15 Seconds

by Andrew Gross

  “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.”
<
br />   “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 . . .”