15 Seconds

She was right. “But there’s that gamecock thing…”

“Gamecock?”

“The image I saw on the shooter’s car. The mascot. From the University of South Carolina. I saw one on the back window of Mike’s car too.”

“Mike’s car?” Liz paused. “Do you think your friend is connected to this?”

“I don’t know.” I had run the idea around in my head. But no one knew Mike and I were even getting together. Only my assistant, Maryanne. And she’d been with me for fifteen years. I’d trusted her with much bigger things than this. “I don’t see how. We have to come up with a cover, Liz. For Hallie. In case people worry at school. We have to say she came home…”

She sucked in a harried breath. “All right. All right.”

“At least for a day or two…”

“Okay, I’ll think of something. Henry, I’m scared. We don’t even know what we’re doing. Hallie’s life is on the line. What do we do if he just kills her and we’re… I don’t know if I can live with that.”

“Liz, if you break down, they’re just going to use it as a way to get to me. The guy’s not going to do anything now. He won’t. I’m telling you, he wants me. He told me to get a disposable cell phone so he can contact me again. Maybe we’ll know more then. In the meantime, don’t contact me. The minute they find out about Mike… this phone will only lead them to me.”

“I know.” I felt her about to start weeping.

“You just stay strong, Liz. I’m gonna find our girl, Liz, and bring her home. He’s not gonna hurt her until he can get to me.”

“This is bad, Henry. Isn’t it?”

“Yeah, Liz,” I said. I was trying not to think of it. “Let’s not pretend any other way. It’s bad.”

Hanging up, I suddenly felt about as alone as I’d ever felt in my life. In spite of trying to pump up Liz, I really didn’t know what my next step was going to be, other than finding that car.

That car was the only thing that could save my daughter’s life.

And Liz was right. We were way, way out of our league. What resources did I possibly have? On the run. In a stolen car…

I flipped on the car radio, and it didn’t take long to hear the account of my escape from the Hyatt.

They had my name, but I didn’t hear any description of the car I’d escaped in. Which was good. With any luck, the owner might be on the golf course for a couple more hours, so for the near term I could get around.

But what I did hear, which suddenly seemed like a path for me, was a public hotline number to call with any tips related to the crimes.

Chapter Fifteen

At the sheriff’s office downtown, Carrie was manning the tip line.

She’d taken six or seven calls. A couple of them were clearly bogus. One had Steadman held up in a high school with a cache of ammo. Another had seen his Cadillac speeding away and caught his plates, info they already had. A cabbie had called in, saying he’d dropped off someone resembling Steadman at an unspecified street corner in Avondale. That one they sent a team to check out. Several others called in from the Hyatt, having witnessed the shooting in the lobby. One caller had Steadman going from room to room on the thirty-third floor, terrorizing guests. Another had him sneaking away, dressed in a waiter’s uniform.

When the lines went quiet, Carrie logged online and checked out Steadman’s website. She watched a clip of him from Good Morning, South Florida describing the pros and cons of Botox. Steadman was handsome. Sharp cheekbones. Intelligent blue eyes. Stylishly long brown hair. He had a successful business. And a fancy Palm Beach address.

Not exactly the profile of your usual fleeing cop killer. The guy even spent his vacations fixing cleft palates and helping to build schools in Nicaragua. Lots of group shots with happy villagers. Some of the photos were taken by his daughter. It was hard to connect that image with that of some crazed killer who had put two shots at point- blank range into a policeman.

A light flashed on the message board and Carrie picked up. “Sheriff’s office. Officer Martinez tip line. This is Carrie Holmes…” she said into the headphones.

“I have some information on the killer,” the caller said.

“All right, go ahead…” Carrie grabbed her pen.

“I didn’t do it. Any of it. I swear, it wasn’t me.”

Carrie’s heart came to a stop, as if an electrical wire sent a jolt through it. Silently, she snapped her fingers, trying to catch the attention of one of the other detectives to get on her line.

She put a hand over her speaker. “It’s him!”

“What do you mean by any of it?” Carrie said back, hoping to engage the guy. She pushed the record button. She also routed a message to Akers’s secretary: Get him over here!

“There’s more…” the caller said, his voice trailing off. “You’ll see.”

The whispers of “It’s him! Steadman!” crackled around the floor and a crowd of detectives gathered around Carrie’s desk. The chief of detectives, Captain Moon. Carrie’s boss, Bill Akers. Even Chief Hall, who had just come back from the shooting scene. Carrie’s heart began to beat loudly and she could feel everyone in the room silently urging her with looks and signals to keep Steadman on the line. Three minutes, Carrie knew from training. Three minutes and they should be able to triangulate a fix on where he was.

“Who am I speaking with?” she asked him. “I’ll need your name and some proof of who you say you are. You can imagine, there’s a lot of people calling in on this…”

“I think you know exactly who you’re speaking with,” the caller said. “Martinez had a bullet wound in his left temple and another higher up on the skull. His driver’s window was down. He probably still had my driver’s license in his hand… You want my Social Security number? I think that’s sufficient.”

Carrie’s adrenaline shot through the roof. She knew she had the killer on the line.

She tried to get him to keep talking. “You said any of it, Dr. Steadman. And you said, ‘there’s been more.’ Has there been another incident?”

Steadman didn’t answer. Instead, he waited a few seconds and changed the subject. “Are you a detective, Carrie?”

The question took her by surprise. She glanced around, at the elapsed time on the screen. Going on a minute. Why not tell him the truth? Sometimes people in these situations just needed someone to talk it out with. “No. I work in community outreach,” she said. “I just agreed to man a phone. It’s actually my first day back from being away for a while.”

By now several of the staff were listening in on the call.

“Well, I bet the community outreach department has a lot more company at the moment than it’s normally used to, right, Carrie?” Steadman said with a chuckle.

“Yeah,” Carrie said, holding in a smile herself. “This is true.”

A minute fifteen.

“You mind if I ask you something?” he asked. His next question threw her for a loop. “You have kids, Carrie?”

More than threw her for a loop. Where was he going with this? It was almost like he somehow knew what was going on with her. Today of all days, bringing up kids. She hesitated for a second, not sure if she should give away anything personal like that, but Bill Akers nodded for her to keep engaging him. Ninety seconds.

“Yes,” Carrie answered. “A son. He’s nine.”

“I have a daughter myself,” Henry Steadman said. “Hallie. Super kid. She’s an equestrian. She almost qualified for the Junior Olympic team last year. She’s finishing her first year of college. At UVA. She’s the world to me. Just like yours, I bet?”