Andrew Gross - 15 Seconds

I blew out a long, relieved breath. “Thanks.” Then I couldn’t believe what popped into my mind. “Sorry about the golf, dude. Looks like we may have to put it off for today.”

He chuckled grimly. “You just be careful, Henry…”

I hung up and jumped out of the Caddie, getting ready to leave. I grabbed my satchel case out of the backseat. I figured my iPad might come in handy. And a golf cap. Anything that might conceal me a bit. The rest… clothes, papers, my speech, what did it matter now?

They already knew who the hell I was anyway!

I locked it up and headed out onto the street. Southside Boulevard. It was a pretty commercial thoroughfare-an auto supply store, a Popeyes. On the other side of the street, a couple of blocks away, I saw some kind of motel. A Clarion Inn. I put on my sunglasses, pulled my cap down over my eyes, and hustled across the street. I stopped in the middle as a police car sped by, lights flashing, almost giving me a heart attack! But mercifully, it continued by. And just as mercifully-there was a taxi in the driveway when I reached the motel.

“You free?” I knocked on the driver’s window.

“Sorry, waiting for a fare,” he said. He picked up his radio. “If you need a car, I could…”

“How about a hundred bucks?” I reached inside my pocket and pulled out a crisp, new bill. “I need to get somewhere fast.”

The driver shot up. “I could always call them another car, is what I meant to say.” He turned on the ignition. “Hop on in.”

I did and pushed the hundred-dollar bill through the partition. I read off Mike’s address. “I need to go to…” Then I caught myself and gave him a street number that I figured would be close by. No reason he had to know exactly where I was going. “… 33443 Turnberry Terrace.”

“That’s in Avondale, huh? I think we can get you there.”

I leaned back as the taxi pulled out onto the street and closed my eyes. The driver called in to his dispatcher. “Base-this is seventeen. My fare’s fifteen minutes late and some guy’s got an airport emergency, so I took him on. You may want to check with the Clarion and see if these people still want a car…”

I sat back, away from the driver’s line of sight. My heart rate calmed for the first time since I left Martinez at the scene. The driver tried to catch my eyes in his rearview mirror, asking me questions I didn’t need to hear: “From around here?” “Shame about the weather, huh?” It was cloudless. Eighty degrees. I grunted a few halfhearted replies so that, given how the guy had just basically saved my life, he wouldn’t think I was rude. He drove a little farther, and as he pulled onto I-10, I saw two police cars staked out at the entrance ramp. I pressed deep into the seat as we went by.

“You hear what happened?” the driver asked.

“No,” I replied. “Sorry. What? ”

“Some guy just plugged a cop right back there on Lakeview. Traffic’s all to hell. They won’t let anyone by.”

He turned on a local news station. First it was the weather, then a couple of car ads. Then the announcer came back on. “Now back to our lead story of the morning… The brazen execution-style killing of a Jacksonville policeman near Lakeview Drive… Police say they have a possible suspect who has fled the scene and remains at large…”

I immediately felt the sweats come over me, the announcer saying how the suspect had been detained over a traffic violation. And how he had fled the scene in a white Cadillac with Florida plates.

My stomach forced its way up.

The possible suspect I was hearing about was me!

“The slain officer, whose name is being withheld, pending family notification, is a decorated, fifteen-year veteran of the force…”

If I wasn’t sick already, that got me there. The guy had been a prick to me-I still didn’t know why he had pulled me over. But there was no reason in the world that he had to die.

We crossed a bridge and drove past another exit or two, then we pulled off at Riverside Avenue and entered a neighborhood of large, upscale homes. I knew we were close.

“Can you believe that shit?” the cabbie said, trying to catch my eyes in the mirror. “What kind of bastard does that, you know what I mean…?”

“Yeah, I know.” I shifted my face away. Please, just get me there.

We wound around some residential streets. I recognized the area from my time here before. Then I spotted a street sign for Turnberry Terrace. No need for the cabbie to know precisely which house I was headed to.

“This is fine,” I said, grabbing my satchel. “You can let me off here.”

Iwaited until the cabbie drove off before crossing the street. The homes here were sprawling and upscale-Tudors and colonials with well-manicured lawns and pretty landscaping.

I knew Mike had done well. He had worked on some big land deals in the past few years. Just being here made me feel a bit more hopeful. Mike would hear my story. He’d be able to negotiate something with the local authorities. In spite of how everything looked, it would be clear: the lack of any motive; the impossibility of how I could have gotten my hands on a weapon; how I’d only ducked into Martinez’s car to check how badly he’d been hurt. Even why I’d fled the scene…

It would be clear I wasn’t the killer.

A mail truck drove around the circle, stopping at each house, and I waited, one resident stepping out in her bathrobe to take in her mail, until it headed back down the block. Then I found Mike’s house, a stylish, mustard-colored Mediterranean.

I began to wonder if my identity had been released. Dr. Henry Steadman. Prominent cosmetic surgeon from Palm Beach. Wanted for murder. He fled the scene in a white Cadillac STS…

By now Mike must’ve heard.

Cautiously, I went up the driveway, praying that I wouldn’t run into Gail, his wife, first and have to explain this all to her. She would probably freak. I knew Gail had her own real estate agency in town. She and Mike had two kids-one away at college. The younger one, I figured, would already be at school.

One of the three wood-paneled garage bays was open, and I recognized Mike’s silver Jag there.

I let out a sigh of relief.

I hurried up to the house and rang the front doorbell, expecting Mike to open the door instantly, but no one did. I rang again, one of those formal-sounding, church-bell chimes.

Again, no one answered.

I was about to try one more time when I pushed on the latch and the front door opened.

I stepped tentatively into the large, high-ceilinged house, facing a kind of spacious living room with a lot of art on the walls, a huge mirror, and an arched Palladian window.

“Mike…!”

Through the window, I saw a large, fenced-in backyard with a good-size pool and a pool house in the same architectural style as the main house. I waited for him to come out and called out again, “Mike… where are you?”

Suddenly a tremor shot through me. Surely he’d heard by now. Maybe he hadn’t believed me as much as I thought. I mean, we were old friends, but not exactly close friends. I started thinking, What if he’d left, or even worse, notified the police. What if-

No. I stopped myself. Jesus, Henry, you’re acting crazy . You’ve known the guy since college . You’re just being paranoid, which was kind of easy right now.

I couldn’t say I liked the idea of sneaking around someone’s house with half the police in Jacksonville searching for me. Someone could just blow me away with a gun-and it would be entirely legal! I stepped into the foyer, trying to recall the layout, feeling a little edgy.