Andrew Gross - 15 Seconds

“Nothing…?” It occurred to me that maybe she’d been sick, and I shouldn’t have pried. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to get personal.”

“Dr. Steadman, we really have to figure out what the next step is here.” Her gaze returned to business now. “You just can’t keep on running.”

She was right, of course. But she didn’t know the truth. All my hopes had been based on tracking the killer through the license plates, and now we had found the source, and that hope was gone. Now there was no place left for me to go, except to keep running.

I tried to convey with my eyes that there was more going on than I could possibly explain. “I have no choice, Carrie.”

“There is a choice. Look, I know I haven’t slept in a night and my thinking might well be off, but we have things now… We have the video of that car at both crime scenes. We have you in your office, operating, the day that gun was bought. That’s all something. We have Fellows-somewhere, somehow he connects to whoever’s doing this. This isn’t like before. They’ll have to check these things out.”

“No, you just don’t understand…”

“You have me .” Her gaze was powerful and resolute, but then she allowed a self-deprecating smile. “I know that’s not exactly like having the attorney general on your side… But I can guarantee that these things will get looked into. And your safety. You can even do it from up here, if you like. There won’t be any guns blazing.”

“You’re suggesting I turn myself in?”

“What other way is there? We’ve both done what we can. Let’s let the professionals put it together now. Look…” she said. “I think you deserve a real detective working for you, don’t you agree…?”

“I think you’ve done just fine,” I said. “But I just can’t… There’s stuff I can’t tell you.”

“You have to, Dr. Steadman. We’re done. I don’t see any other way.”

If I told her the whole story, that the person who was trying to destroy my life also had my daughter, and it got back to the police, and they looked into locating Hallie… I couldn’t take the risk.

“I wish I could,” I said, and looked at her. “Turn myself in. But that’s not an option anymore.”

I shook my head, tears of frustration burning in my eyes. Frustration that I couldn’t tell her what I knew.

“Then don’t you see-then I can’t help you anymore, Dr. Steadman. I’m totally in over my head as it is. I can’t go on with you.” She shook her head. “I shouldn’t even be here with you now… What I should do is…”

“What? Arrest me? You’re not even a cop, Carrie. You’re in community outreach!”

“What if I screamed, then? I could yell out who you are. I doubt you’d even make it out of this diner. You definitely wouldn’t make it to the next town.”

I looked behind us, and saw there was a group of good ol’ boys standing around near the entrance who, I could imagine, would just love to raise a beer one day about how they had tackled the Jacksonville killer.

“Then scream… Go ahead. I’m in your hands. There’s your posse over there. I can see them all on the Today show tomorrow …”

Carrie gave me a pleading, no-nonsense smile. “What? What is it you can’t tell me? Look at what I put on the line for you.”

“I hope to think it over. In the morning. Just put in a little more-”

“So if it’s a yes, you’ll be at breakfast. And if it’s a no-you’ll be outta here.”

I shook my head. “I won’t be ‘outta here’… You put a lot of faith in me to do what you did. I’ll do the same for you. I promise.” I put up two fingers. “You have my word. I just need to run it all through one more time. Scout’s honor…”

“Right, like you were ever a scout.” She rolled her eyes.

“Accused murderer pack. Tiny chapter.” I smiled. “Never meet in this same place…”

She looked at me, as if she was trying to read something on my face. How much she could trust me, how much faith to put in me.

“What was it that made you believe me?” I asked her. I moved my hands close to hers. “You had no reason to look for that car. I’m damn sure no one else there would have. What was it?”

“Something you said.” She cleared her throat. “Seems kind of stupid now. In light of everything.”

“Try me.”

She shook her head. “I’ll tell you,” she said, the twinkling disappearing in her eye, “after we turn you in and they dismiss your case. Deal? ”

“I guess trust is a two-way street. Takes more than a single bowl of turkey okra, huh?”

“Guess so.”

I stood up and left some bills. I smiled and put up the same two fingers. “See you in the morning. Either way.”

“Are you in the motel?” she asked me.

I shook my head. “No. Lexus.”

James Fellows sat in his padded chair, smoking, long after his wife, Ida, had gone up to bed. And long after he normally would have gone up as well.

He was thinking about the two visits he’d gotten today. One, from that pretty gal who worked for the Jacksonville police. The other… he didn’t know who the other one really was. Just that he wasn’t no claims adjuster. Of that much, he was sure.

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?”

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.