’t do it. So stop making it out like I’m protecting some kind of insane double murderer. I was only doing what the guys with the gold shields back home should have been doing. It was all a setup, Jack. He could be dead… Henry…” She swallowed grudgingly, correcting herself. “I mean Steadman.”

“Attaway.” He winked at her and smiled.

“But it’s gotten deeper, Jack. A lot deeper… No one will tell me anything. What’s happened? I need to speak with him.”

“Don’t. I’ve spoken with the JSO. In light of all this, they’ve agreed to rescind the arrest warrant against Steadman. I mean, Henry”-he smiled-“to merely a person of interest and hear out his side. Which should clear him, Carrie. We’ll put out a joint APB on this Hofer and-”

“No, Jack, you can’t!” Carrie’s blood rose with a jolt of panic. “You can’t release Hofer’s name! Like I said, everything’s changed. That’s why Henry had to run. He got this call-from Hofer. The first one was before I even spoke with him. Back in Jacksonville. Then another this afternoon. Just as I was talking to you about bringing him in.”

“What call, Carrie?”

She hesitated, not knowing what was right, pushing the hair out of her eyes. “I don’t know, Jack, I can’t-”

“What call?” Jack shifted closer, his eyes growing more serious. “Sis, I’ve gone to bat in some pretty serious ways to get you off the hook on this and not face any local, not to mention federal charges for, say, harboring a fugitive, or transporting one across state lines. Abetting a fugitive in the commission of a crime is a-”

“Jack!” Tears rose up in Carrie’s eyes, tears of confusion and frustration. “You don’t understand…” She drew in a steadying breath, unsure of what to do. She’d given her word to Henry. But she didn’t even know where he was; if he’d been caught or not. Or hurt. No one was giving her any information. Ultimately she had to trust Jack. That he would do the right thing. Henry’s daughter’s life depended on it. She was almost shaking. “Jack, I have to have your trust on what I’m going to tell you. You need to give me your word.”

“Sis…” Her brother leaned forward and took her hands, which were now trembling ever so slightly, and he squeezed them in his own. “I know you’re involved, but if you can’t trust me on this, who the hell are you going to trust?”

Carrie closed her eyes and let out a breath she’d been holding in for hours Then she nodded. There was nothing else she could do.

She told him. About Hofer’s call when Henry had fled to his friend Mike’s house, moments after finding his body. “How you enjoying this so far?” And then today. About him having taken Henry’s daughter, and what he had threatened to do if word got out. What he had done to others…

“He’s crazy, Jack. He’ll do everything he says. Whatever you do, you can’t let his name get out, or else… He’ll kill her, Jack. He will!”

“I understand…” Jack nodded, his brow furrowed in thought. His look seemed to say, No good choices here. “I’ll talk to the sheriff’s office. Let me see what I can do about keeping this all under wraps. We still have to find this guy, though…”

“Jack, once it leaks out to the press that Henry’s no longer a suspect, you know there’ll be no stopping them. Hofer will know!”

Jack nodded, tight-lipped. “You may have to spend the night here. The JSO is on the way and I’m thinking they may want a word or two with you. Sorry to make you stay here and check out Chief McDaniels’ two-foot bass a little bit longer…”

Carrie forced a tight smile, not feeling much like laughing. “Thank you, Jack, but the JSO-”

“I’ve already spoken with them. I think I can assure there won’t be any charges, if it all checks out.”

“All right, but…”

“ ’Course, I can’t say how they plan on handling the matter internally. Still”-he stood up-“unless they’re as dumb as bean curds, I can’t imagine that they want their investigative teams totally looking like a bunch of asses on this… Who knows, you may even end up with a promotion.” He grinned and headed to the door. Then he winked with approval. “I know what you need, Carrie. And good work on this. Whatever it was, you did good.”

She swallowed appreciatively.

“ ’Course, I can’t make any promises about Pop’s reaction. I’ll leave you to square that one with him yourself…”

“Jack…”

Her brother turned.

“Where is he? Steadman. No one’s told me a thing. He’s okay, right?” She looked unsure. “I’d like to see him if I can.”

“Is he okay?” Her brother chuckled. “Your guess is as good as mine, sis. Right now we don’t have any idea where he is. He just disappeared.”

“Disappeared…” Carrie’s eyes grew wide, and she was unable to hold back her smile. “You mean he got away?”

Jack laughed. “Canny little bastard, huh? We’re thinking in a laundry truck. We’re checking now. But I damn well know where I’d be headed if it was Cara who’d been taken and I’d gotten that call.”

Chapter Sixty-Three

I pulled off the highway near Columbia and spent the night in the parking lot of a Fairfield Inn, a couple of miles from the University of South Carolina.

I was glued to the car’s radio, and caught several updates on the incident in Mount Holly, but nothing about a car being heisted at a gas station in Charlotte, so hopefully no one had put that together. I desperately wanted to call Carrie, to let her know how I’d gotten away and find out what she’d told the police, but I didn’t know if she even had her phone and I didn’t want to put her, or myself, at further risk. I didn’t know if the police were still chasing me or still believed I was guilty. I only knew I had to find Hofer-and Hallie-before the police found me. Before Hofer followed through on his threat!

And as I sat there, huddled in a car in South Carolina, not knowing what my next move would be, not knowing if every cop in the state was looking for my car, I did think of someone who might know where Hofer was.

His daughter. Amanda.

I did the old McDonald’s drive-through thing again for breakfast burrito and located the nearest library, and I was at the small stone building when it opened at 10 A.M.

The woman at the information desk pointed me to two computers in a kind of reading room, a bunch of magazines and newspapers arranged neatly on a round table. The old, large-monitor Dell warmed up creakily, taking me to the state library homepage. I clicked over to Google and typed in “Amanda Hofer.”

Dozens of items came up. The first, from the Lancaster County Crier, which I assumed was the hometown paper.

“LOCAL TEEN, 19, KILLS MOTHER AND BABY”

Then below it: “Said to be on Painkiller at Time of Accident. OxyContin and Xanax Linked to Auto Double Homicide.”

Farther down, “Local D.A. Seeks Murder Conviction in Tragic Double Homicide.”

I scanned the details, about how elevated traces of OxyContin and Xanax had been found in Amanda’s blood as she drove to her cosmetology class that morning. How she had been seen driving erratically through traffic. How she had driven right off the road and onto the victim’s lawn, bouncing off a tree and right up to the house, where she mowed down Deborah Jean Jenkins and her two-month-old son, Brett. How the child’s father was in the army serving in Afghanistan and had never even seen his newborn son in person.

As I read the actual details, my heart filled with compassion for this man, and for a moment I had to stop and take a couple of breaths, my thoughts finding their way to Hallie, who was around the same age as Amanda Hofer.

Then I scrolled farther down and found what I was looking for in the Atlanta Constitution:

“TEEN AUTO KILLER PLEADS TO TWO COUNTS OF AGGRAVATED VEHICULAR HOMICIDE. RECEIVES 20 YEARS”

It showed Amanda, drawn and pale-looking, as she was led from the courthouse.

To begin her sentence at the medium security Pulaski Women’s Prison in Hawkinsville, Georgia.

That was exactly what I wanted!

I switched to the website for the Georgia State Prison System, clicked on “Women’s Institutions,” and immediately found Pulaski. It wasn’t far from I-75. A two- or three-hour drive from where I was.

Visiting hours were from 11 A.M. to 4 P.M. All visitors had to present a valid photo ID.

I reached into my pocket and pulled out Carrie’s husband’s license that I had taken.

And his business card. Attorney-at-Law.

I knew it was a long shot, but that’s all I had right now.

I looked again at Rick’s face. Okay, hardly a perfect match-I had blue eyes; his were green. His hair a bit lighter.

Still, it could work. I mean, we weren’t exactly talking the Supermax at Florence, Colorado, here… This was a medium-security women’s prison in backwoods Georgia. Probably a work-farm facility.

And it had to be the last place on earth anyone would be looking for me.

Chapter Sixty-Four

Vance Hofer stood above the circular saw in the remote woodshed. He eased a two-by-four along the line, splitting it seamlessly down the grain line. He liked how it felt, like he was back at the mill before everything fell apart. He used to come out here back then, and his wife, Joyce, would make something cool to drink and Amanda would bring it out, asking, “What are you making out here, Daddy?” and he would just go, “Nothing. Just thinking.” The bright sparks and whine of the serrated blade were like a hymn in church to him, making his thoughts clear.

He raised his goggles and wiped a thick mixture of sweat and sawdust off the back of his neck.

Vance accepted that his time had come, but he had one final act to see through. They may build but I will tear asunder, the Good Book read. They may repent, but all judgment is still mine. He knew he had done things to warrant judgment. Some had seemed to rise up from someplace deep inside him, like steam from somewhere deep in the earth. And some just felt justified. But this last thing…

He had decided that Henry Steadman was the root of all that had gone bad in his ruined life. The man had no true sense of what he had done, no deep contrition. Only selfish regret at having lost his easy life. And so he had to pay, like the rest had paid. And Vance had devised something good, something that would make him beg and cry before he died. That was a vow, Vance reflected as he eased another plank through the blade. One he’d take to the grave.

He gathered the remnants into a pile, the smell of raw, split pine like incense to him. He brought them over to the chipper. Not a big, fine machine, like what they had had at the plant, which could reduce a full-grown tree to pulp as fast as you could feed it. But it would do what he asked of it. Vance felt there was a beautiful magic to the job it did-the way it transformed something palpable and real one minute into the smallest of inalterable parts the next. It hummed as it chewed up the disparate pieces, raising a foul-smelling dust like vapor.

Purification in its truest, most elemental form.

A shout came from the locker in the back room. He almost didn’t hear it over the chipper’s noise. “Please… Please…” the girl called out. “Let me talk to my father!”

“Keep quiet, child, if you know what’s good for you,” he called back, feeding the split pieces of wood into the chipper’s mouth. “You hear I’m busy.”

His own daughter was no better than a whore and deserved all that fate had levied on her. Still, life didn’t degrade its victims in a vacuum, Vance thought. Evil had to be drawn out of you, by an agent, a snake. And then let loose in the world. And then the only way to remedy it was for it to be purified. As well as all who had touched it. That was the only way to make it go away…

He fed the split wood into the machine, rendering it into its natural, purified state.

Pulp.

He had never fully appreciated the wonderful magic of it until now.

From the shed, the girl cried out again, only a muffled noise above the chipper’s grating whir. Truth was, he could hear it all night and it wouldn’t sway him now.

“Let me out. I’m begging you. Please. Let me call my father. He’ll give you whatever you want. Can’t you hear me in here? Please!”

Go at it all you want, Vance said to himself. That’s about all you have left in this world. And don’t worry, you’ll see him soon enough. That I promise.

She yelled and yelled again as he continued feeding the wood, returning it to its natural state. Eventually her voice became like daggers in his ears. Reminding him of things he didn’t want to hear. Things he had put away forever.

He paused the chipper with the foot pedal, got up, and went over to the locked shed door, and slammed on it with all his might.

“Shut the hell on up, Amanda!” he yelled.

Chapter Sixty-Five

Pulaski was a three-hour drive.

I’d called and left my name with the visitors’ center, identifying myself as Rick Holmes, an attorney from Jacksonville, and saying that I wanted to meet with Amanda Hofer. I stopped at a men’s haberdashery store and picked out a sport jacket straight off the rack along with a white dress shirt. I wore them out of the shop.

The prison came up out of nowhere, about twenty minutes south of Macon, a town I recalled from my Allman Brothers stage, and was ringed by a barbed-wire fence and a handful of guard towers. The only times I’d ever even been inside one was during med school, at Vandy, where I did some procedures on inmates, but not like this.

Of course, this wasn’t exactly San Quentin and we were in the middle of nowhere, and Amanda Hofer wasn’t exactly the Unabomber-not to mention that I was relying on the fact that no one ever assumes someone is trying to break into prison.

At just before 1 P.M. I left the car and headed toward the main entrance. Inside, on the left, was a sign marked VISITORS. My heart started to pound. At the counter, I waited behind an African-American family; the mother, in jeans and a tight halter top, seemed to know her way around, and her two talkative boys in NFL jerseys. I told myself to calm down. When they were done, I stepped up to the heavyset woman in a khaki guard’s uniform behind the counter.

“Richard Holmes. I’m here to see Amanda Hofer.”

The guard checked over the log. “Are you carrying any firearms or any other weapons? If so, you’ll have to check them here.”

I shook my head. “No.”

“Any food, paraphernalia, or materials you’re planning to leave with the inmate?”

Again, I shook my head. “No. None.”

She began to fill out a visitor’s form. “May I see your ID?”

I pulled Carrie’s husband’s license from my wallet and passed it across the counter, along with his card, identifying me as an attorney, and waited, sure that the guard was able to hear the bass drum that was booming in my chest. If there’d been some kind of meter measuring heart rate or agitation aimed at me, the needle would be off the chart!

Instead, she just looked them over, glancing at me once, and slid them back. No request to see anything else. No alarms sounding-or guards rushing out with their guns drawn.

Just: “Up from Florida, huh? Warm down there as it is up here?”

“You got off easy,” I said with a grin, sure it was a trick question, and realizing I hadn’t checked the weather back there in days.

The guard laughed. “Wait till July and you won’t be sayin’ that…” Then she got on a mike. “Can you bring up 334596 to Booth Three?” she asked, then pushed across an admittance form for me to sign.

I was in!

“Go through the door on the right and down to Booth Three,” she instructed. “Remove anything metal from your pockets inside. Enjoy your visit.” She looked beyond me. “Next in line…”

I went through the door and then through a security station, with a metal detector and a long metal table, like I’d seen in courthouses. I emptied my pockets: just my three cell phones and my wallet. Another guard checked my paperwork and then pointed me through. “Down the hall. Booth Three is on the left.”

I took my things and proceeded down the hallway. I came upon a row of ten or twelve visiting booths-four-foot-wide compartments with microphones and a Plexiglas wall separating the inmate from the visitor.

I went over for about the tenth time how I was going to play it, hoping it would work. I had absolutely no idea how Amanda would react. But I was here. I’d gotten this far. And Hallie’s life depended on it.

A door on the back wall opened and a pale-looking girl in a purple jumpsuit stepped in. She looked across the glass and clearly didn’t know who I was or why I was here. For a split second I thought she might turn around.

But she didn’t. Two khaki-clad guards stood against the wall. Amanda Hofer shuffled over and sat across from me. She wasn’t bound, and her face was kind of gaunt and pale. Her light brown hair was straggly and held in place by a band. Her eyes were kind of dull gray and like a deer’s, fearful and mistrusting. She didn’t look a day older than Hallie and my first thought was that I couldn’t help but look at her as any father might, thinking, Jesus, twenty years…

“I know you?” she asked blankly.

“No.” I passed her Rick’s business card. Come on, Henry, pull this off! “I’m a lawyer. From down in Jacksonville.” She looked it over, more like an uncomprehending kid than a drug-hardened felon.

“I never been to Jacksonville.” She shrugged, looking back at me, and said in a deep drawl, “So why you here?”

I had practiced over and over on the long drive down how I would handle this, even though I knew from the outset that it had a slim chance of success.

“I’m a claims attorney,” I explained. “There’s been a settlement in a court case from years back. Involving your father.” I knew about the situation down there with the police. “Vance Hofer, correct?”

“That’s him,” Amanda said, kind of indifferently. “What’d he do, win the lottery or something…?” She curled an amused smile.

“No, nothing fancy like that. But there might be some kind of restitution for him pending. I just need a sign-off on some paperwork. Problem is, we’ve been trying to locate him, with no success. Three ninety-four Partridge Row? In Acropolis?”

“That’s where we live. Where we used to live anyway,” Amanda corrected herself. “Just a trailer. We lost our home a few years back. After my mom died.”

“Sorry.” I tried to find a way to win her over. “I was hoping you might help me out. We’ve called; sent a registered letter. He hasn’t responded. It’s pretty important actually. We’ve been down every other path.”

“Truth is, I don’t have a clue in hell where my father is, Mr… Holmes. Nor would I give a damn even if I did. I’m afraid you’ve wasted your time coming all the way up here.”

I frowned. At least one thing was clear-she surely wasn’t covering for him. “Do you mind if I ask when the last time you saw your father was, Ms. Hofer?”

“Saw him… ?” She bunched up her lips. “Months. Not since my trial. Bastard hasn’t shown up here once. Spoke to him…?” She shrugged. “Maybe a month or so ago. He called. He sounded pretty strange. Like he had made up his mind on something. Haven’t heard from him since. The sonovabitch could be dead for all I know or care. Sorry-but we’re not exactly a Disney World commercial, he and I… You know what I’m sayin’? Hope you got a million bucks lined up for him, Mr. Holmes. Would serve him right if you did and he was dead. And me… Well I sure as hell won’t be spending any of it anytime soon. Sorry…”

She put her hands on the counter, about to get up.

“You must have some idea. Did he say where he might go? Or do you know where he could have headed? This is a matter that has to be taken care of now.”

She shook her head. “I wish I could help you, Mr. Holmes, but-”

“Please…” Our eyes met and I knew she heard the desperation in my tone. “Please, just sit down…”

Haltingly, Amanda let herself back down in the chair, looking at me even more curiously. “You’re not exactly sounding very legal-like there, Mr. Holmes, if you know what I mean…”

“No.” I nodded, swallowing. “Truth is, I’m not.” I took a breath. “And my name’s not Holmes. I only used his card and ID as a way to get in here. I needed to talk with you, Ms. Hofer… Amanda, if that’s okay… Because someone’s life depends on it. Someone very close to me. Just hear me out. Then you can go. Please…”

She didn’t respond one way or the other, but she continued to sit there, curling her hair with a finger, her dull, dishwater-colored eyes growing slightly more alive and interested. “All right.”

I lowered my voice. “Whatever you may think, please don’t react or get up. Just let me tell you why I came. My name is Steadman, Amanda. Doctor Henry Steadman. Does that name mean anything to you?”

Her eyebrows lifted in surprise, and she looked at me closely, offering me a thin, dubious smile. “This is a joke, right?”

“No. It’s no joke, Amanda. I wish to hell it was.” I kept my eyes on her. “So you know what I’m accused of.”

“I watch the news.”

“Then you know that the police are looking for me. And then you know I’m putting everything I have on the line to sneak my way in here and talk with you… ’Cause right now all I have is my freedom. You can turn me in anytime you like. You’ll probably get a reward or something. But someone’s life is on the line. My daughter’s life, Amanda. She’s just a year younger than you. Her name is Hallie. Will you hear me out?”

She pushed back a strand of hair, shaking her head. “Mr. Holmes or Steadman, or whatever your name is, you must be totally crazy…” But she nodded.

“Thank you.” I pressed my lips into a tight smile. “I don’t know exactly where to begin, and I don’t have a lot of time. Amanda, I’m going to tell you some things you may not want to hear. But they’re the truth. The gospel truth, so help me God. And the first thing is: I didn’t do any of the things I’ve been accused of.”

She curled a grin. “I heard that before. Everybody says that in here…”

“I know.” I smiled again. “I figured. But I swear it’s the truth. And I don’t mean to shock you by what I’m about to say next, but it’s your father who’s done them, Amanda. Not me. Your father had a policeman drag me out of my car in Jacksonville and then he killed him. He also killed a friend of mine in town. To make it look like it was me. He even bought a gun, in North Carolina, at a gun show, and used my name and address…”

She drew her eyes wide. “Why?”

“I know how this must sound. And I wish I could explain it all to you right now… But let it be enough to say that I spoke with him just yesterday, and he’s admitted it all-every last detail-at least to me. Somehow he blames me for what happened to you. Because I own a series of pain clinics down in South Florida and he’s become convinced that the pills you were on at the time of your accident, the Oxy, came from me. My clinic…”

By that point I expected Amanda to shout out for a guard. But instead, her eyes grew wide and a little angry. Not in denial, or at least that wasn’t what I was detecting. But in agreement. Corroboration. She shook her head. “That time I spoke with him, he said some things that didn’t make sense to me. About how people had to be made accountable. For all they’d done. I said, ‘What kinds of things, Daddy? What’re you talking about?’ He sounded like he was drunk. He just said he was going to be taking care of some things… Almost like he was sayin’ good-bye.”

“Amanda”-I leaned closer-“I know how this sounds, and how hard it must be to hear…”

“How it sounds?” She grunted a laugh. “How it sounds is like you’re talking about my ol’ man. That’s all it sounds. I asked about Wayne, my old boyfriend, and he said, ‘Don’t you worry about him none…’ He went on about it being him feeding me all those pills. And it wasn’t. It kind of scared me. And what’s really scared me is I haven’t heard a word from Wayne since… Not here or even written-”

“Amanda, your father told me that there were others who he did things to. Who he said he made pay. He described what he was going to do to my daughter…”

She sniffed and shook her head. “That crazy-ass sonovabitch… He’s got a host of hate in him.”

“Amanda, that’s not all.” I hushed my voice and leaned in closer. “I can already prove everything I just told you. And I wouldn’t even be here if it wasn’t that…” I drew in a breath. “That it’s not just about me. When he called the other day… it wasn’t just to gloat or ask how it feels that he’s ruined my life. He has my daughter, Amanda! He put her on the phone. He has her captive. I don’t know where. He wouldn’t say. He said he’d let me know when the time was right. But she must be terrified. You can imagine. And he said if I got caught, or if I gave up his name in any way-that he’d kill her. Just like he’s killed the others, Amanda. That cop. My friend Mike. Probably Wayne as well…”

She sat there staring blankly.

“Amanda, I need to know where he might have her. That’s why I’m here. I’m sorry I lied, but I had to get to see you somehow. And I didn’t know if you would hear me out or trust me. So you see I’m desperate, Amanda. I’m dying. You must have some idea where he would be. Look…”

I reached for my wallet and took out a photo. Of Hallie. In a UVA T-shirt, with her favorite jumper, Sadie. Her pretty face all lit up. I think it was the week she got accepted. Every time I looked at it, I could still see all the hope and excitement in her eyes…

“She rides. She’s expert at it. They want her to compete in college.”

Amanda stared at it. Something pleasing and pure in the way she looked at Hallie, almost as if Hallie were some idealized version of who she might’ve become. If things were different.

Then she pushed it back under the glass. “He’ll do it,” she said. “He’s just crazy enough to do what he says. I could hear it when he called. It was like he was tellin’ me good-bye…”

“If he has Hallie, it has to be somewhere remote,” I said. “He has to be able to keep her concealed and make sure no one is around to hear-’cause I know my little girl would fight. To the bone. It has to be someplace he’d be familiar with and feel secure. He only saw a photo of her in my office a few weeks back, so I don’t think he’s planned it out for months. So it has to be somewhere he would know. Can you think of any place? You’re my only hope.”

Amanda’s eyes remained steady, and when she blinked, there was some certainty in her gaze. “He has this place. It’s kind of a toolshed, where he would work. For hours sometimes. Back at our old home. In Acropolis.” She shook her head. “He was always keen on that place. It all kind of fell apart for my father when we lost it. It was his pride and joy. Bank owns it now; it’s at the end of a long road and no one ever bought it, as far as I know. There’s nothing around it but wetlands and woods, so there’s no one-I don’t think anyone even knows it’s there. And there’s this locked closet, attached, where he would keep supplies…”

My heart thumping, I pushed Rick’s card back through the glass along with a pen from the counter. “Can you write down the address?”

Amanda shrugged. She started to write-a slow, block cursive, almost like someone who hadn’t gone past the sixth grade.

3936 Cayne Road

Acropolis

When she was done, she looked back up at me, her eyes shining now, with what looked like innocence. “His heart is in that place. I can’t think of nowhere else he would go.”

“Thank you,” I said. My chest was expansive. I remained there a moment just staring at her, as she pushed a wisp of hair out of her eyes and gave me a hopeful smile.

And with it, I knew we were both thinking the same thought. What if it had all been different? What if she had grown up with someone else, someone like me? And with a sister like Hallie. Would anything have changed?

“I like horses,” Amanda said. “There was a time he used to say to me, ‘You scamper just like a racehorse, Peachy.’ Peachy, that was his name for me. ’Cause of my light hair.”

Then the pallor of disappointment crawled back into her eyes. “I hope you get him, Dr. Steadman. And when you do, you make sure you do what it is you have to do to get your girl free. You don’t hold back for me. That man… He wants to hold those to task who are accountable. You make sure you start with him. You make him accountable. You do that to him… for me!”

I nodded. Then I stood up. “I’m gonna come back and see you again, Amanda. Maybe if this all works out, we’ll both come. Hallie and me.”

“Maybe,” she said, shrugging, and she got up. “Guard! In the meantime, you just go do what you have to do to get her back.”

Chapter Sixty-Six

I basically ran out of the prison, my body alive with the possibility that I knew where Hofer was.

I knew I should alert the police. Not the local police, in Acropolis. Not with my name out there as a fugitive and my daughter’s life on the line. But maybe Carrie’s brother. The FBI. Of course, there was always the chance Hofer wasn’t actually in Acropolis at all, and then I’d have nothing. And everything would be blown.

The bastard had made it clear with that photo of Hallie. Whatever he had planned for her was happening very soon. I realized then that there was no doubt in me-none at all-that I was going to go get her myself.

I turned on the car and plugged “Acropolis, Georgia” into the Buick’s GPS. I knew it was north and east from the prison, near the South Carolina border. The route came up. It read, two and a half hours. I could drive there first and figure out my options once I arrived. I already felt close to her. Hallie, I’m coming! You just hang on, baby.

I felt a power I had never felt in my life take hold of me and it wouldn’t let me go.

I got ready to go, but first I found my cell phone and made two calls. The police could come and get me now for all I cared. They could track me down, follow me-I would lead them right to my daughter.

The first call was to Liz. She picked up on the second ring. “Henry…”

“Liz, I said that I’d get back to you, and I just want you to know, I’m going to get our daughter.”

The second was to Carrie.

My blood was pumping as I punched in her cell number. I didn’t care who was monitoring. I didn’t care if the fucking FBI was sitting at the table playing mah-jongg with her.

“My God, Henry!” Carrie answered, clearly elated to hear my voice. “I was so worried. I didn’t know if you had-”

I cut her off. “Carrie!” I knew what she was feeling as she realized that I was alive, because reconnecting with her, I was feeling the same way. “Where are you?”

“Driving back home. The chief wants a meeting with me. I’m halfway through Georgia.”

“Turn around.”

“Turn around?” She hesitated. “Why?”

“Because I think I found him, Carrie! I know where Hofer is!”

Chapter Sixty-Seven

Two detectives from the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office had driven up earlier that morning, and Carrie had pretty much laid it all out for them: Hofer; the bogus gun purchase; his daughter’s accident; his relationship with Martinez from years before; and the tapes she had of his Mazda at each of the two crime scenes. As well as his call to Henry yesterday. How could she not tell them, whatever promise she had made to Henry?

And she also told them about Hallie.

Dubious as they were, they listened intently, writing it all down. Every piece of it pretty much exonerated Henry.

And she got their promise not to release anything until Hallie was found.

Now she was making her way back down I-95, back home, to a meeting with Bill Akers and the chief, where they might well take her report, commend her for finding the truth, then tell her on the spot that she could pack her things and leave…

When Henry’s call came in. “I know where Hofer is!”

“How?” she asked, slowing, shifting to the right lane.

“I went to see his daughter. In prison. It’s a long story, Carrie, and you actually helped make it happen. I’ll tell you about it when I can. But she told me Hofer has this shed behind his old house in Acropolis. The one he lost after his wife died. Now the bank owns it. No one’s living there. She says the place is kind of a sanctuary to him. It’s deep in the woods, and has some kind of locked storage compartment attached. That has to be where he is. And where he’s got Hallie. I’m heading there now!”

“Wait!” Carrie tried to think it through. If Henry went there alone, he’d likely get them all killed. He was the one Hofer wanted. And calling the local cops to get there ahead, who knew what they would believe or how they would handle it? They might well bungle it. They didn’t know the truth yet. This was Jack’s terrain. There was also the possibility that Hofer wasn’t even there. Then they’d be alerting the police; everything would be out in the open. “Henry, listen, you can’t go there on your own. You can’t.”

“I am going, Carrie. Just like you’d be going. If it was Raef.”

A tremor of apprehension and dread started to quiver inside Carrie.

She had been expressly ordered to stay out of this now. The JSO had a lot of damage control to do. Chief Hall was expecting her in his office. Her cell phone was probably being monitored as well, so in minutes they might know Henry had called. This is crazy! She’d be putting everything on the line. Her reputation. Her career… the thimbleful that was left of it.

She saw a sign for an exit coming up in a mile. Hell, she was probably going to get fired anyway…

“Where is it?” Carrie asked, pulling into the right lane. “If you’re going there, I’m coming too.”

Henry hesitated at first. And she knew exactly why. It was because he knew she would come! It was because he knew how she’d put herself on the line for him. And it was because he wanted her there with him.

Why else would he have called?

“You have a GPS,” he said. “Head back up toward Augusta and take State Road 24 to Acropolis.” He gave her the exact address: 3936 Cayne Road. “I’m about two hours away.”

“You’re probably an hour ahead of me,” she said, looking at the navigation map.

Then she said: “I had to tell them, Henry. All of it. Even about Hofer’s call. I’m sorry, but there was no way around it. Now they just need you to come in so they can hear your side. They promised it would all stay inside until I meet with the chief. So you can’t do anything ’till I get there. Promise me that. You’ll get yourself killed, and likely Hallie as well. So you just wait for me, and don’t do anything crazy. Then we’ll figure out what to do, okay?”

“I’m sorry, but I think it’s too late for that. I think this already qualifies as crazy…”

“Then crazier,” Carrie insisted. “You hear me, don’t you, Henry? I need you to tell me okay.”

“Okay,” he agreed. But there was something more than acquiescence in his voice. She couldn’t point her finger on it, but it was deeper. She felt it. She saw the exit, and readied herself to turn around under the underpass and head back the other way.

“You wait for me, goddammit!”-stopping at the light and plugging the address into the GPS.

Chapter Sixty-Eight

The tiny backwoods towns all melded into one. Jessup. Statesboro. Waynesboro. Places I’d never heard of and might never again.

I drove in a daze, fueled by my dread over Hallie and the anticipation of finding her and what I would do when I got there. Once I knew for sure that that’s where Hofer actually was, we could turn it over to the police or the FBI. They were the best chances of getting Hallie out of this.

I knew Hofer didn’t really want Hallie-he was using her to lure me there!

Around 4 P.M., Carrie called again and I seemed to have about a forty-minute lead on her. I tried not to go too far above the speed limits. All I needed was to get pulled over in some local speed trap. And in a stolen car, no less!

Finally, I began seeing signs for Acropolis.

That’s when my blood really started to race and I realized I had no idea what I’d be finding there or even what I was getting myself into. I just prayed I’d find my daughter alive.

The GPS told me to turn off onto Seaver Lake Road before I reached the actual town. Part of me expected to run right into a gathering of cop cars and flashing lights, from Carrie’s call. But there was nothing out here but open fields, and animal pens and barns. Barely even a road sign.

My nerves began to fray. Hofer had said he would call. So far he hadn’t. Did that mean that something bad had happened? What if I was too late? What if Amanda was wrong, and he wasn’t even here?

Seaver Lake Road was bumpy and rutted, with weather-beaten trailers intermittently dotting the sides. Flatbed trucks and old-clunker vans pulled up in front of them. Dogs ran out to the road, barking after me. A couple of people who were around stared after the car as I drove by.

At the lake, about a mile and a half down, I ran into Cayne Road.

I was here. I’d never exactly played the hero in life. I played baseball in college, but never got the game-winning hit. I worked on boobs and eyes, never saved a life on the table, never had to risk my own life.

Until now. I was about to face off against someone who had killed, someone who was driven by hate and revenge. I began to think about how terrified and panicked Hallie must be feeling, held captive by someone who was surely crazy. And that fueled my resolve. I still didn’t see any sign that anyone had arrived at the scene ahead of me. I thought maybe I should call Carrie and let her know I was here, but I decided just to go on. Hofer had no idea I’d be coming. I figured that was the one thing I actually had going for me. Surprise. I decided I would just get there and make certain they were actually here. Then I’d wait for Carrie.

Hang together, Hallie, I said to myself, seeing a weathered ranch-style house at the end of the long, rutted drive and a mailbox with 3936 written on it.

It won’t be long now.

Chapter Sixty-Nine

It might once have been nice; it might once have been the home of an actual family. But scrub and tall weeds now covered the yellowed lawn, which clearly hadn’t been cut in years. A wire fence bordered the property, sagging at spots where the wind had knocked it down, a wooden gate hanging from its post. It bordered a dried-up field of what might have been hay, and the back was ringed with dense woods.

Amanda said the bank owned it now, but if they did, this was one property they had written off their ledger long ago.

Farther on, on the shoulder of the road, I saw a blue Mazda, the same Mazda I had seen pulling away from Martinez’s police car. The same one, I was sure, that Carrie had found on the tapes of both murder scenes.

Hofer was here.

Which meant Hallie was around here too.

I left the Buick on the edge of the road, out of site from the house. I had no idea if Hofer was inside, or if he’d seen me drive up. Or if he was deep in the woods in that shed Amanda had described.

This is it, Henry…

I thought about calling Carrie, but she would only tell me to wait, and my blood was pumping. So I went around the side, hugging the thick brush to stay out of sight. I got about fifty feet from the house, and didn’t see any lights. What I did see was a hefty Realtor lock on the front door, making me doubt that Hofer was inside.

I continued around to the back, searching for a clearing in the woods.

I saw a path leading straight from the weed-filled backyard, but I worried I might be spotted if I took it. There was a rotted-out jungle gym in back, and an aboveground pool, filled with crushed pinecones and weeds.

I crept around the side. Twigs crackled under my shoes as I made my own path through the woods, ripping branches out of my way. I didn’t know what I would do if I found this shed-only that my daughter was likely to be in it, as was the sonovabitch who had taken her.

You just go do what you have to do to get her back, Amanda had told me. The dead spark in her eyes was unmistakable. He’s got a host of hate inside him.

I pushed through the brush until I didn’t see any sign of the house behind me. My shirt, the one I had worn to the prison only hours earlier, clung to me with sweat.

Then I saw the tiny wooden shed deep in the woods.

No light on inside it.

No sound coming from it.

But I knew they were there. Call it a father’s radar.

My heart started to pound. It had a slanted roof and one window and what looked like a storage hut attached to it, as Amanda had described.

The door was slightly ajar, left open maybe in the hope of a breeze to ease the stifling heat. And I knew that’s where he was. With my little girl. Only thirty yards away.

I saw a rusted metal pipe on the grass. I picked it up. It was covered with moss and crusted rust.

As I held it, it occurred to me that we all have a certain capacity for violence if you dig down deep enough. If someone threatens what really matters in your life… If you went past fear and worry and dread…

And Hofer had dug down as deep as was possible in me.

I knew exactly what I would do with that violence if I got the chance.

I went back into the woods until I was sure I was out of sight and pulled out my phone.

I relished saying the words I’d wanted to utter since this whole sick and crazy business started:

“I’ve got him, Carrie.”

Chapter Seventy

Sonovabitch…

Vance leaned against the window, smoking, and suddenly caught sight of Henry Steadman, not forty yards away, hiding in the woods.

Well, whaddaya know…

Vance was a man who could read you the name off a dog’s collar at a hundred yards at night, while Steadman probably wouldn’t know what breed it was if it was sitting on his lap. But there he was, nonetheless-Vance was sure of it-peering at him.

How the hell did he find his way here…?

Vance put out the smoke, went over to the storage closet, and unlocked the door. It was dark and damp in the cramped space, and the girl was both surprised and clearly frightened. She came out kicking and scratching at him. My, my, such a pretty little thing.

“What’s going on? No, get off of me!”

“No whimpering now, darlin’,” Vance said, pinning her arms. “You’re gonna get to see your daddy just like I told you. Only a little sooner than we thought.”

“Daddy!”

Her eyes stretched wide in surprise and Vance could see that she was just about to shout his name, so he hit her across the chin and her cute little eyes rolled backward, a stream of blood coming from her lip, and when she sagged in his arms, he picked her up, rolled off a length of heavy tape, and stretched it tightly across her mouth.

“Now scream all you want, angel. But your time’s up. This time it’s for real!”

He placed her down against a table, and grabbed the length of rope he had especially measured out, and wrapped the girl’s wrists, hog-style, so they were bound in front of her, and then sat her up, a leg on each side of the feeder bench of the circular saw, looping the rope through the winch on the blade’s axle and then tugging, making sure it was all tight.

He pulled the starter pedal over to where he’d propped her, slumped forward, and gave it a test run with a little pressure.

The jagged blade whirred and came to life.

Perfect.

He went back to the window and peered out again for Steadman. He didn’t see him right then. Which didn’t matter. Didn’t matter how he got here or who he brought along.

Or how many of them there were.

He was ready for them all.

He had separated all the chaff from however much wheat his poor life was ever going to produce. This is all for you, honey, he’d said to Amanda. I did what I said I’d do. I brought them all to their knees. For you. I punished them all who took away what was yours. Your life to live out. Your innocence. I took care of it, darlin’, the only way I know how.

I took care of it for you, Amanda.

He heard the girl moan slightly and start to come back to consciousness. Then he picked up his phone and punched in Steadman’s number.

You want to play it out, Vance thought with a smile, staring out at the trees, listening to the phone ring. He checked his gun.

All right, then, let’s play it out.

Chapter Seventy-One

I tried Carrie twice-but she didn’t pick up. Maybe she was going through a stretch with no reception, which was easy out here in the boonies.

But just as I hung up, my own phone rang.

I was about to say, Carrie, listen…! When I saw the caller ID: Hallie Steadman.

It was him.

I let it ring, nervous that control of the moment had been wrenched from me, not certain what I should say.

Then I realized: He doesn’t know I’m here! He’s calling to tell me where to go. I had the advantage after all.

And I was going to hear my daughter’s voice again!

I pushed the green button. “Yes.”

“Hey, Doc, how’s the weather where you are?” Hofer said with a chuckle. “I said I’d be back in touch. So I’m ready for you now. You want your little girl, don’t you?”

“Let me talk to her,” I said. “You touch a hair on her head, and I’ll kill you myself, Hofer. Put her on.”

“In a minute. In a minute…” he replied. “So where are you now? I think it’s time we meet up again.”

“Doesn’t matter where I am,” I said. “Put Hallie on.”

“Well, I hope you’re not too far away,” Hofer said with a drawn-out sigh, “ ’cause you’ll miss all the fun. It’s starting now, Doc. As we speak. I was sure you’d want to hear…”

“What?” I felt my insides gnash together with alarm.

“Yeah, you heard me. Now. Here, say something to your daddy, honey. He wants to hear that you’re okay… If you can even hear her, over this damn saw…”

I heard a chilling, whirring roar start up that sounded like nails being ground up and spit out.

“Daddy!” Hallie’s voice came on. “He’s going to kill me, Daddy! Daddy, you have to help me, please…”

“Hallie, you just hold on!” I shouted back, my guts wrenching. My fingers wrapped around the metal pipe.

“Hear her, Doc?” Hofer came back on. “She’s saying you better get here quick, ’cause all the fun…” The saw blade started to whir again, and Hofer elevated his voice above it. “It’s happening now!”

I almost lost it, hearing Hallie’s cries. I couldn’t wait for Carrie anymore.

She would be too late.

“Hey,” Hofer said, almost cackling, “don’t you want me to tell you where we are?”

I didn’t need to know.

It was happening now!

I ran. I clicked off the phone and grabbed the pipe, rage and desperation and fear all jumbled up inside me.

I sprinted out of the woods, heading for the shed’s door.

I had no idea what I might have to face in there. If Hofer had a gun, he could just blow me away. I figured I had one thing going for me and that was the element of surprise. If I was even figuring… I wasn’t thinking of anything except saving my daughter.

Then I heard her scream.

I yelled out, “Hallie! God help you if you’ve hurt her…” Tears flashed in my eyes.

I reached the door, my mind and blood a rampage of wanting to kill him. I bolted through, rearing the pipe above my head, ready to swing at anything that moved.

I saw Hallie-fear and anguish and now shock all over her beautiful face-bound to a kind of bench. A trickle of blood ran down her chin, but otherwise she seemed okay. For a split second our eyes met and it was one of the happiest sights of my life. But then it all fell apart as she screamed in terror, “Daddy, watch out!”

I spun, wildly swinging the heavy pipe behind me, hoping to connect with Hofer.

Instead all I felt was a bludgeoning blow to the back of my skull, and my knees buckling, blackness filling my head. I found myself on the floor. I fixed on my daughter and a biting fear ran through me that I had let her down.

And then Hofer stepping over me as I blacked out completely.

“Well, now, we’re just one big happy family now, aren’t we, Doc?”

Chapter Seventy-Two

My eyes opened foggily. My head was ringing, the sound alternately loud and pounding, and then distant like in an echo chamber. I didn’t know how much time had passed. I was propped up against a wall. I blinked, pain throbbing in my head-then it all came back to me.

Hofer.

Hallie.

Why I was here. I raised myself up, jolted by this body-shaking spasm of dread.

Then I heard his voice.

“I wouldn’t get any ideas, Doc. Not unless you want to see your little girl here dead.”

The first thing I saw was Hallie, which for a moment felt like heaven to me. She still seemed okay. The next thing was Hofer, positioned directly behind her on the bench, which I suddenly realized was the feeder bench for a circular saw, a gun to the back of my baby’s head.

She was trembling. A trickle of blood ran down her chin. “Daddy, listen to him. Do what he says. He’s crazy…”

“She’s right. At least, about the ‘listen to him’ part. The rest…” He shrugged. “That you’ll have to decide yourself.”

“Let her go,” I said to him, shifting in pain. I wasn’t bound. Just leaned beside the wall against the leg of a worktable. My eyes shot around, looking for something I might use if I had to. I saw an ax, hanging on a Peg-Board. A hammer. Both were far out of reach. “It’s me you wanted. I’m here. Let her go. She hasn’t done anything to you.”

“Oh, that’s where you’re wrong, Doc. In fact, she’s done everything to me. So tell me, just how did you manage to find me?”

“I don’t know,” I said, shrugging. “Blind luck.”

“Don’t push me, Doc.” His face went blank and he dug the gun into the back of Hallie’s skull.

She winced, shutting her eyes, tears escaping from them. “Daddy, please… Don’t let him do it. Please.”

“No,” I begged. “Hofer, don’t… In the name of God…”

He wagged his gun at me. I assumed it was the gun that killed Martinez and Mike. “You oughta recognize this little baby, Doc. You the one who bought it, right?” He laughed. “Well, I’m not surprised-I figured that would be the first thing that came out. You have to admit, I did have you all going there for a while, huh? All those things fit together just like honey and a bee. That thing about you in college, at that swimming hole… Lord in heaven, how could I even make that one up? So how did you find me? And don’t bullshit me, now”-he winked-“unless you want to find your girl’s brains all over your lap.”

I made a sudden move, and Hofer raised an eyebrow warningly, motioning me back against the wall with his chin.

“Your daughter. I went to see her,” I said. “In prison. I posed as a lawyer and told her I had something for you. A monetary settlement. I said I couldn’t find you, and she told me you might be here.”

“Settlement?” Hofer grinned, as if amused. “So where is it? Show me the money?”

I just looked at him.

“Shit, there weren’t no money…” He grunted, curling a sly grin. “Damn, they will shit on you if you give ’em the chance. The women… Nothing you can do about it. You sure you don’t want me to blow her head off right now and…”

He cocked the gun and Hallie shut her eyes and squealed.

“No.” I started to lunge toward him. “No. No, please…” Tears filled my eyes. “I’m begging you… I called the police. There’s no way out. Let her go. Let her go and take me. They’ll be here any second.”

“No matter.” Hofer shrugged dully, evincing a slight smile. “Let ’em come. It’s over for me anyway.”

He looked at me, and for the first time I saw with aching clarity just where this was leading. Where it had been leading from the start. What had begun as a twisted but fatherly attempt to right the wrongs he believed had befallen his daughter had now just fallen into a free fall descent into malice and self-destruction.

“So what do we do?” I looked back at him.

“I don’t know… Sit back. Wait a spell. Trust me, you’re in for quite a sight.” He pressed the pedal with his foot and the large saw blade spun into motion. Hallie jerked forward, pulled along on the feeder bench. She let out a scream, terror flashing in her eyes, her arms suddenly dragged toward the blade, held back only by Hofer. “Daddy!”

“Stop!” I shouted, lurching toward her. I had to get her out, and I had to do it now. Hofer shifted the gun toward me. I felt like hate bubbled to the surface out of every pore on me, but there was nothing I could do other than have him shoot me down. I felt shame and anger thinking he had outwitted me. “Please, don’t, no,” I begged, hot tears burning my eyes.

Hofer lifted his foot and caught Hallie by the shoulder. He grinned, all pink in the face and seemingly pleased with the entertainment.

I exhaled a breath, grateful for the momentary reprieve.

I looked at Hallie, who was now sobbing, helpless and afraid, trying my best to convey some ray of hope to her. I looked around the shed and focused on that ax. I’d be shot, I knew, but maybe I could somehow get to him first and free Hallie. I wasn’t going to let him kill us without a fight.

“I love you, peanut,” I said to Hallie.

She forced a terrified smile through her tears. “I love you too, Daddy.”

I inhaled a final breath, seeing the gun at my daughter’s back, Hofer’s foot bobbing on the pedal, his eyes empty of anything but insane gloating and the urge to see me die.

Which made us equal.

This is it, I said to myself. Go!

Then I felt my cell phone vibrate.

Chapter Seventy-Three

Carrie jumped out of her car, at the end of Cayne Road. The last time she had heard from Henry was more than forty minutes ago; then she’d gone through a dead patch.

She locked on the two cars. Hofer’s, the one she had seen in the two videos. And a gray Buick-the car Henry said he was now driving.

They were both here.

She’d tried his cell a dozen times over the last twenty minutes-and now she felt herself getting scared.

She called Jack and told him her location. He told her not to do anything herself-that he would handle things now and she was not, by any means, to venture in there. But Carrie said sorry, she couldn’t promise him that right now.

She hung up with him begging her: “Carrie! Carrie, listen!”

Then she called 911 and reached the local police. As calmly as she could, she told them where she was and why she was there. The dispatcher on the other end seemed like she’d never handled any emergency of this magnitude before. No way she understood the gravity of what was happening.

Carrie told her, “You send a team out here now!”

Then, checking her gun, she made her way toward the main house. A red, run-down, ranch-style home. She saw the heavy Realtor’s lock on the front door. Didn’t see any sign of activity or lights inside.

She didn’t like what she was feeling.

Cautiously, she inched her way around back, toward the woods. Where Henry said Hofer’s shed would be.

It was dark in there and plenty creepy. Carrie went a step at a time through the dense brush and branches, which she had to clear out of the way. Her pulse pounded like a big bass drum inside her. She had never done anything remotely like this in her life.

She begged her hands to stop trembling.

There it was. Hofer’s shack. A thin glow of light coming from the window. She looked around. Henry, where are you?

“Henry?”

A feeling of dread fell over her as she slowly advanced. The door was ajar. She didn’t hear a sound coming from inside, which made her heart beat only faster. She thought about waiting for backup to arrive, then she thought something terrible might have already happened, and she couldn’t take it any longer.

She was ten feet from the door. Henry, you better not have done anything stupid in there…

Chapter Seventy-Four

My phone vibrated three times and then it stopped. I had no idea if Carrie was nearby or out on the road. Or if she had alerted the police, which now I was praying she had.

I glanced at my watch, thinking that if she was forty minutes behind me, she might already be here.

Which meant she’d seen the cars. And when I didn’t answer the phone, she would put it together.

This might be my way out!

Hofer sat there with the calm, resigned look of a man who had already made his pact with God. No matter whom Carrie had alerted, I glanced at my daughter and knew that this was going to end badly.

“I’m sorry.” I looked at Hofer. “For what I did. To Amanda. I’ll do anything I can to make it up to her. She’ll be out-she’ll have a life at some point. Let Hallie go. I’ll make sure she has whatever she needs…”

“You’re talking money?” Hofer said.

I nodded. “Money. Education. Whatever she needs.”

Hofer scratched at his orange hair, for a moment even seeming to consider it. Then he snickered, kind of fatalistically. “You’re a doctor. You’re smart. I thought you’d see by now…” He looked back, tossing me a wistful smile. “This don’t have nothing to do with my daughter anymore. Or yours.”

“Then what does it have to do with?” I shouted back, looking at my daughter helplessly bound, her body just feet from that blade. “What? What?”

“You, Doc.” Hofer’s pink face grinned. “It’s about you. Maybe it started like you said… Back at some point, it made sense, how people just dragged my little girl down the wrong road. But then it kind of hit me-in that fancy office of yours that day, where I guess you now know I went to do this then, looking at all those pictures of your beautiful life and all your fancy degrees-how people like you, it all just came so easy, didn’t it? Whereas people like me…” He arched his brow. “Well, let’s just say, things went a different way.

“And then I started to realize there, how every step of the road, every time I thought I might just make it, there was always someone like you blocking the way. Whether on that police disciplinary board that started it all going; or at the mill when they closed it up; or at the bank or the medical insurance company… Someone is always there with a smile and a handshake before they take whatever you have, every last piece of dignity and humanity. See what I mean? And that’s what you are, Doc-someone standing in my way. Yes, my Amanda’s troubles may have led back to you. But I know if it wasn’t you, it would’ve been someone else. But it’s kinda nice, how it all just came together, staring at your little girl here in your office…”

“Let her go, Hofer,” I begged him. “You started all this saying it was about making the right people pay. Well, make me pay. You wanted me. I’m here. Look at her.” Hallie was trembling in his arms. “She’s just a kid. Just starting out. You and me, we’ve seen where life goes. I’m begging you. She didn’t do these things to you. There must be some shred of mercy and feeling left inside. Let her go…”

“You make a good case…” Hofer bunched his lips, as if weighing my plea. “But sorry, ain’t gonna happen, Doc. Ain’t how it’s gonna go.”

That’s when Hallie started to whimper.

I looked at her. “I’m so sorry, baby…” I wanted with everything I had in me to reach out and hold her in my arms. “I’m so sorry I dragged you into this.”

“I’m sorry too, Daddy,” she said back. Tears were streaming down her cheeks. “I knew you would come for me. I never believed for a second you had done those things…”

I smiled. “Of course I would come for you, baby…”

Hofer wrapped his meaty forearm around her shoulder. “Well, nothing left but to get on with the festivities, don’t you agree…?”

He leaned against the pedal and gave the blade a whir.

I couldn’t wait any longer. I couldn’t just sit here and let him do something horrible to my daughter. I jumped up, determined to do anything I could to protect her, and made a lunge for the ax on the wall. As my fingers got within a foot of it, I felt a burning blow rip into my side, throwing me back against the wall and onto the floor, my hand at my side.

Blood all over it.

“Daddy! Daddy!” Hallie screamed hysterically.

“There ain’t no chance,” Hofer said, almost as if he’d been taunting me to go for it. One hand holding Hallie, the other wagging the gun at me. “Only reason you’re still breathing is I want you to see what happens next. Angel…”-he hit the pedal, the blade jumping to life-“say your prayers, if you have any. But it was sure nice watching you ride…”

“No!”

He was about to release her, her arms already jerking forward, when the shed door crashed open.

Carrie stood in the doorway, her arms extended, her gun trained directly at Hofer. At his head, as his body was completely blocked by Hallie.

“Let her go.” Carrie’s gaze was like a wall of stone, reflecting some part of her being I hadn’t seen before. “You let her go now, Hofer, or so help me God, you’ll die here on the spot.”

She glanced my way for only a fraction of a second, her eyes widening at the sight of my hand holding back the blood. Then she shifted back to Hofer.

“Die here… ? Oh, you’re just a little late to the party, darlin’. We’re all gonna die here! Me. The doc.” He dug the barrel of his gun into Hallie’s skull. “Sorry, you too, angel…” Then he shifted his gaze back to Carrie. “And you! The only real question is how that’s gonna happen, and where…” He stepped on the saw pedal and the jagged blade began to rev and whir like an engine starting up, Hallie lurching forward with a scream. “… That’s where we still have a few things to discuss.”

“There’s nothing to discuss,” Carrie said, squinting through the sight, taking a breath. “You let her go.”

Hofer grinned at her. “You better be confident, darling. Right, Doc? That’s your little girl’s life she’s playing around with.” He wrapped his arm around Hallie’s neck and drew her near. “Even if you happen to hit me, for her sake you better be damn sure I don’t fall forward and my foot happens to find that pedal and I let go… ’Cause if it does…” He shook his head grimly. “Well, let’s just say you don’t want to be responsible for such a sight. Would she now, Doc…?”

Carrie’s eyes shifted slightly in my direction, and I had no choice but to nod ever so slightly.

Then she went back to Hofer, pulling back the hammer. “I am confident.”

Their gazes met, Hofer snorting and shaking his head. “Well, then…”

Carrie squeezed, her finger barely moving, the recoil jerking under control.

Hallie screamed, and for a second I was sure she had been hit, and I lunged…

Hofer’s head barely flinched.

He still had the same, smug expression on his pink face, though his head snapped back ever so slightly, and a dime-size black dot appeared out of nowhere in the center of his forehead, his eyes gently rolling back into his skull.

He seemed to hold there for a moment, his gaze becoming vague and his smile, however sensate, seemed to settle on me, laughing, as if to say: You still lose!

Then he pitched forward.

And in the sudden surge of elation I felt as I realized that he was dead, I saw with growing horror that the threat he’d made seconds ago was about to come true.

His weight pushed forward onto the pedal, and Hallie lurched out of his thick arms, the saw blade starting to whir and rotate. Hofer rolled off the bench to the side, his ample girth covering the pedal, and Hallie was dragged forward by her arms as she started to scream.

“Hallie!” I yelled in horror as I saw what was unfolding.

Carrie got there first, desperately trying to roll Hofer off, but he was way too heavy for her and something, his belt, or his shirt, seemed to be caught on the thing.

Hallie pulled against her binds, arms first, but it was futile. She kept inching forward. Her beautiful face was twisted in horror. “Daddy, please!”

I leaped to Carrie’s side and frantically tried to help roll Hofer off, but the sonovabitch’s deadweight wasn’t budging.

Carrie shot me a panicked glance. “Oh my God, Henry!”

Not even feeling the fire from the gunshot in my side, I dove over to the tool board, Carrie straining to hold Hallie back, and grabbed the ax.

I’d never swung one in my life, and surely not with my daughter’s life on the line, her face contorted in screams, and my adrenaline racing off the charts. I raised it above my head and brought it down with all my might onto the rope near the wheel axle.

Nothing. It clanged off the blade and into the wooden bench.

It didn’t sever the rope.

“Daddy!” Hallie was hysterical now, and I was too, Carrie straining with everything she had to hold her back, to gain precious seconds, but we were losing… She continued to be pulled forward, now about two feet away.

I pulled the ax out and swung again.

This time I hit home, twine unraveling.

But it still didn’t snap.

Hallie was now barely a foot away from the serrated, whirring blade, her face flushed a deep red and her eyes like round, horrified orbs. “Daddy, quick! Please!”

I raised the ax one last time, praying to something I wasn’t sure I even believed in, but whom I begged to give me the strength. This was our only chance. The saw’s chilling whir and my daughter’s frantic screams combining in an awful wail.

Please… Please, God, I begged, and brought the ax down for a third time.

It snapped.

I felt the twine sever, Carrie yanking Hallie off the table with only inches to spare, both of them falling onto the floor.

For a second everything froze. I didn’t hear crying or exulting. I didn’t know if everyone was safe. My breath was trapped somewhere in my body. I had zero sensation in my side. I was drenched in sweat, my shirt matted with blood. I was scared to utter Hallie’s name. I was scared that Hofer was about to rear up and the whole thing would begin anew.

Then I heard weeping.

Hallie weeping. Not in pain, but joy. Sobbing from shock and happy relief. I ran over and untied her wrists and took her in my arms like she was three years old again. Squeezing her with all my might, both of us smeared with sweat and blood and tears. I began to shout. Exulting now. And laugh. Sobbing and saying at the same time, “Baby, you’re okay. You’re okay. It’s over. It’s over, sweetheart … You’re okay.”

I was afraid to believe it myself.

Until the pain hit me, and I buckled.

Carrie ran over to me and eased me against the wall, but I was still clutching Hallie.

No way I was going to let her go. Ever.

“Daddy, I love you, I love you…” she cried into me.

“I love you too, baby!” I pressed my face against hers.

We slid down to the floor. That’s when I first heard the wail of distant sirens. The three of us, we just slid slowly down, holding one another, afraid to let go, my daughter’s trembling face buried into my shoulder.

“They’re coming!” Carrie said to me, jubilant. “They’re coming!”

“Yeah, they’re coming!” I nodded, resting my head back against the wall. And I could only smile, grateful tears pooling and shimmering in my eyes. Holding my daughter as tightly as strength would let me. Totally impervious to the pain.

Looking at Carrie.

Those ecstatic blue eyes were about the prettiest thing I had ever seen, and I let my head drop against her, unable to do anything but smile and laugh with everything I had in me, and wince a little.

And cry.

Chapter Seventy-Five

I won’t even pretend that my injuries turned out to be life-threatening.

The bullet went through the oblique muscle of my back, about as favorable an outcome as I could have hoped for. It would keep me off the golf course for a while. And out of the OR.

But I knew I had enough to keep myself occupied for the next couple of weeks.

After the police arrived, Hallie and I were rushed to the Richmond County Medical Center in Augusta, thirty miles away. We both went in the same EMT van, Hallie receiving oxygen and glucose, and Valium intravenously for the shock.

Lying on the adjoining gurney, I held on to her hand the entire trip. Except for the day I first held her in my arms, I don’t think I’ve ever felt a deeper understanding of what it meant to be a father.

We called Liz on the way. Another tearfest. It almost made me feel as if we were a united, happy family again. Past the shoals of jealousy and bitterness that I hoped would never bar our way again.

We told Liz where we were being taken, and Carrie said the FBI would send a plane and fly her up there now, Liz’s choked, grateful voice on the other end barely containing the unstoppable flood of joyous tears that lay behind it. “Thank you, Henry. Thank you…” she kept saying, in a fervent-and reproachless-tone I hadn’t heard from her in years.

There was nothing stronger in this world, no greater driving force, than the urge to protect your child.

We got to the hospital-Hallie to the ER to be stabilized. Me, into surgery.

All they really had to do was clean and irrigate the wound. It took just a little more than an hour.

After recovery they let us share a room. Hallie slept off the Valium. I just lay there watching her. Relishing the sight. I knew the next few days would be hectic. I knew I was in for police interviews and camera crews and maybe even the morning news shows.

Henry Steadman, the Boob Dude of Broward County.

I couldn’t help but laugh.

Every once in a while my mind flashed back to my final sight of Hofer back in the shed. Much as I wanted to despise him, I wasn’t sure I could. Twisted as he was, he was acting as a father too, a desperate one, at least in the beginning. And I wondered, my mind drifting in and out, if the very things I held dear hadn’t been taken from him one by one-his career; his family; his dignity-would he have gone so off-kilter? Would he have just lived out his life? Were there millions of him, teetering on the same isolated precipice where life could go either way, made bitter by circumstances, but trudging on?

There was a knock on our door, and I figured one of the doctors had come to check my wound.

Instead, Carrie came in. Still in the same baby-blue sweatshirt and jeans.

I looked at her and felt a rush of warmth come over me. “Hey.”

“Hey.” She smiled back at me. “Doing better I see.”

“Nothing I can’t patch up later when I’m back at the clinic.” I grinned.

Carrie smiled too. “How’s she doing?” she asked, looking at Hallie.

“She’s doing swell. She’s been through a lot, but she’ll be fine. In the end. You ought to know.” I knew she probably couldn’t wait to get back to her own son.

She nodded. “Guess I do.” She sat down on the edge of my bed. “I’ve talked to the sheriff’s office. They’re sending a team up here to chat with you.”

“Chat, huh?”

“I don’t know if I’m exactly the person to speak for them, but I’m pretty sure you’re in the clear.”

“Whew. Just when I was getting used to dodging bullets.”

“They’re sending Rowley,” Carrie said. “Since you guys seemed to get along so well…”

She gave me a held-back smile, but there was something beautiful in her teasing blue eyes.

“Everyone’s been telling me ‘well done,’ ” I said. “But the truth is, you’re the one who deserves all that. Not me…”

She pressed her lips together, shrugging it off.

I took her hand. “So thank you. Without you… there’s just simply no way I’d be on Good Morning America Tuesday morning …” Carrie giggled. I looked over at Hallie. “I look at her and I wish I could think of a way.”

“I’ve, uh, actually been giving some thought to getting my eyes done.” She held back a smile again. “Maybe just around the edges. Here…”

“No.” I shook my head. “I don’t advise it. I don’t want you to change one single thing. Carrie…”

“Uh-huh?”

I brushed my hand against her cheek. I don’t know what was in my mind, but I stared into her beautiful blue eyes and probably never felt more gratitude or closeness to anyone in my life.

My voice caught with emotion.

“I just wanted to say… that I wouldn’t be here… Hallie wouldn’t be here…” I didn’t finish the sentence. “Just thanks.”

“I know,” she replied, and put her hand on mine.

We lingered there a moment. Until we both became a little self-conscious.

“I have something for you…” I said, and tried to move, but pain lanced through me. “It’s over there. In my pocket.” I pointed to my pants, folded over a chair.

“I’ll get it.” She went over and reached inside. “Forty dollars!” She widened her eyes in mock appreciation. “You’re sweet!”

“Keep digging. I think there’s another ten in there.”

She laughed, and eventually came out with what I was hoping she would find.

Her husband’s driver’s license.

“It got me into the prison to see Amanda. So I guess, without it, who knows how this thing might have turned out.”

She held it in both hands, nodding a bit wistfully. “I told you he was the most resourceful guy I knew.”

“You did. And I think he’d be proud of his wife.”

Carrie smiled, a little blush coming into her face, and then she opened her purse. She reached for her wallet to put the license back, back from where she had taken it that first time in the car. But then she seemed to hesitate. Instead, she tucked it into the side pocket of her purse. As if she was putting it safely away for keeps.

Not just away, but behind her.

Then she caught me staring at her and gave me a rosy smile.

“I think I’ll keep it where I can never lose it again.” She tapped her chest. “In here.”

“A good spot,” I said, and then we didn’t say anything for a long time.