15 Seconds

by Andrew Gross

  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 c
ame 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 . . .”