Andrew Gross - 15 Seconds

“You’ve done everything you possibly can. You found out who it was! But you can’t get her back…” She shook her head. “Not by yourself. You trusted me enough to tell me this, now you have to trust we can work out the rest of it. It’s the only way.”

I think the only thing that scared me more than the unknown surrounding Hallie was the thought of what I was capable of doing to get her back once I had the proof I needed. I also knew it wasn’t all my call. Liz had a say as well, and I knew exactly what she’d say. She’d agree with Carrie in a heartbeat.

I nodded, about as halfheartedly as I ever had in my life.

Carrie blew out a breath and nodded too. “We get the proof it’s Hofer, and then I call Jack. He’ll get her back for you. Are we all right?”

I slowly nodded again, and Carrie squeezed my hand one last time. And I squeezed hers back.

She smiled. “Now let’s go see a man about a gun.”

We doubled back to Orangeburg and picked up Interstate 77, which headed north. It was only a couple of hours straight up to Charlotte.

To Bud’s Guns. In Mount Holly, North Carolina.

I leaned back and shut my eyes for a while. For the first time in ages I actually didn’t feel freaked out. No one would be looking for us in Carrie’s Prius. No one had any idea where we were headed.

In a matter of hours, we’d have the proof that Hofer was setting me up.

Carrie turned on the news, and a troubling report came on: I’d been spotted in Orangeburg at the diner. Apparently the waitress, Nanci, had recognized me, after seeing a newscast that evening, and once word got out, the night clerk at the motel did too, and they had found the Lexus I’d stolen.

The report also said that I’d been spotted with a woman. And might be heading north.

Carrie’s name would eventually come out.

“Congratulations.” I turned to her. “You’ve graduated from Community Outreach. You’re now an accomplice.”

“Hopefully not for very long.” She smiled at me through her sunglasses. “I intend to set the record straight on that in a matter of hours.”

“I’m sorry to have gotten you into this,” I said.

“You didn’t get me into it. I got me into it. And you know what?”

“What?” I shrugged.

“Whether it’s crazy or not, I’m glad I’m here.”

“I’m glad you’re here too,” I said. “Your brother, Jack, however, may not be equally ecstatic when he hears the news.”

“I can handle Jack,” Carrie said, pressing her lips together. “I always have. Now my dad, the ex-police chief, he’s a completely different story…”

I dozed for a bit, and when I came to we were on the highway, doing seventy.

“You were out for a while.” Carrie smiled, glanced over.

“Guess something’s been keeping me from getting my usual eight hours lately,” I said back. “Can’t imagine what that is…”

I looked at Carrie, her pretty blue eyes firm with both determination and resolve, and I suddenly felt something else there, how much courage there was in this tough little package, how much she had risked for me.

“Can I ask you something?” I said.

She shrugged. “Sure.”

“I was wondering, what did your brother mean when he said he was worried how everything might have gotten to you. He mentioned Rick. And Raef… It made me think, when I spoke to you that first time, you said it was your first day back at the job…”

Carrie glanced away, checking her mirror, and changed lanes.

“I know you said you’d tell me, later on, when I turned myself in. But it’s not like we don’t have a couple of hours here to ourselves… Your husband ?”

“Uh-huh.” Carrie finally nodded, letting out a breath. “And my son.”

She drove on a ways, still seeing I was waiting for an answer if she felt like giving me one. “Last September, my son, Raef…” She drew in a breath. “He was eight. He went into a seizure on the soccer field at school. He lost consciousness. Rick got the call and I was about two hours away…”

I nodded.

“I rushed to the ER, but Raef was already in the ICU. A ruptured AVM. You know it?”

I nodded again.

“The doctor said it would be touch and go for the next forty-eight hours. He’d lost a lot of blood flow to the brain. He said Raef was putting up a good fight, but that something else had happened. He sat me down…”

She blinked and again pressed her lips tightly together. “Rick was in the OR, undergoing emergency surgery. He had what’s called a dissected aorta. You probably know what that is too…

“They said he probably had it from birth. Apparently he’d sat down in a chair in the waiting room and all of a sudden he just felt woozy. It had to be dealt with immediately. The procedure took four hours.” Carrie forced a smile, different from any I had seen from her thus far. “I had a kid in the ICU clinging onto his life and a husband in the OR who could go either way… I kept running back and forth, checking on Raef, holding his hand, telling him to hang on, then I’d go back up and watch Rick…”

I frowned and swallowed. “How did he do?”

“He didn’t make it,” Carrie said, with the slightest shake of her head. “He stroked out on the table. Like a ticking bomb, they told me. I suppose it could’ve gone off anywhere. It just happened there. You would have thought…” She glanced in the mirror again and shifted lanes.

“Would have thought what ?” I asked her, noticing the tears shining in her eyes.

She shrugged. “Rick did two tours in Iraq. Before law school. He lost a lot of friends there. You would have thought if it was simply a matter of stress, it might’ve happened over there…”

“What do you think it was?”

She blinked almost distractedly and shook her head. “I don’t know…”

She held the wheel with one hand, and I reached out and put my hand on her arm and squeezed. “I’m sorry.”

“Thanks. I don’t really talk about it much. I suppose it’s all still pretty new. Raw…”

“I didn’t mean to make you go through that.”

“Here…” She reached behind the seat, pulled out her purse, and opened her wallet. There was a picture of a nice-looking guy with short, light-colored hair, wire-rim glasses, and bright, intelligent eyes. “He was a lawyer,” Carrie said proudly. “Damned good one. He handled military cases. Rape. Sexual assault by superiors. Even Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell defendants… He pushed to have them adjudicated in civilian courts. Rick was a stand-up, guy… About the most stand-up guy I ever knew.”

“I think you do him proud,” I said, “when it comes to that measure.”

Our eyes met, and we didn’t say anything for a few seconds. I saw a Florida driver’s license next to Rick’s photo. “You mind?”

She shook her head.

I pulled it out. With my new cropped hair and glasses, I kind of resembled him.

“I should probably take that out now,” Carrie said. “I guess it still makes me feel like he’s here. There are times I just want to feel close.”

“I think you should keep it there as long as you like,” I said. Our eyes met. “I think you’ll know the right time.” I was about to put the photos back in her wallet. “So how’s your boy doing?”

“He’s doing great,” Carrie answered with a resurgent smile. “He’s back at home now-at my parents’ actually. He suffered some cognitive loss that they’ve been working on at the hospital, as well as some motor paralysis on his left side. But he’ll be back to school in the fall. Little guy’s the love of my life. But you must understand that, Dr. Stead-”