15 Seconds

times, which he knew belonged to Wayne, the waste of good spit Amanda thought of as her boyfriend. The other was a silver Kia with an “I Heart Daughtry” decal on the back and a pair of pink felt dice dangling from the inside mirror.

For a while Vance had heard sounds of laughter coming from inside. Music. A party going on. Something crashing onto the floor. More laughter. It made his blood curdle.

Then, for the longest time, he heard nothing at all.

He sat there, feeling his life’s futility coursing through his body, to the tips of his rough, workman’s hands. How things hadn’t quite worked out the way he planned, yet he smiled, thinking the story wasn’t quite over yet. He needed only one thing-something clear and fixed in this world of uncertainties-and that one thing was that someone take responsibility for what had gone down. At the end of the line, someone had to pay for what had happened to that poor girl and her baby, not to mention Amanda, and what was happening tonight might only be the first step. When it was all over, the person he would likely find would be the one who had profited the most.

From what had befallen his little girl.

That was what was wrong with life, Vance thought, how no one ever did… pay. The ones who bore the guilt. Those people always squirmed their way out, with reams and reams of legal arguments, hiding behind oily lawyers. The banks, who had taken his home; the functionaries who had pushed him out of his job; the fools in Washington and on Wall Street, even those people out in Hollywood-they did just fine, while the rest of us had no career, no home, no insurance. You were just a cipher, left with nothing. Just silt running through your hands. Only the little people had to pay. While the rest went on…

And for a man who was brought up knowing what happens when right and wrong collide, this was a heavy cost.

There is wheat and there is chaff, the Bible says. Wheat and chaff.

And it was simply a matter of separating the one from the other: those who had been harmed from those who were responsible. You didn’t need no fancy degrees or badges or fitness hearings.

Someone just had to own up. That’s all he was saying.

His little Amanda was just at the end of the line.

Vance just kept his eyes on that trailer, knowing pretty soon the door would open.

Wheat from chaff. He flexed his fingers. Someone had to own up and it would start right here.

That’s all.

Chapter Fourteen

I pulled into a McDonald’s off the highway certain that after fleeing the Hyatt half of the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Department that hadn’t been actively looking for me before was probably looking for me now.

I felt Mike’s phone vibrate.

I dug it out and looked at the screen. It was Liz. Thank God. She sounded off the planet. I figured I knew why.

“Henry, I just heard on the news. What the hell did you do up there?”

“Someone set a trap for me, Liz. I don’t know if you heard the whole story, but-”

“Henry, I told you to give yourself up if they found you again! Not to resist.”

“I couldn’t give myself up! Liz, I have something bad to tell you. Don’t freak out. Have you heard from Hallie? In the past few hours?”

“Hallie? No. Not since lunch yesterday. She was going riding.” I could hear her grow nervous. “Why are you asking about Hallie?”

“Because I received a call. In the lobby of the Hyatt, Just before the cops there spotted me. Liz, don’t freak out. Hallie’s been taken.”

“Taken?” I could feel tears rushing into her eyes. “What do you mean taken, Henry? By whom? How do you even know?”

“Because I heard from her, Liz. It’s the person who did these things today. Who killed Mike and that cop on the road. He called me at the Hyatt before the police found me. He has her.”

“Has her? Oh Jesus, Henry, no…” I could almost feel the blood rushing out of her face. Knowing that someone who was fully capable of cold-blooded murder had taken our daughter. I heard her sniff back sobs. This was awful. One minute she was just trying to help me out of a mess. Now she was in it herself. Up to her eyeballs. Same as me. Then she said the only rational thing she could say. “We have to go to the police. You got a partial ID on that car. They might be able to trace it!”

“No, Liz. There are things I have to tell you. That’s exactly what we can’t do. We can’t go to the police.”

“Henry, I’m sorry about what’s happening to you, but some madman has our daughter…!”

“Liz-listen! Hear me out! I went to the Hyatt because I knew someone there who I hoped could get me off the streets until you negotiated some kind of deal. But I got a call in the lobby, just before the police saw me there. He put Hallie on and she sounded okay. Scared out of her mind, but I got the sense she hadn’t been harmed. But the guy who took her, who’s doing this, he said if I went to the police on this-if I turn myself in or even if I get caught, or if he hears on the news that Hallie’s missing, he’s gonna kill her, Liz. Just like he did Mike. And Martinez. I won’t even tell you what he said he’d do. Just that the longer I stay out, the longer she lives… That’s why I had to run. It was one in a million that I even got away. That’s why we can’t go to the police!”

Liz was silent. I needed her to be rational, yet I knew that what I’d just told her violated every rational instinct she had. Her daughter had been abducted and we couldn’t even report it to the police!

It was killing me too.

Liz lashed out. “What have you done, Henry? What have you done to put our daughter’s life in danger this way?”

“I haven’t done anything, Liz. I don’t know what’s going on.”

“So what do you want me to do? You tell me this insane story about cops pulling you over and putting you in cuffs. Then everywhere you go people are being killed. And now our daughter’s been taken by this… this person who’s got some vendetta against you. Who’s killed people! Goddammit, Henry, why don’t you just tell me what’s going on?”

“Please, Liz, don’t go there on me. I need you to understand. I need you now too. You know damn well I’m not capable of anything they said I’ve done. I don’t know why this is happening! I’m up here for a conference. I’m supposed to deliver a speech tonight. I got pulled over for a traffic violation I didn’t commit. The rest…” My voice started to crack. “I don’t know what’s happening, Liz!”

“And you’re saying we can’t even do the one sensible thing that could save our daughter’s life! You can’t be serious, Henry! What do you expect me to believe? What else should I believe?”

“I am serious, Liz. Deadly serious. I heard him. He’ll do it, Liz. He’s already done it. We can’t.”

I just let her sob it out for a while.

Finally Liz said, “He’s doing this for a reason. What does he want from you, Henry? Money? There’s got to be something he wants.”

“I don’t know what he wants yet-other than to watch me suffer. Other than to enjoy seeing me completely trapped.”

“So what are you saying? We just let him keep her and do nothing. I don’t know if I can do that, Henry…”

“You have to, Liz. For Hallie’s sake. I don’t know who this person is or what he thinks I’ve done, but he’s targeted me. I think Hallie will be okay, for a while, crazy as that sounds. He needs her to get to me.”

“You’re willing to put our baby’s life on the line… I’m not.”

“We have to, Liz. I don’t see any other way. I can try to find that car…”

“You don’t even have a clear memory of it, Henry. A blue car. From South Carolina. You don’t even remember the plate number! It could be chopped up to parts, repainted, hidden in some garage for months for all you know.”