15 Seconds

by Andrew Gross

  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 t
o 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 woul
d 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.”