15 Seconds

detective.

But, yes… She slid the number under her desk mat, answering him. I wrote it down.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Carrie drove, later that afternoon, out to Lakeview, pretending to be on department business, just to see for herself where Martinez had been killed. Her eyes darted back and forth across the steadily trafficked street as it led toward I-10.

She wasn’t sure why she was doing this, other than because somewhere deep in her gut, a part of what Steadman had said must have made sense to her. Was it the fact that he’d had no reason to kill Martinez, who was in the process of letting him go? She’d checked on that. Or, like he’d said, where would he have gotten a weapon? And why? Or that it made perfect sense for him to go to his friend’s house, the only person he knew in town who could help him turn himself in. And no sense at all to kill him. Or was it the good things he had done, which she had read about on his website? Or was it his kind face, which didn’t look like a killer’s face, and the way he defended himself. Or, lastly, was it what he had said about his daughter? As if he’d known exactly what she had once said about her own son. Then you’ll understand…

Maybe it was that that had hit home the most.

Or maybe it was simply because nothing in Steadman’s story fit the profile of a killer. And everything he had said rang true. He was in town to deliver a speech at a Doctors Without Borders conference. Martinez would have been no more than a random interaction. Not to mention this car, this “blue sedan” he pressed so hard on. What would he possibly have to gain if they couldn’t find such a car? If it didn’t exist. There have to be cameras.

But he was right on one thing-Steadman. That there was no one in the department-not a detective or a patrolman or anyone in the brass; not even the guy who mopped the floors at night-who didn’t want to see him thrown into a cell for Martinez’s murder.

Or who was focused on any other suspect.

No one other than Carrie herself. Carolyn Rose Holmes-she smirked to herself as she slowly drove her way up Lakeview-when did you become the patron saint of lost causes?

Her heart picking up, she passed the turnoff where Martinez had been shot-Westvale, it was called-and stopped for a second to look. It was still cordoned off with police barriers.

To her knowledge, there weren’t cameras on any traffic lights on Lakeview. Which made her task all the more difficult. She’d have to go from business to business and ask around. Kind of like a detective. And do it without drawing attention to herself. At five feet four inches, with shoulder-length strawberry-blond hair, light blue eyes, and a scattering of orange freckles on her cheeks, she didn’t much look like a detective.

And she liked that.

Noting the time, she continued west from the murder site toward the highway. The direction Steadman claimed the blue car with South Carolina plates he so desperately wanted her to find was traveling.

She had taken a glance through the witnesses’ statements. None of the people who saw Steadman exiting Martinez’s car had mentioned the vehicle. Of course the killer would have waited for a gap in traffic before he pounced, and Steadman, rushing back to Martinez to check him out, might have been over him, what, twenty, thirty seconds?

Why do you believe him? Carrie asked herself. Are you in such a state now that you’re a sucker for anyone with a smooth voice who throws on a little charm?

ADJ-4, right…?

She passed a bank, Gold Coast Savings. They must have security cameras. At least, Carrie figured, ones facing in. But obtaining them might be problematic-given that while she had a perfectly valid sheriff’s office ID, it wasn’t exactly a detective’s shield.

Continuing, she passed a row of fast-food outlets and larger malls, all possibilities. But the big stores were all set back well off the street behind large parking lots.

I-10 was just a quarter mile ahead.

Then she saw a gas station. A tall Exxon sign that suggested that the place might have a fairly sweeping view of Lakeshore Drive.

She decided to turn in.

She parked near the office and asked herself one more time just why she was doing this. Then she opened her door.

She went into the service station’s office and asked the guy behind the counter for the manager. He got on the intercom, called out a name, and an affable-looking Indian with a name tag that read Pat stuck his head in from inside the garage. “Can I help you?”

“I’m with the sheriff’s office,” Carrie said. She flashed him her photo ID. Then she pointed toward the road signs. “You know there was a serious incident down the street involving a policeman yesterday?”

“Of course.” The manager nodded. “Traffic along here was backed up all day.”

Carrie asked him, “Any chance you have security cameras that have a view of the street?”

Chapter Twenty-Five

Business was booming for Dexter Ray Vaughn these days.

Booming enough for him to buy, in cash, the run-down row house in Cobb County outside Atlanta that he’d been renting-and fill it with a boss Bose sound system and a sixty-inch Samsung, which, other than a mattress in the bedroom, was pretty much his only furniture. Good enough to buy the tricked-out Ford 450 pickup he was driving lately.

Only problem was, he thought as he glanced around in his T-shirt and undershorts, his wife, Vicki, was always so stoned she couldn’t keep the house in any form other than “Early Shithole.” And the fridge never had anything in it but vodka and stale pizza. But considering the kinds of customers and business associates he had floating through here on a daily basis, it was, like, Who the fuck really cared?

The meth lab in his basement was turning out a hundred grams a day, when he got the urge to work. He had a distro network, both in town and even out in the boonies-if you called his half-witted cousin Del, who sometimes ran for him there, a distributor. More like a sloth who sat in the trees farting and scratching himself.

Not to mention the neat, little side business he had going for himself in pharmaceuticals. Diversified-just like Warren E. Buffett-he had once seen the word in a magazine at his doctor’s office. Local gangs moved some of it locally and provided protection, so Dexter didn’t even have to lose sleep at night worrying about the cops.

Shit, some of the cops were his best customers.

Life Was Fucking-A Good, just like the words on the T-shirt he was wearing and had apparently passed out in last night. He’d been partying most of the night and woken up at two in the afternoon on the couch, with a world-class hard-on. Vicki was nowhere around, probably blowing some Mexican up the street for weed. Dex didn’t really care. Shit, he could call up a half-dozen meth skanks who’d be over in thirty seconds and go down on him for what he’d left out on the table.

But, he got up and sighed, commerce called. His amigos were expecting more inventory manana. He had to get to the lab. Dex stretched, still a little wobbly, and took the last chug from a can of warm beer he’d left on the rug.

Man, this steady nine-to-five crap was killing him.

The doorbell rang.

Fuck. Who the hell was there? He groaned. Winston, the