15 Seconds

Both of them looking into the same set of plates.

Truth was, he didn’t have a clue where they’d ended up. (Though now, after he had seen the picture the woman had brought, maybe he had some idea.)

He surely didn’t want to find himself drawn into some kind of investigation. Hell, these days, he didn’t much like even showing his face in town if it wasn’t totally necessary.

Any more than he liked covering up for someone else’s trouble.

But he was also the kind of man who stood by his friends. He didn’t know just what had been done, but it must be of some matter, he reckoned, if people had come here all the way from out of state.

And he always knew, if there was a fellow who was capable of something, well, the man who drove a car like that, or at least, his daughter’s car, he was it. He’d always been kind of a lit fuse. Not one to hold his liquor well. And now, with what had gone on with Amanda, who could even blame him.

Still, it was one thing when they worked together, something else, given what happened, now…

Fellows picked up his phone and called. The man’s cell phone, the only number Fellows now had. Anyway, this hour, he’d no doubt be asleep himself.

He answered on the third ring, not sounding sleepy at all.

“It’s Buck,” James Fellows said. “Hope I’m not disturbing you none. Just giving you a friendly heads-up. You been driving your daughter’s car around? Down in Florida maybe?”

Vance remained silent for a while before he answered. “Why you asking?”

“These people were up here looking for a license plate. My license plate, in fact. And they seemed to have seen your car. Or hers…” Fellows laughed darkly. “Seems you got yourself in a lick of trouble, huh, partner?”

Chapter Forty-Seven

It was hard to sleep that night. Carrie was kind enough to get me a room so I didn’t have to sleep in the car, or show my face again at the front desk, and I lay awake in the spartan motel room, long after Letterman and Craig Ferguson had ended, hating how I’d had to hold back what was really going on from the one person I actually trusted, and slowly coming to the conclusion that there was no other choice now, at least no better one, than to put myself in her hands and turn myself in.

I was scared to death of what this might mean for Hallie.

But with Fellows’s license plate no longer a lead to follow, maybe there was no other way.

And Liz wasn’t going to go on blindly trusting me forever.

Tomorrow I could be in the hands of the police. How could I ever trust that they would act in Hallie’s best interests after how they’d already acted to me?

I tossed and turned, feeling like I was hanging my own daughter over a cliff. I had found the source of the license plates and it led nowhere. I had nowhere left to go.

I sat up against the pillow and racked my brain for maybe the thousandth time trying to figure out who had a reason to do this to me.

Certainly Marv didn’t. My shares in the clinics didn’t even revert to him if anything happened to me. Anyway, he was like an uncle to Hallie. And as Carrie noted, it wasn’t like someone was trying to kill me anyway.

In fact, I seemed to be the only one this bastard seemed intent on not killing!

I knew I wasn’t perfect. I’d played around a bit and screwed up my marriage. Maybe I’d gone for the bucks a bit in my practice instead of devoting myself to saving lives. But I had tried to do good for people. I gave my time and energy and built up a pretty good life. And I was a good dad. Who could want to cause me such suffering?

Who could take innocent lives and end them so coldly, just to hurt me?

I was scared. Scared of the decision I had to make. Scared of what might happen. If I told her… if I let Carrie know about the abduction…

Maybe I should just go. In the morning. Not put this one on her. But where…?

Teeming with frustration, I took out my iPad, logged onto MapQuest, and called up the town of Blackville, South Carolina, where we currently were.

The only thing that did make sense to me was that whoever was doing this at some point had to have had some contact with James Fellows.

I looked at all the surrounding towns around Blackville. Bamberg. Denmark. Williston. Places I’d never heard of. Perry. Barnwell.

Of course, this person didn’t have to have been anyone I might have met. He could be a hired hand. An accomplice. He could live anywhere. I enlarged the map to a wider radius.

Suddenly my eyes focused on something.

Not exactly a “eureka!” moment at first. More like a faint throbbing deep in my memory. I had to clear my head just to narrow in on it. The town.

Acropolis.

It wasn’t actually in South Carolina, but in Georgia. Just over the state line.

But I’d seen it before, that name. I just couldn’t recall where.

I checked the scale: Blackville and Acropolis were maybe thirty miles apart.

You’ve seen this name before, Henry. You have. Where do you know it from…?

Then suddenly it hit me.

I’d seen a patient from Acropolis. In Georgia. A few weeks back. I tried to bring the guy to mind.

He was heavy. Bald on top, orange hair around the sides. Ruddy. He had come about something on his neck. Those heavy wrinkles. I pictured it. He had fallen into the memory bin of patients I’d only seen once and never saw again. He had seemed a little odd. As I recalled, I told him I could recommend something up his way, then…

All of a sudden it was like a jackhammer was drilling me in the chest.

That’s when Mike had called that time!

It suddenly was a “eureka!” moment. Yes, when that guy was in the office, Mike called. To set up our golf date at Atlantic Pines. I tried to bring it all back. Adrenaline surged through every part of me. I had told Mike I was heading up to Jacksonville to give a speech. Did I mention a date?

I couldn’t recall. But then I realized it didn’t matter. I’d mentioned the Doctors Without Borders conference I was speaking at.

That was enough. Anyone could put it together. And I’d mentioned Mike. I remembered now:

“You can e-mail me directions to your house in Avondale…”

My eyes shot back to the MapQuest map again. I couldn’t recall the guy’s name, but I did remember his face, and a certain oddness about him. And I damn well recalled where he was from…

Acropolis. Georgia.

I didn’t know if I was just imagining something. Or if I was fabricating it, out of sheer desperation. I didn’t know this person from Adam. I’d never seen him before in my life. It made no sense.

What could he possibly hold against me?

But as I fixed on the map, clouds of doubt and uncertainty opening up in front of me, light shining through the night, I fixed on that town:

Acropolis, Georgia.

Could it be?

Chapter Forty-Eight