15 Seconds

past twenty-four hours I must’ve tried her cell a dozen times.

I pulled to the side of the road. “Hallie? Hi, baby, how are you doing?” My heart beat joyously. “I’m so glad to hear your voice! I’m-”

“Daddy, he just said I could tell you that I was all right, that’s all. And I am. But he said he has something to say to you. And whatever it is, Daddy, please do it. He’s-”

“Hallie, just hang in there!” Tears sprang up in my eyes and I cradled the phone in both hands. “Your mother and I both love you very much, you know that, honey, and we’re going to get you out of there. I promise, honey, you just be brave-”

“Aw, that’s sweet, Doc, really it is,” a man’s voice replied. Everything in my body turned to ice. “I did plan on filling you in on things just a tad more, but truth is, I’m really kind of enjoying thinking of how it is for you out there. Can’t go back, can’t go forward. How does that feel? You have to admit, that gun show thing was a pretty good piece of work, huh? So tell me, how’s it been for you these past few days?”

The ice now turned to fire. “What is it you want? Just tell me.” I felt myself gripping the phone like it was a weapon. “I’ll give it to you. Please… Just let my daughter go. She’s got nothing to do with anything.”

“Oh, that’s where you’re wrong, Doc,” the man replied calmly. “She’s got everything to do with everything. She’s part of you! But don’t you be too worried about her. It’s you I’d be focused on. Hopefully the police aren’t checking out where you are right now.”

“I told you before, you harm one hair on her head, you sonovabitch, and I’ll-”

“So how’s it feel, Doc?” He cut me right off. “How’s it feel to have your life taken from you. How’s it feel to lose everything you hold dear?”

My chest tightened. I couldn’t believe the hatred this animal seemed to hold for me. The blame. I was about to say, Why? What have I done to you? Why are you doing this?

But before I could get the words out, I heard him say, “More to come. More to come for sure, Doc.”

Another click and he was gone.

“Hallie!” I shouted, knowing I was talking only to a machine. “Hallie…”

I started to cry.

That old bromide came to mind: what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. And what was stronger than a father’s will to save his child? Nothing. It coursed through me like a river overflowing its banks, stronger than the urge to have my life back or the will to clear my name. It was everything.

But now I didn’t know how I felt. Closer to her or farther away? I didn’t know where she was. All I had was this stupid list of cars, and I didn’t even know if they would lead me to her. Or to nowhere. The clock was ticking.

And I couldn’t even let the people who might find her help me.

I called Liz. She answered on the third ring, expectantly. “Yes…”

All I could say was, “I spoke with her, Liz.” I felt so alone and helpless. I didn’t even tell her I had spoken with him. “She’s okay. For now.”

Chapter Thirty-Seven

“’Manda…?”

It took a moment for her to reply. And when she did it was clearly with hesitation. She didn’t seem so happy to hear from him. “Hello, Daddy…”

It felt good to Vance to hear her voice. Like he was back home, and on a Sunday, and she came out to ask what he was working on, in the wood closet, and things hadn’t happened as they did. “How they treatin’ you there, honey?”

“Okay. I guess. I’m learning. My cell mate scares me, though. She’s in here for hitting her husband with a pipe and cracking open his head. She makes me nervous, the way she stares at me. I don’t belong here, Daddy. You know, I don’t-”

“I’m sorry to hear all that, ’Manda.” He was sitting at the desk in his shabby hotel room, looking out at cars shooting by on the highway.

“I just don’t. But I’ve been reading. They got a lot of books here. I’m reading this one about a handsome lawyer from a small town in Alabama named Atticus, who’s defending this black man, who the whole town thinks is guilty of rape, but he’s not. It’s written from the point of view of his little daughter, named Scout. I know he’s going to get him off. It makes me feel good.”

Vance thought the man in the book sounded like a lot better father than he had been; that Amanda kind of wished he was her dad. It made him feel diminished, jealous of a character in a book he didn’t even know. “That’s good to hear, honey. I’m glad.”

“And I wrote this letter… To the husband of the woman I killed. He’s in Afghanistan. I told him I don’t know why things happen, but that they do, and I wasn’t old enough at first to understand my blame in all this, but now I do and how sorry I was. That if I could make it up to him, I would… How I would gladly change places with his wife if I could. That it was clear she deserved to live and have a family more than I did. And her baby…” Amanda began to sob.

“You don’t have to do that, ’Manda. There are others as guilty as you. That’s why I’m calling…”

“Yes, I have to do it, Daddy! I do. It made me feel good. To see myself for what I am. I know he won’t ever answer, and it don’t matter, but the counselor here says I have to face up to it. To what I did. To make amends-”

“I understand the concept of amends, honey. That’s why I’m calling you. I’ve-”

“So where you been anyway? I spoke to Aunt Linda and she said you haven’t been around here at all.”

“I’ve been working on your situation, ’Manda. How to make it right.”

“And ol’ Wayne, now there’s a fellow for ya. He’s suddenly not around here either. Just up and split. No one can find a trace of his ass.” She laughed bitterly. “I’m sure you don’t mind that none.”

“Wayne’s where he deserves to be, Amanda. For what he did.”

“Huh, Daddy…?” Her voice focused in more. “What d’you mean?”

“Nothing, honey. I don’t mean anything by it. ’Cept he deserves to be gone for what he did to you.”

“It wasn’t Wayne, Daddy. I understand that now. It was me!”

Vance didn’t answer her. She just didn’t see things clearly, didn’t understand about matters of personal responsibility and right and wrong. She still had the point of view of a child, he thought, and it was probably for the best.

All he wanted to tell her anyway was that he loved her.

“You know, I know I wasn’t always the best dad, Amanda… Like that person in the book.”

“You were all right, Daddy. You did what you could.”

“I remember I once went to visit you at school. On one of those father-daughter class days. You were maybe eight or nine…”

“Funny, I don’t remember ever seeing you at school, Daddy. Even once.”

“It was back in Florida. I was late. I couldn’t get off shift. But I went this one time. I got there, but everyone had left. Someone already drove you home. But this teacher let me go in. To your classroom. All by myself. And I saw this drawing you made. They had it on the wall. I think it was of me. It was a man in a uniform… with a blue cap. And he was chasing someone. With a gun. The teacher said it was part of some exercise your class was doing. How you were supposed to draw the person you admired most.”

“I remember that, Daddy. It was you. Before… Anyway, I don’t recall you ever telling me about it. You probably went straight to the bar afterward and got yourself drunk. You probably told all them about it.”

“I probably did.” That sounded about right, as Vance recalled. “But it made me realize, thinking about it, that there was a time where you did think of me in that way. As someone you admired some. Who stood up for the right things. Like that character in your book, Atticus…”

It took her a while to answer. “I suppose.”

“And I was hoping you might think of me like that again. Because that’s what I’m doing, Amanda. I’m making it