Andrew Gross - 15 Seconds

A minute later, another car passed by. This one she recognized immediately. It was Steadman’s white Cadillac STS. Carrie even verified the plate numbers.

He was clearly in pursuit, like he said, chasing the car that had gone before him.

She reversed the tape and replayed the first car over again. There was nothing, nothing even remotely suspicious about it. The plate didn’t match up, though she couldn’t make it out completely. The make was different. If she brought this information to Akers, or one of the detectives, as if it proved something, they’d look at her like she was crazy.

Shit, if she brought it to Raef, even he’d probably look at her like she was crazy.

Carrie sighed, filled with frustration. What the hell are you doing? she asked herself. This proved zero. She took the Exxon tape out of the player, marking down the one car that had caught her attention.

Then she put in the tape from the speed warning on Riverside Avenue.

Dinofrio had been alive at 10:15, when his wife left to go to her Pilates class. His killing had to have occurred before Steadman arrived, which, according to the cabbie was, 11:02. Accounting for the time it took for him drive back to the scene, escape the police, ditch the car, walk to the Clarion Inn, find the cab, and drive there.

Calculating the probable time it would take someone to get to Dinofrio’s house on Turnberry Terrace, she started with 10:30 A.M.

Carrie started advancing the tape. This one was a whole lot easier. While it was also black-and-white, the camera focused directly on an oncoming car’s front grille and license plate.

It was a speed trap.

But the work was still slow. There was no exact way to know precisely what time anyone would have passed there. Or, it occurred to Carrie, if they had even come by this route. Who could be sure?

Dozens and dozens of vehicles went by. With no matches.

10:35 . Carrie started to grow disheartened. Give it up, said a voice inside her. Sometimes people who do bad things don’t fit the part. Look at Ted Bundy. He didn’t look the part. He could charm the pants off a-

10:40. Twenty minutes or so until Steadman would have passed by in the cab.

Still nothing.

Then suddenly it came into view. Her heart lurched to a stop.

Oh my God.

10:41:06. There it was. The very same Mazda. 392. This time with South Carolina plates. Perfectly clear.

And this time, Carrie saw all the numbers.

Her eyes doubled in size.

ADJ-4, the license plate read. Followed by what she had seen before. On Lakeview.

392.

It took to the end of the day, but I did get a text message back from Marv. “Do you have a laptop handy?”

“Yes,” I wrote back from a Home Depot parking lot, trying to stay out of sight. “My iPad.”

“Check your e-mail.”

I found a document there, from the South Carolina Department of Motor Vehicles. I opened the attachment and ran my eyes over it like a starving man looking at a steak. There were names, addresses. All with plates beginning with ADJ-4.

Twelve of them.

Many were from towns I’d never heard of. Edgefield. Moncks Corner. I’d been in South Carolina only twice in my life. Once to Charleston, one of my favorite places, and once to Kiawah Island to play some golf with a bunch of doctor buddies.

Twelve … I eagerly scanned the list of names because possibly one of them was the killer I was looking for.

“How did you get these?” I called Marv back.

“Does it matter? I know someone. There’s a hundred ways to obtain things like this today. How much do you think a state employee actually makes for a living? But I’m hoping you’re simply planning on handing these over to the police after you turn yourself in. I want to repeat, Henry, what you’re doing is crazy. I know it seems like you’re alone. I know you think this is your only option. But it’s not. I did what I said I’d do; now it’s up to you. All you’re going to do is get yourself killed.”

I thought for a second about walking into a police station with my hands in the air and handing them this list. My gut reaction was that the cops would never even stoop to pick it up off the floor.

“I want to thank you for all this, Marv. I mean it. I’ll be back with you when I know something.”

“My little speech didn’t exactly move the needle, did it?”

“I wish I could tell you why I can’t, Marv. But the needle’s already moved. It’s way too late to dial it back.”

We hung up and I opened the document again, running my eyes down the columns. Names from all over the state. Four of them were women. Grace Kittridge, in Manning. Sally Ann Jennings in Edgarfield. A Betty Smith. Moncks Corner. Just to narrow it, I chose to cross them off for the moment.

Two of the plates on the list had expired. One in the past year and the other in ’06. Maybe they were just never turned in. Which didn’t really matter. They could have been stolen. Just like mine. Hell, for all I knew, the blue car I was searching might be stolen too.

Still, the remote chance that one of these names led to that car was the best chance I had.

I went into the Home Depot and bought a few things with cash. The first two were more throwaway cell phones, and the other was scissors.

I went into the men’s room toilet stall and started chopping my hair. Each lock of my long brown hair falling into the toilet was like a part of my life that might never come back. I had something I needed to do right now. I had someone who needed me more than I needed my old life. I was no longer someone who had been falsely accused of two murders. I was a dad, a dad who was trying to save the person he loved most in the world. I took one more glance at my old life floating there in the basin-and then I flushed.

I found a cash machine in the store and punched in my account number and password. I requested three hundred dollars. I knew it would likely trigger a response, probably just as it was happening.

Hell, there might even be a police team scrambling as I stood here now.

I didn’t care.

I wouldn’t be around long… and where I was heading, it wouldn’t matter.

I left, found another ATM at a bank nearby, and took out another three hundred. I stuffed the cash in my pocket, pulled down my cap, and jumped back into the car.

I-95 was only a short drive away. I turned on Sirius radio and found the Bridge. A bunch of oldies I knew.

I called Liz from one of the phones I had bought. I didn’t care about the risk. “I want you to know, I have a list. Of twelve cars, whose license plates begin with the number I saw. One of them has our daughter.”

“How, Henry?” she asked, surprised, but uplifted.

“Doesn’t matter.”

The next stop was getting my daughter back. You just hang on, Hallie. I’m coming.

Next stop, South Carolina.

The next morning Carrie knocked on Bill Akers’s door.

“Carrie, come on in,” her boss said, moving some papers around. “There’s been some news.”

“I’ve got something as well,” she said, pushing back the flutter in her stomach and taking a seat across from him. She placed the folder, which contained photos she had put together of the blue Mazda at both crimes scenes, on her lap.

Akers’s walls were lined with framed criminology degrees, citations for merit, as well as photos of himself with prominent officials, including the mayor, and a former head of Homeland Security. Which only made what Carrie was about to share with him even harder to do.