Andrew Gross: 15 Seconds

“Mike? ”

I turned right and found myself in the kitchen. Some plates on the counter, recently used. A half-picked-over muffin. A jar of almond butter-which made me smile, remembering Mike was always kind of a health nut.

Suddenly things began to feel a little odd to me. “Mike, where the hell are you…?”

I went back through the living room. The family room was just as I’d remembered, with pictures of the kids all over and a large Tarkay watercolor of a Parisian sidewalk café.

Mike’s office was just down a hallway. He had taken me in there on my one visit and showed off his collection of sports memorabilia, his pride and joy.

The door was half open. Reflexively I knocked and called out again. “ Mike? You in there, guy…?”

To my relief, I saw him sitting in a high-backed, leather chair at his desk, glasses raised on his forehead as if he was looking over a report, wearing a red golf shirt-which accounted for why I didn’t see it at first.

My first reaction was to blow out my cheeks and go, “Jesus, buddy, am I glad to see you…”

Then I stopped.

He was sitting there, except that he hadn’t moved or made even the slightest sign of recognition. His eyes were wide and glassy and staring through me.

Two dark blotches were on his chest.

“Oh my God , Mike…!” My legs grew rubbery and I suddenly felt my stomach lurch up my throat. “Oh, no, no, no, no…”

I ran over. You didn’t need a medical degree to know that he was dead. His pulse was nonexistent; his body temperature was already getting cold.

“Oh, Mike, Mike …” I said, tears forcing their way into my eyes, and I basically sank, numb and not understanding, into a leather chair.

I’d known Mike for more than twenty years. Since we were freshmen at Amherst. He was on the golf team. He was one of those glass-half-full kind of guys, who’d give you the shirt off his back. Which was basically what he was doing for me now.

Or had been about to do.

I sat there with my head in my hands, looking at him, trying to figure out how this could possibly have happened. My friend was dead! How could anyone have possibly known that I would come here? Or even put the two of us together. How-

Suddenly it was clear.

I realized with mounting alarm that two people were now dead. Two people. And that I was the only connection between them!

I felt the sweats come over me and my insides slowly clawed their way up my throat. Oh my God, Henry…

Someone was targeting me.

It seemed crazy, impossible. Who ? And why? What could I have done? Just an hour ago I’d been driving into town, thinking that this was going to be one of the best days of my life. Now… Now two people were dead. Brutally murdered.

And I was the only link between them!

No, no, this was crazy… It couldn’t be.

My thoughts raced wildly. I stared at my friend’s lifeless body while tears of grief and utter disbelief made their way down my cheeks. I realized now that I couldn’t explain myself. Not any longer. I’d be looked at as a suspect here as well. In two murders now. The first maybe I could explain… But this one, completely unrelated, my friend, at the place I had chosen to flee to… All they’d have to do was check my phone records to see that I’d just called him. My prints and DNA were probably everywhere.

Even on his body.

“Who’s doing this to me?”

I heard a car drive by, and suddenly I knew I had to get out of there. Now! A housekeeper might show up at any second. Or Gail could come home. My name was already all over the airwaves as a person wanted in connection to a murder.

How could I possibly explain this one now?

I ran back to the kitchen and grabbed a cloth and started wiping down anything I could remember I had touched.

The doors. The coffee mug. Around Mike’s office.

Him.

Then I didn’t know if I should have done that. It only made me look as if I was covering up. Made me look guiltier.

I saw Mike’s cell phone on his desk. I knew it was crazy, but by now mine was probably being monitored by the police and I had to make a few calls. The first one to Liz. She had to know. Oh God, how would I possibly explain this? I felt completely nauseous.

“Mike…” I said, swallowing, placing my hand on his shoulder. “I’m so sorry, dude. I know you were only trying to help. I know you-”

I clasped his lifeless hand. What else was there to say?

I went out through the garage. Mike’s silver Jag was just sitting there. His Callaways leaning against the trunk. Crazy as it was, I had no other way to get out of there.

And I couldn’t possibly make myself look any guiltier than I already had.

I found the key on the front divider, and the engine started up.

I drove out, closing the garage door behind me. Tears stung in my eyes. I wanted to call Gail and let her know what horror awaited her back at home. But how could I? Until I figured it out.

I knew, once she heard the news, she’d automatically assume it was me.

I drove out the driveway and backtracked along the same route I had taken earlier, toward the highway. I had no idea where I was going, or whom I could turn to now.

In a few minutes I hit I-10 again. I knew I was safe in Mike’s car, at least for a while. But that was going to cave in fast.

I looked in the rearview mirror, just to make sure there weren’t any cops behind me, and, for the first time, actually focused on the Jag’s rear window.

Suddenly my eyes tripled in size.

The window had a decal on it-an image I was sure I had seen before. What the hell is happening, Henry…?

I pulled over to the side of the highway and spun around, frozen in shock.

It was the identical image I’d seen on the back plate of the blue car as it pulled away.

Not a dragon, as I had originally thought. But a kind of bird. With a sharp beak and bright red wings. A long tail.

A gamecock.

A mascot. From the University of South Carolina.

I remembered, Mike’s oldest son was a sophomore there.

The squat, stub-necked man stepped up to the officer behind the glass, his pink face framed by a felt of orange hair around the sides of his balding head.

“Amanda Hofer,” he said, and pushed his ID through the opening while the officer took a good look at him. “I’m her father.”

The duty guard at the Lowndes County Jail inspected it and pushed it back to him. “You can head down to Booth Two.”

Vance Hofer put his license back in the thick, tattered wallet and stepped through a security checkpoint, taking out his keys and loose change. Then he continued down to the visiting room. It had been a long time, he thought to himself, a very long time since he’d felt at home in a place like this. A lot of things had happened and not many of them good. He eased himself into a chair in the small booth and stared at his reflection in the glass.

He’d lost Joycie to cancer about a year and a half ago. Lost his job at the mill a year before that. Medical insurance too. Then he’d fallen behind on the house. Not to mention how he’d been forced to come up here in the first place, thrown to the wolves down south on trumped-up charges he couldn’t defend.

Life was bleeding him, Vance reflected, one cut at a time.

But this last one-what had happened to Amanda. Well, that was one more cut than he could bear.

They brought her out in an orange jumpsuit, hands cuffed in front of her. She looked a little overwhelmed and scared. Who wouldn’t be? Maybe a little afraid of seeing him too. Her hair was all straggly and unkempt. Cheeks sunken and pale. And when she saw him, who it was who had come to visit, she had this cautious look that he took as both worried and even a little ashamed. Like a proud animal not used to being caged. She sat down across from him with a wary smile and shrugged her shoulders slightly.