15 Seconds

by Andrew Gross

  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 i
dea.)

  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.