Читать книгу: «15 Seconds»

Andrew Gross
Fifteen Seconds

Epigraph

Everyone is guilty of something, or has some

thing to conceal. All one has to do is look hard

enough to find what it is.

—Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Contents

Title Page

Epigraph

Prologue

Part One

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Part Two

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Part Three

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Part Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Six

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Chapter Forty

Chapter Forty-One

Chapter Forty-Two

Chapter Forty-Three

Chapter Forty-Four

Chapter Forty-Five

Chapter Forty-Six

Chapter Forty-Seven

Chapter Forty-Eight

Chapter Forty-Nine

Chapter Fifty

Chapter Fifty-One

Chapter Fifty-Two

Chapter Fifty-Three

Chapter Fifty-Four

Chapter Fifty-Five

Chapter Fifty-Six

Chapter Fifty-Seven

Chapter Fifty-Eight

Chapter Fifty-Nine

Chapter Sixty

Chapter Sixty-One

Chapter Sixty-Two

Chapter Sixty-Three

Chapter Sixty-Four

Chapter Sixty-Five

Chapter Sixty-Six

Chapter Sixty-Seven

Chapter Sixty-Eight

Chapter Sixty-Nine

Chapter Seventy

Chapter Seventy-One

Chapter Seventy-Two

Chapter Seventy-Three

Chapter Seventy-Four

Chapter Seventy-Five

Epilogue

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Other Books by Andrew Gross

Copyright

About the Publisher

Prologue

It had all gotten a little blurry for Amanda, behind the wheel of her beat-up, eight-year-old Mazda:

Her recollection of what she’d been doing only twenty minutes before. Katy Perry’s voice on the car radio: “I just kissed a girl …”

The road.

She zipped in front of a yellow school bus crawling along ahead of her, the realization beginning to settle in that this wasn’t the right way.

Truth was, things had been going downhill quickly from the time she’d woken up this morning. First was her pathetic, out-of-work dad, waking her out of a deep sleep—“Why’re you always yelling at me, Daddy?”—threatening to throw her ass out of the house for good if she didn’t change her ways.

Then her boss, who always seemed to be on her case. Sure, she’d missed some time. I mean, washing hair at that stupid salon, like it was some fancy-ass boutique in Milan or France or somewhere. And her tight-ass instructor at the local cosmetology school, Miss Bad Hair Tease of 2001. At least know how to do it if you’re gonna teach the shit, right? I mean, there had to be some reason the bitch was stuck in a shit bucket like Acropolis, Georgia, right …?

Not to mention ol’ Wayne, her so-called boyfriend. They’d had another one of their famous blowups last night. Amanda was sure he was nailing the checkout girl at Ruby’s Market, Brandee or something, with her big rack and all, and that cheesy, fake-gold necklace with her name in large script.

And here she was—one more missed class away from an F, and late again. That class was the only thing keeping a roof over her head these days. Amanda switched lanes, barely squeezing ahead of a slow-moving SUV with a mom and kid in it. “C’mon, c’mon,” she yelled. “I see you— okay?” She turned up the music. She just couldn’t handle this kind of shit today.

The only way she could even think straight anymore these days was popping a couple of thirty-milligram Oxys like she’d done when she brushed her teeth. Always did the trick.

Especially with a Xanax chaser.

Katy Perry sang, “It felt so wrong, it felt so right …” and Amanda sang with her, dancing with her hands off the wheel.

She heard a loud honk. Like a foghorn in her head. She realized she’d been weaving just a bit. “All right, all right … Jesus, keep your ass on, bitch.” Last thing she needed was for the police to be on her butt today. Nineteen years old. With no money. Flunk out and get your ass tossed in jail.

Just like me, right …?

Blinking, Amanda scanned for the turnoff to the school. She knew it was around here somewhere. It was just that everything seemed a little fuzzy about now.

Next to that Burger King, right …?

She pulled into the turn lane. Suddenly horns blared at her from all directions. Okay, okay … A red pickup swerved, narrowly avoiding her, the driver twisting his head in anger as it zoomed by.

“Asshole …” Amanda turned to cuss him out. She stared back at the oncoming traffic. “Holy shit.”

That’s when it finally dawned on her that she’d been driving on the wrong side of the road.

“Deborah Jean? Deborah Jean? Honey, look what you forgot …!”

Deborah Jean Jenkins’s mom ran out of the house, holding her grandson’s “didee.” The soft, blue terry cloth that always seemed to make eight-week-old Brett smile as he clung to it with those adorable, tiny little fingers of his.

Not that he was smiling much at all these days. In fact, the poor boy was really colicky or something, and was barely taking his formula. His dad was still two months from coming home from Afghanistan. He hadn’t even seen his own son yet. Only on Skype. He had a position waiting for him at the Walmart. Then they could get their own place. Start their lives over again.

“Okay, Mom, thanks …” Deborah Jean said with a loud sigh, going back to pick the didee up from her by the front stairs.

“You want me to come along, honey?” her mother asked.

“No, Mom, I think the two of us can handle this perfectly well ourselves. It’s like, what—a fifteen-second drive right down the road … What can happen in fifteen seconds?”

“Well, okay … Just make sure you buckle my grandson in there nice and tight.”

“I promise, Mom,” Deborah Jean said, rolling her eyes with a tolerant smile.

She took Brett back down the walkway to where her minivan was parked. “You’re going to be a very important person in this world one day …” she told him. “A doctor or a lawyer, maybe. You’ll make us all very proud. And when you are”—she gazed into his bright blue eyes—“I want you to promise me something. I want you to promise, dude, that if I ever go on like that when you’re all grown up, you’re just gonna tell me to shush up! Can I count on you for that, Brett? Huh, can I?”

Deborah Jean tickled her son’s chin with her knuckles as she suddenly heard a rumble from behind her. She turned.

To her horror, a rust-colored car had busted right through the white fence off the street and was heading up the lawn right toward the house—toward her—seemingly out of control.

“Stop! Stop!” Deborah Jean shouted as the car careened off the large elm in the yard, barreling down on her. “Oh, Lord Jesus, no …”

She tried to shield Brett, turning directly into the disoriented eyes of the young woman at the wheel. The last thing she ever heard was the terrified cry of her mom, who never ever stopped worrying over the oncoming engine’s roar:

“Deborah Jean! Deborah Jean!”

When Amanda came to, her car was resting among the hedge work of a large, white house.

A house? She blinked foggily. How the hell did she get here …?

A shrill voice beyond the car was shrieking, “Deborah Jean! Deborah!”

Would you stop? You’re busting my head, lady.

Through her haze, Amanda wasn’t sure what had happened. The car just seemed to go out of control, like it had a mind of its own. Her door was hanging open. Fuzzily, she pushed herself out of the car. She knew she’d done something really bad. The woman kept screaming, “Brett! Brett! Oh my God, someone please help!”

Who the fuck is Brett? Amanda wondered. Her head was really killing her now.

Suddenly people were everywhere. “Someone cut me off,” Amanda muttered to someone rushing by. No one seemed to be helping her, only the woman who was screaming.

“Hey, I’m hurt too,” Amanda said. Blood rolled down her cheek. “Can’t you see? Whatever …”

This was like some really bad dream. It’s time to wake up now! she told herself. But blinking, she knew that whatever was going on, it was really real. Really bad too.

“Deborah! Deborah Jean, my daughter! Help her, please!” the bitch with the piercing shrill wouldn’t stop screaming. Then she looked squarely at Amanda: “What have you done?” Her face twisted in anguish. “What have you done?”

“I couldn’t help it,” Amanda said, coming around the car to see.

A woman was pinned under her car. She was kind of pretty. Her eyes were glazed and very wide and her lips moved ever so slightly, though her voice was faint.

“Brett …” she murmured.

That’s when Amanda saw that she was clutching something under there. Something bundled in blue. A blanket.

A baby’s blanket. And people were standing around with their eyes filling up with tears. And there was blood everywhere.

You’ve done it now, Amanda said to herself.

Just like me.

PART ONE

CHAPTER ONE

You get ten days, someone once told me. Ten days in all of your life that qualify as truly “great.” That when you look back through the lens of time stand apart from everything else.

All the rest is just clutter.

And driving my rented Cadillac STS somewhere outside Jacksonville, just off the plane from Ft. Lauderdale, looking around for Bay Shore Drive and the Marriott Sun Coast Resort, I thought that today had a pretty fair shot of ending high on that list.

First, there would be eighteen holes with my old college buddy from Amherst, Mike Dinofrio, at Atlantic Pines, the new Jack Nicklaus–designed course you pretty much had to sell your soul—or in my case, remove fifteen years of wrinkles from the face of a board member’s wife—to even get a tee time on.

Then it was the Doctors Without Borders regional conference I was actually in town for, where I was delivering the opening address. On my experiences in the village of Boaco, in Nicaragua, where, for the past five years, instead of heading off each August on some cruise ship or to Napa like most of my colleagues, I went back to the same, dirt-poor, flood-ravaged town, doing surgeries on cleft palates and reconstructive work on local women who’d had mastectomies as a result of breast cancer. I’d even put together a fund-raising effort at my hospital to build a sorely needed school. What had begun, I’d be the first to admit, as simply a way to clear my head after a painful divorce had now become the most meaningful commitment in my life. A year ago, I’d even brought along my then-seventeen-year-old, Hallie, who freely admitted that at first it was merely a cool way to show community service for her college applications. But this year she was back again, before starting at UVA, snapping photos for a blog she was doing and teaching English. I’d even included some of her photos as a part of my presentation tonight: “Making Medicine Matter: How a Third-World Village Taught Me the Meaning of Medicine Again.” I wished she could be there tonight, but she was going through exams. Trust me, as a dad, I couldn’t have been prouder.

Then later, after everything wound down, I had drinks lined up at the Marriott’s rooftop bar with one Jennifer H. Keegan—former Miss Jacksonville, now regional field manager for Danner Klein—whose visits to my office were always charged with as many goose bumps and as much electricity as there was product presentation. The past few months, we’d bumped into each other at cocktail parties and industry events, but tonight … hopefully basking in the afterglow of my moving and irresistible speech, with a couple of glasses of champagne in us … Well, let’s just say I was hoping that tonight could turn a day that was “really, really good” into one that would reach an all-time high on that list!

If I could only locate the damn hotel … I fixed on the green, overhanging street sign. METCALFE … That wasn’t exactly what I was expecting to see. Where the hell was Bay Shore Springs Drive? I started thinking that maybe I should’ve waited for the Caddie with the GPS, but the girl said that could be another twenty minutes and I didn’t want to be late.

Bay Shore had to be the next street down.

I pulled up at the light, and started thinking about how life had bounced back pretty well for me after some definite rocky patches. I had a thriving cosmetic practice in Boca, annually making South Florida Magazine’s list of Top Doctors, once even on the cover. I’d built my own operating clinic and overnight recovery center, more like a five-star inn than a medical facility. I’d put together a successful group of three storefront medical clinics in Ft. Lauderdale and up in Palm Beach, and even appeared periodically on Good Morning South Florida, “Dr. Henry Steadman Reports” … Dubbed by my daughter as “the go-to Boob Dude of Broward County,” my reputation cemented as creator of the Steadman Wave, the signature dip I’d perfected just above the areolae that created the seamless, pear-shaped curvature everyone was trying to copy these days.

It wasn’t exactly what I thought I’d be known for when I got out of med school at Vanderbilt twenty years ago, but hey, I guess we all could look back and say those things, right?

I’d played the field a bit the past few years. Just never found the one to wow me. And I’d managed to stay on decent terms with Liz, a high-powered immigration lawyer, who five years back announced, as I came home from a medical conference in Houston, that she’d had one of those “days that made the list” herself—with Mort Golub, the managing partner of her practice. It hurt, though. I suppose I hadn’t been entirely innocent myself. The only good thing that came of it was that I’d managed to stay active in my daughter’s life: Hallie was a ranked equestrian who had narrowly missed going to the junior Olympics a couple of years back and was now finishing her freshman year at UVA. I still went with her to meets around the South, just the two of us.

But I hadn’t had a steady woman in my life for a couple of years. My idea of a date was to cruise down to the Keys on weekends in my Cessna for lunch at Pierre’s in Islamorada. Or whack the golf ball around from time to time to a ten handicap. All pretty much “a joke,” my daughter would say, rolling her eyes, for one of “South Florida’s Most Eligible Bachelors”—if he was trying to keep up the reputation.

Traffic was building on Lakeview, nearing I-10, as I continued on past Metcalfe. I saw a Sports Authority and a Dillard’s on my left, a development of Mediterranean-style condos called Tuscan Grove on the right. I flipped on a news channel … Another day of U.S. missiles pummeling Gadhafi air defenses in Libya … The dude had to go. Tornadoes carve a path of death and destruction through Alabama.

Where the hell was Bay Shore Springs Drive?

Yes! I spotted the name on the hanging street sign and switched on my blinker. The plan was to first check in at the hotel, then head over to Mike’s, and we’d go on to the club. My mind roamed to the famous island green on the signature sixteenth hole …

Suddenly I realized the cross street wasn’t Bay Shore Springs at all, but something called Bay Ridge West.

And it was one-way, in the opposite direction!

Shit! I looked around and found myself trapped in the middle of the intersection—in the totally wrong lane, staring at someone in an SUV across from me scowling like I was a total moron. Behind me, a line of cars had pulled up, and was waiting to turn. The light turned yellow …

I had to move.

The hell with it, I said to myself, and pressed the accelerator, speeding up through the busy intersection.

My heart skipped a beat and I glanced around, hoping no one had spotted me. Bay Shore Springs had to be the next street down.

That was when a flashing light sprang up behind me, followed a second later by the jolting whoop, whoop, whoop of a police siren.

Damn.

A white police car came up on my tail, as if it had been waiting there, a voice over a speaker directing me to the side of the road.

I made my way through traffic to the curb, reminding myself that I was in North Florida, not Boca, and the police here were a totally different breed.

I watched through the side mirror as a cop in a dark blue uniform stepped out and started coming toward me. Aviator sunglasses, a hard jaw, and a thick mustache, not to mention the expression that seemed to convey: Not in my pond, buddy.

I rolled down my window, and as the cop stepped up, I met his eyes affably. “I’m really sorry, Officer. I know I cut that one a little close. It was just that I was looking for Bay Shore Springs Drive and got a little confused when I saw Bay Ridge West back there. I didn’t see the light turn.”

“License and proof of insurance,” was all he said back to me.

I sighed. “Look, here’s my license …” I dug into my wallet. “But the car’s a rental, Officer. I just picked it up at the airport. I don’t think I have proof of insurance. It’s part of the rental agreement, no …?”

I was kind of hoping he would simply see the initials MD after my name and tell me to pay closer attention next time.

He didn’t.

Instead he said grudgingly, “Driving without proof of insurance is a state violation punishable by a five-hundred-dollar fine.”

“I know that, Officer, and of course I have proof of insurance on my own car …” I handed him my license. “But like I said, this one’s a rental. I just picked it up at the airport. I’m afraid you’re gonna have to take that one up with Hertz, Officer … Martinez.” I focused on his nameplate. “I just got a little confused back there looking for the Marriott. I’m up here for a medical conference …”

“The Marriott, huh?” the policeman said, lifting his shades and staring into my car.

“That’s right. I’m giving a speech there tonight. Look, I’m really sorry if I ran the light—I thought it was yellow. I just found myself trapped in no-man’s-land and thought it was best to speed up than to block traffic. Any chance you can just cut me a little slack on this …?”

Traffic had backed up, rubbernecking, slowly passing by.

“You realize you were turning down a one-way street back there?” Martinez completely ignored my plea.

“I did realize it, Officer,” I said, exhaling, “and that’s why I didn’t turn, not to men—”

“There’s a turnoff two lights ahead,” the patrolman said, cutting me off. “I want you to make a right at the curve and pull over there.”

“Officer …” I pleaded one more time with fading hope, “can’t we just—”

“Two lights,” the cop said, holding on to my license. “Just pull over there.”

CHAPTER TWO

I admit, I was a little peeved as I turned, as the cop had instructed me, onto a much-less-traveled street, the police car following close behind.

Through the rearview mirror I saw him pull up directly behind me and remain inside. Then he got on the radio, probably punching my car and license into the computer, verifying me. Whatever he would find would only show him I wasn’t exactly one of America’s Most Wanted. I couldn’t even recall the last time I’d gotten a parking ticket. I glanced back again and saw him writing on a pad.

The son of a bitch was actually writing me up.

It took maybe five, six minutes. A few cars went by, then disappeared around a curve a quarter mile or so in front of us. Finally, the cop’s door opened and he came back holding a summons pad.

A couple of them were filled out!

I sighed, frustrated. “What are you writing me up for, Officer?”

“Driving through a red light. Operating your vehicle without valid proof of insurance …” He flipped the page. “And driving down a one-way street.”

“Driving down a one-way street?” My blood surged and I looked up at him in astonishment. “What are you talking about, Officer?”

He just kept filling out the summons, occasionally eyeing my license, which still rested on his pad, and didn’t respond.

“Wait a minute, Officer, please …!” I tried to get his attention. I wasn’t exactly the type who lost his cool in front of authority. I mean, I was a surgeon, for God’s sake, trained to control my emotions. Not having proof of insurance was one thing—a completely minor offense. And driving through a red light? Okay … Maybe I had sped up through a yellow.

But driving down a one-way street? Who needed that on their record? Not to mention I hadn’t driven down a one-way street.

I’d never even started the turn.

“Officer, c’mon, please, that’s just not right,” I pleaded. “I didn’t drive down a one-way street. I know I stopped … I may have even contemplated it for a second before realizing it, the street sign had me all confused. But I never got into the turn. Not to mention, I’m also pretty sure I don’t need proof of insurance if the car’s a rental. Which it is! It’s all in the boilerplate somewhere …”

“I don’t need an argument on this, sir,” Martinez replied. I could have said anything and he was just going to continue writing on his pad, ignoring me. “If you want to challenge the charges, there are instructions on how to do that on the back of the summons. It’s your right to—”

“I don’t want to challenge the charges!” I said, maybe a little angrily. “I don’t think you’re being fair. Look …” I tried to dial it back. “I’m a doctor. I’m on my way to play a little golf. I don’t need ‘driving down a one-way street’ on my record. It makes it sound like I was impaired or something …”

“I thought you said you were on your way to a medical conference,” the cop replied, barely lifting his eyes.

“Yes, I did, after … Look, Officer, I acknowledge I may have sped up through the light. And I’m really sorry. But please, can’t you cut me a little slack on the ‘one-way street’ thing? You’ve already checked out my record, so you know I don’t have a history of this sort of thing. And, look, regarding the insurance …”

“This is now the second time I’ve had to give you a warning,” Martinez said, finding my eyes, his voice taking on that I’m-the-one-wearing-the-uniform here tone. “Don’t make me ask you again. If you do, I promise it will not go well …”

I sat back and blew out a long exhale, knowing I had taken it about as far as I could. It was true, if there was one thing that did irk me, it was the arbitrary use of authority, just because someone had a uniform on. I’d seen that kind of thing enough in Central America, governmentales and useless bureaucrats, and usually for no one’s good but their own.

“Go ahead,” I said, sinking back into the seat, “write me up if you have to. But I didn’t drive down a one-way street. And I do have a right to state my innocence. It’s not fair to just keep telling me—”

“That’s it! I warned you!” Martinez took a step back. “Get out of the car!”

“What?” I looked at him in disbelief.

“I said get out of the car, sir! Now!” There was no negotiation in his hard, gray eyes. It all just escalated in seconds. Later, I couldn’t even recall who had actually opened the door, him or me. But the next thing I knew I was out on the street, spun face-first against my car and roughly, with my hands twisted behind me.

“Hey …”

“Sir, you are under arrest, and your vehicle is being impounded,” Martinez barked from behind me.

“Under arrest?” I twisted around, jerking my arm back. “Under arrest for what?”

“For obstructing an officer in the act of performing his job,” he said, yanking back my arm and squeezing the cuffs tightly over my wrists. “And now for resisting arrest!”

“Resisting arrest?” I spun again. I couldn’t believe what I’d just heard. “Officer, please, this is crazy!” I pleaded. “Can’t we take a step back here? I’m not some thug. I’m a respected surgeon. I’m speaking at a medical conference in a couple of hours …”

He turned me back around, shooting me an indifferent smirk. “I’m afraid you’re going to have to work out that little detail from jail.”

The next thing I knew, I was thrown into the back of Martinez’s police car, my knees squeezed at a sharp angle against the front, unable to comprehend how this had happened. Maybe the cop had told me to shut up, but I was only protesting my innocence. I was never threatening. I wasn’t sure what I should do, or whom I should call. They were expecting me to give a speech at the conference. I’d have to let them know. My stomach sank. And Mike—I looked at my watch. I was supposed to meet him at Atlantic Pines in an hour! I needed a lawyer. I didn’t even have a fucking lawyer! Not that kind of lawyer. There was Sy, who looked over my business stuff. Or Mitch Sperling, who had handled my divorce. Oh God, I could only imagine Liz’s reaction when she found out. “You always think you know all the answers, don’t you, Henry …?” she would say, smirking with that gloating eye roll of hers.

Not to mention how she would play this out with Hallie.

As if in seconds, several other police cars showed up on the scene, their lights flashing. Six or so cops jumped out, diverting traffic at the intersection behind me, conferring with Martinez, radioing in. I couldn’t believe this was happening

Who the hell did they think they actually had here—Timothy McVeigh?

As I watched, Martinez and several cops talked outside their vehicles. I twisted against my restraints for a little legroom, which, like I’d always heard, only tightened them further. I sucked in a few deep breaths, trying to calm myself and figure out what I was going to say: that this was all just some crazy misunderstanding. That I was a doctor, on my way to a medical conference. To be honored tonight. That I didn’t have as much as a parking ticket on my record. Things had simply escalated out of control. For my contribution to which, I was truly sorry.

But nothing I had done merited being cuffed and carted off to jail!

A second cop—this one muscular and bald, with a thick mustache and his short sleeves rolled up—came over and opened the rear door.

“Sir, we have a couple of questions to ask you. And as you’re already in enough trouble as it is, my advice is to be very careful how you answer.”

Already in enough trouble? This was growing crazier by the second. But I wasn’t about to exacerbate it further now.

“Okay.” I nodded back to him.

He knelt so that his eyes were level with me. “Where is your wife?”

“My wife?” It took me a second to respond, blinking back in total surprise. “You mean my ex-wife? I’m divorced. And I don’t know where she is. And what the hell does she have to do with this anyway?”

“I’m talking about the woman you were seen driving around with earlier this morning.” His iron-like gaze never wavered from me.

“What woman? I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said, almost stammering. “There was no other woman with me. I just flew in to the airport. I drove straight here until the officer over there stopped me.”

“Sir …” The officer’s look had the kind of intensity he might use on a felon or something. “I’m going to repeat my instructions, about answering carefully … You say you didn’t have a woman in your car? Approximately one hour ago? Downtown?” The question was starting to make me just a little afraid. And it seemed he already knew the answer he was looking for.

“I don’t have the slightest idea what you’re talking about!” I shook my head. “And I appreciate it, but I don’t need to be cautioned on how to reply. I haven’t done anything wrong, other than to go through a yellow light.”

The cop blew out a snort, with a thin smirk that was quickly followed by a cynical glare. Then he slowly stood up, shut the door, and went back over to his crew. A group of seven or eight of them conferred again for some time. Traffic was stopped in both directions; six or seven officers standing around, looking my way. I felt my heart race and I realized I may need someone to get me out of this situation. Who the hell could I call?

A few minutes passed, and Martinez and the bald cop came back over. They slid into the front seat and looked at me through the glass.

The next question got a lot more serious.

“Sir, when was the last time you were stopped by the Jacksonville police?” Martinez asked, staring into my eyes.

Huh? I laughed a nervous, back-of-the-throat chortle. “Stopped by the police?” I uttered, my mouth completely dry. “I’ve never been stopped by the police. Listen, I don’t know what the hell’s going on, but—”

“You’re saying you weren’t pulled over in downtown Jacksonville earlier this morning?” Martinez asked me again. “Around nine a.m. With a woman in this car?”

I was shaken by the total seriousness in his eyes.

“No. No! I have no idea what you’re talking about. Nine a.m. I had just gotten off a plane! You can check my itinerary. I think it’s in my briefcase in the car. Or in the rental agreement. Look, I don’t know who the hell you guys think I am, but you’ve obviously mixed me up with …”

Martinez removed his sunglasses. “Sir, what were you doing in a federal office building in downtown Jacksonville an hour ago?”

My heart stopped. As did just about everything inside me. I just sat, with my hands bound, realizing just how serious this was. Being stopped for a traffic violation was one thing … But having 9/11-like kinds of questions thrown at you—in cuffs; in the back of a police car …

“Look.” I stared back, sure that my voice was shaking. “I don’t know who you think I am, or what you think I’ve done, but look in my eyes: I’m a doctor. I’m on my way to the Marriott for a medical conference at which I am delivering a speech later. I sped up through a traffic light because I was confused about the area trying to find the damn hotel. Actually, I’m not even sure I did go through the light … And I surely didn’t drive down a one-way street, which in any event, all seems kind of trivial now in light of what you’ve been asking me.

“But that’s it! I wasn’t stopped earlier by the police. I didn’t have a woman in the car. And I damn well wasn’t in a federal office building in downtown Jacksonville! I don’t know whether you have the wrong car, or the wrong information, the wrong whatever—but you definitely, definitely have the wrong guy!”

I steadied my gaze as best I could, my heart pounding in my chest.

“You just better hope you’re right,” the bald cop finally said with an icy smirk, “’cause if it turns out you’re screwing with us in any way, you have my promise I’ll put a fat one up your ass so deep you’ll be shitting lead for the rest of your life. Which, I assure you, no one will be betting will be very long. You getting me, sir?”

“Yeah, I’m getting you,” I said back to him, my gaze heated too.

The cops got out again, Martinez asking for my Social Security number. Then he and another older trooper who seemed to be in charge stood talking for a bit, and out of the blue, I thought I saw Martinez smile.

Smile?

Martinez patted him on the arm, and a short while later the senior cop got back in his car and headed off. As did the others. Even Baldy, who tossed me a final glare that to me said, Don’t let me meet up with you again.

I started to think this seemed like a positive sign. If they were transporting a dangerous suspect to jail, they wouldn’t all be driving off. I even let out a hopeful breath. Maybe I would get out of this with only a ticket. A ticket I didn’t deserve maybe, but it damn well beat jail!

Finally, Martinez came around and opened the rear door again. This time his tone was different. Softer. “I’m not going to apologize,” he said. “I told you several times to keep your mouth shut, didn’t I?”

This time I wasn’t looking for any moral victories. “Yes, you did, Officer, and I guess I—”

“And I haven’t violated any of your civil rights …” He stared at me. “Isn’t that correct …?”

Sitting there, unfairly, in the backseat of a police car, my wrists aching from the cuffs, I took a chance and smiled back at him. “That part, I’m not sure the jury isn’t still out on …”

He gave me a bit of a chuckle in return. “Turn around. I’ll get you out of there. Truth is, I suppose the streets are kind of confusing back there. Bay Shore West is only a couple of lights down the road. We do try to be friendly here …” He took off the cuffs and a wave of relief ran through me.

“Your sidekick back there … I assume he’s just the friendly type too?”

“Rowley?” Martinez snorted. “Me, I’m a teddy bear.” He slapped me amicably on the shoulder. “Him? Guess he’s just a little embarrassed by the misunderstanding. Let’s just say, better you don’t run into him again, if you know what I mean?”

“No worries,” I said, wringing my hands free.

He said, “I’m going to write you up a warning. For speeding up through a yellow light. No proof of insurance required. That sound okay?” Martinez winked, like the whole episode was just some kind of a shared joke between us. “Just take a seat back in your car.”

A warning? If the guy had said up front that all he was doing was writing me up a warning, we could have avoided the whole mess …

I got back in the front seat of the Caddie, glancing back once or twice through the rearview mirror, as Martinez, back in his car, wrote on his pad.

And suddenly it all began to make sense to me—how they were all just standing around grinning, like it was some kind of joke … How, what if there never was any other person in a federal office building? Or someone who had been stopped earlier. With a woman in the car. How what if they were all just covering Martinez’s ass for totally overreacting. He’d probably told them that he had this rich, out-of-town doctor in cuffs, and they all stared back at him, like: Are you out of your mind? You’re arresting him for that, protesting a traffic violation …?

My blood was simmering, and I could feel myself growing more and more angry at how the whole thing had gone down.

That’s when I saw an old-model blue sedan, a Ford or a Mercury or something—I wasn’t the best at those kinds of things, and nor was I really paying attention—pull up next to Martinez’s patrol car.

Yeah, that’s what I’m sure it was, I said to myself—a cover. To give him some justification for what he did, yanking me out of my car. There probably never was any other person or woman in any car. In fact—

Suddenly I heard a loud pop coming from behind me. Like a whip snapping.

Then another.

I spun around and saw the blue sedan pull into a frenetic U-turn, screeching away from Martinez’s car.

Everything was scarily still. Just this total absence of movement or sound. Including my own heartbeat.

What just happened?

I looked in my mirror as horror began to grip me. Martinez was slumped forward against the wheel.

Oh shit, Henry … I leaped out of my car, this time no one barking at me to remain inside, and hurried back to Martinez.

His police light was still flashing and the driver’s-side window was down. Martinez was pitched forward, his forehead against the wheel. The warning pad was still in his lap. There was a dark, dime-size hole on the side of his head, a trickle of blood oozing.

I found a second wound, a blotch of matting blood, near the back of his skull.

He wasn’t moving.

“No, no, no,” I shouted. How could this be …?

My heart surged into fifth gear. I ripped open the door and did a frantic check for a pulse or any sign of life. There was none. Martinez must have been dead when his head hit the wheel. I let him fall back. There was nothing I could do. Except take a step back from his car in disbelief.

He’d been killed directly in front of me.

My head whipped around and I realized that the blue sedan, which had made a sharp right onto Lakeview, was speeding away. In front of us there was this blind curve, other cars finally driving by, stopping at the light across from me. Some drivers appeared to glance over, watching me coming out of Martinez’s car. Maybe seeing the body slumped there. Probably not sure at all what had just happened.

But they damn well would be soon.

I had to do something. I’d just seen a cop being killed. And I’d seen who had done it! At least, I’d seen the car he was driving. I bolted back to my car and grabbed my cell, frantically punching in 911.

Then I stopped.

A tremor of hesitation wound through me. What was I going to say? That an unidentified blue car carrying the person who had done this was speeding away? Half the police force in Jacksonville had just seen me in the back of Martinez’s car. In cuffs. Almost carted off to jail. All those incriminating questions hurled at me …

Not to mention, all these people driving by now. Seeing me come out of Martinez’s car.

Away from his body.

The body of the policeman who had tried to arrest me!

My hesitation escalated into outright panic as I realized just what they were all going to realize.

The whole fucking world was going to think it was me.

CHAPTER THREE

Okay, think, Henry … Think! I knew I hadn’t done anything. But I’d just seen a cop executed. And now the killer was speeding away. I was the only one who could identify him. And at the same time, exonerate me!

What was I supposed to do, just sit here until the cops came back again and automatically assumed it was me?

I didn’t think on it a second more. I thrust the ignition on and swung the Caddie into a U-ey, then pulled up to the light on Lakeview. All I remembered was that the killer’s car was blue. I hadn’t been able to determine the make. Or a plate number. I had noticed that the plate wasn’t from Florida, but more like an off-white ground with blue numbers … And as I hit Lakeview, pushing my way to the light, a couple of letters on the plate came back to me—AMD, or ADV … I tried to recall. Or was it ADJ? And I thought I’d seen a four somewhere …

But something did come back to me with certainty as I took off after it. A kind of insignia. A dragon maybe—red, with a long tail. Or a winged bird of some kind. That might make it easier to find.

I swung a right onto Lakeview at the first break in traffic. I hit the gas, weaving in and out of cars, pulling ahead of as many as I could. The guy had a minute or so on me. But there were tons of lights. And traffic. So he couldn’t just take off crazily and risk being stopped. For all I knew he could have turned off onto a side street by now. Or pulled into a strip mall and switched cars. I fixed on that plate and that image I had seen. And looked out for the police. They’d tossed me in cuffs for a meaningless traffic violation. What would they do to me now if they thought I’d killed a cop?

I knew I had to call it in. Only a couple of minutes had gone by, and the police probably didn’t even know what happened yet. I reached for my phone and punched in 911, still no sight of the car. After a few seconds, a female operator came on. “Emergency …”

“I’ve just witnessed a murder!” I shouted. I placed my phone on speaker. “A policeman! In his vehicle. On …” Suddenly I realized I didn’t even know the name of the street Martinez had had me pull onto. “Christ,” I said, stammering, “I don’t know the street. It was off Lakeview. Near Bay Shore Drive …”

“Sir, you say the victim was a policeman?” the operator replied, her voice responding to what she’d heard. “In his patrol car? I’m going to need your name. And the location you’re calling from. Are you still at the scene? Are you able to give us the patrol car’s number?”

“No, no.” I wasn’t sure what I should say. “I’m driving on Lakeview. The person who did it took off in a blue sedan. I’m chasing him now!”

“Sir, I am going to ask you to please pull over and go back to the scene,” the operator instructed me with urgency.

Damn. I had to stop at a light. I pushed myself up and tried to see over the tops of the stopped cars.

Nothing. The son of a bitch was getting away! I tried to concentrate on what I’d seen on the plate. A dragon or a snake, or a winged bird. Red, I was thinking. Yes, it was red. All I knew for sure was that the plate definitely wasn’t from Florida. But I couldn’t completely visualize it. Everything had happened so quickly.

“Sir, I’m going to need you to return to the scene of the crime,” the 911 operator said to me again. “And I’m going to need your name.”

The light changed. I drove on. My name …? I was about to give it, the accelerator pressed to the floor, doing sixty on a crowded, suburban street. Seventy. “It’s …”

Then I stopped.

A few lengths in front of me was a blue sedan that looked like the one I saw, and it was weaving in and out of traffic. “Hold it!” I said, as if I’d been jolted by EKG paddles. “This may be him!”

“Sir, I don’t need you to be a hero …” the dispatcher shouted at me. “Just give us some identifying characteristics. We’ll take care of it from there.”

Hero …? I wasn’t trying to be a hero. I was trying to do what was right and at the same time save my own skin! Go back to the scene? Without a plate number or some identifying characteristics. I knew I’d have one helluva time explaining myself back there.

I was forced to stop at another light. But so was the blue car, which was approximately ten cars ahead of me. I saw a road sign for I-10, one of the main highways, straight ahead! That’s likely where he was heading. That’s where I’d be heading! The light changed, and the blue car drove on ahead. I leaned and caught a quick enough glimpse of the plate before it was blocked, and again I noticed the light ground, just like I’d seen.

“Sir …”

I knew I’d lose the guy for good with the dispatcher continuing to bark at me. I waited a few agonizing seconds for the cars in front of me to move, every nerve in my body bristling with electricity and urgency.

Then I just said, The hell with it, Henry. Let’s go!

I swung into the turn lane and sped up to the intersection, and went right through the light. I was already in up to my eyeballs anyway!

“The guy is in a blue sedan heading down Lakeview toward the entrance to I-10!” I shouted into the phone. Which caused the dispatcher to warn me to stop for a third time.

I ignored her. I spotted the car again—maybe ten or twelve vehicles in front. I kept speeding up, dodging ahead of other vehicles in front of me, making up ground.

Eight cars now.

Then, to my astonishment, I spotted another blue car! This one was one or two in front of the one I was chasing.

Which was the right one?

Neither had in-state plates, but the second one—the one in front—did have something else on the back plate, and as I squinted in the sun, I saw it began with an A! I pressed on the gas. The speedometer climbed to seventy. Now I was only a handful of cars behind them. Five or six. We were rapidly approaching the highway. I yelled to the 911 dispatcher, “There’s a second car!”

If one of them got on the highway and the other remained on Lakeview, I’d have to make a choice.

The first car I had spotted put on its blinker and began to veer toward the highway, picking up speed. I couldn’t make out the plates, other than an AD or maybe a J or something … I couldn’t see part of the plate. The second car stayed on Lakeview. And it had that thing on the plate.

I had to make a choice.

I yelled to the operator, “One of them is veering onto I-10. West. The other is staying on Lakeview … I’m staying,” I told her.

The first car veered onto to the ramp, heading onto the highway. I went past it, underneath the overpass, praying that wasn’t Martinez’s killer getting away.

I hit the accelerator, pulling myself closer to the second blue car. It had light-ground plates, just like the one at the scene. I started to make out the number. AB4 … I didn’t know. That could have been it.

And some kind of image too …

I sped up, inching closer, until I could finally make out the plate number in full. AB4-699.

It was from Tennessee. And the image I saw … It was a U.S. Army medallion.

And there was a sticker on the back window. Honk if you support our troops.

Could that be it?

As I pulled up even, I saw a woman behind the wheel. And a kid in the back. In a kiddie seat. The one thing I was sure of was that the person driving the murder car was a man! I drove alongside of her, staring in futility and frustration. The woman leered back at me like I was some kind of nutcase and changed lanes.

“Fuck!” I slammed my palm against the steering wheel. The killer was heading away on I-10. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck fuck!

All of a sudden reality sank back into me. I had to go back to the scene and tell the police what I knew. I had to face a bunch of pissed-off, angry cops who might well slam me onto the ground and slap the cuffs on me again.

“I need your name, sir!” the 911 operator kept insisting.

Would they buy for one second what I’d been saying? That I was chasing after a blue car. The killer’s car. With nothing concrete to identify it. These same cops who had just seen me in cuffs, in the back of Martinez’s car. Having argued with the very policeman who was now dead! And taken off from the scene!

“You have to find the car,” I said to the operator. “It’s heading west on I-10. It’s a blue sedan. Out-of-state plates. I think the first letters were AMD … Some kind of image on it, a dragon or winged bird. I’m heading back to the scene. Someone has to have spotted it.”

I hung up and began retracing my route along Lakeview, nervously going over what I was about to face. Up ahead, it appeared as if traffic was being diverted off the main road. By now they’d probably found Martinez’s car. They all knew who I was anyway and what car I was driving. I’d have some explaining to do. How I didn’t kill Martinez. Why I’d run from the scene.

I decided to give myself up to the first policeman I saw.

About a mile from the scene, police cars had blocked Lakeview and were pushing traffic onto a side street. I knew I’d need a lawyer. A good one. A criminal attorney. As I inched closer to the cops, to my impending capture, I started going over in my head who I could call. I inched to about eight car lengths away, and spotted two navy-clad patrolmen waving cars away.

My eyes stretched wide.

One of them was that asshole. Rowley. Baldy. The one who just winked at me maliciously and said, “Just never let me catch you again!”

He’d wanted to rip me a new one over nothing more than a traffic violation. Now one of his own had been murdered.

He was the last person on earth I wanted to hand myself over to!

I thought about pulling out of my lane and finding someone else. But there wasn’t anyone. Not here. The line of cars kept creeping forward. I had no choice but to inch closer, or draw attention to myself. The kind of attention I didn’t need right now.

Suddenly Rowley looked up and scanned down the line of cars, and to my dismay, his eyes seemed to lock like a magnet on the sight of my white Caddie.

Then they fixed directly on me.

Every cell in my body froze. I put up my hands where he could see them. I didn’t know what else to do.

Then I watched as the sonovabitch shouted something to his partner and reached for his gun.

To my horror, he started running up the line of cars toward me.

I started yelling, “No, it wasn’t me! It wasn’t me!” And he was shouting something back, “Out of the car! Out of the car!”

Oh, shit!

And then he aimed!

My heart almost clawed its way up my throat as I vividly recalled what he had warned me of if our paths ever crossed again. A warning bell inside me rang: Henry, you have to get the hell away from this guy! Now!

I jerked on the wheel and forced the Caddie out of my lane.

I turned around and saw Rowley’s weapon aimed directly at me! He’s going to shoot, Henry! My heart clawed its way up my throat. No way I could simply make myself a sitting duck for him.

I hit the gas.

Suddenly the front windshield exploded, glass raining all over me. He was shooting!

Oh my God!

“No, no,” I yelled back in horror. “It wasn’t me!”

I whipped my head back and saw Rowley again, this time in a shooter’s position, two hands on his weapon, steadying, eyes trained directly at me.

He’s going to kill me! I screamed to myself.

I floored the accelerator, the Caddie screeching into the oncoming lane, as another shot crashed through the side window, shattering it, narrowly missing my head.

“How the hell is this happening?” I screamed in the car. “It’s not me!”

I spun a U-ey, jolting up onto the pavement and hitting a street sign, ducking my head as low as I could, and sped off in the opposite direction on Lakeview as two more shots slammed into my chassis, clanging off the rear.

I didn’t know if I was making the biggest mistake of my life, but I was sure that if I didn’t get out of there, I’d be dead.

I cut a sharp right onto the first cross street I encountered, and then an even quicker left onto a residential lane. I floored it again and for the first time checked behind me.

No one was there.

CHAPTER FOUR

At the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office, on Adams Street downtown, it was Carrie Holmes’s first day back on the job.

She knew it wasn’t going to be an easy one. It had been four months, the four toughest months of her life, since that day. The day her world had fallen apart. But she knew she had to get back into the world. Back to the person she was before … Before “the day my heart died too,” as she always referred to it.

Take a deep breath, she told herself, stepping off the elevator onto the detectives’ floor.

Life starts over—now.

Carrie worked for the JSO. Community Outreach Director, her business card read. A glorified way of saying she took care of matters in which the department’s duty interacted with the public, building goodwill in the parts of town where the department didn’t have much. Softening the outrage after an incident in which excessive force was used, or worse, an officer-involved shooting. Overseeing police-sponsored community events. A new chief had been appointed since she’d been gone. Erman Hall. More of a numbers guy who was given a mandate on issues like the tough immigration law and budget control. She’d heard that everyone was trying to curry favor with him.

Truth was, Carrie was kind of surprised she hadn’t already received her “pink slip” in the mail. Let’s just say “Community Outreach” wasn’t exactly a priority in a time when cops were being pulled off the street and station houses closed. She’d always expected she’d become a detective herself—her dad had been a chief in New Hampshire for twenty-four years and her older brother, Jack, was a supervisor with the FBI in Atlanta. With a master’s in criminology from the University of Florida, she’d always thought that becoming a detective was the path she would take, but with Rick on duty overseas, and then starting up his law practice, and then Raef, she took the job that opened—in Administration—and it just kind of stuck. The brains of the family, her dad always said, and the looks!

Not that any of that really mattered now. Brains, looks, but nothing had prepared her for what had hit her. Nothing could.

To lose your husband and your son … Well, almost your son …

And on the very same day.

Now it was time to start over.

Carrie hugged a few people hello as she made her way back to her office. This was harder than she’d thought. Everyone was tiptoeing around on eggshells, not wanting to say the wrong thing: “How are you doing?” “So great to have you back!” And, of course, “How’s Raef?”

“He’s doing really well,” she replied, as upbeat as she could. “He’s at my folks’.” It seemed the best thing for a while that he remain with her parents in Atlantic Beach, which was closer to the hospital. “We hope to have him back in school soon.”

Of course, no one mentioned Rick—except just to shake their heads, eyes glossing over a little, and to say how sorry they were.

“Well, you give that boy a big hug from me!”

She ran the gauntlet of well-wishers back to her desk. She found a card there—signed by most of the office, detectives and administration. Great to have you back! That brought a little tear to her eye. And made her smile.

So did the handful of photos that were still on her shelf. Rick finishing the Marine Corps Marathon in D.C. last year. In 3:51:29. His personal best, by far! Raef looking very ferocious in his pee wee football gear. That nice one of the three of them at her folks’ last Thanksgiving. All decked out.

Carrie felt herself starting to get sad.

She looked at the mountain of files and memoranda that had been arranged on her desk by Andrea Carson, her deputy, and then the phone started to ring: people she dealt with on the force and even a local press contact, all glad to hear she was back. She started to read through a few of the files, trying to catch up on what was happening. She knew she’d have to ease herself back into the routine.

Andrea knocked on her door, folders in hand. “You ready?”

“Ready.” Carrie nodded with a smile. “Come on in.”

That’s when she noticed that a crowd had gathered underneath the TV in the detectives’ bullpen. Things seemed to have gotten a little hectic. Lots of people running around.

She stood up—the captain’s office door had been closed a long time now. Then she saw the chief, the new chief, with whom she’d hoped to grab a couple of minutes, heading out of the office with Cam Winfield, the department’s press liaison—not looking at all as if “community outreach” was high on his list of priorities right now.

Something had happened!

Carrie stepped out and found Robyn, Chief Hall’s secretary. “What’s going on?”

“Didn’t you hear?” Robyn’s eyes were wet with tears. “One of our guys was just shot on the street. Killed.”

“Oh no …” Carrie’s blood came to a halt. “Who?”

“A patrol officer out of Southeast. Named Martinez.” The chief’s secretary sadly shook her head.

“Robert Martinez?” Carrie sucked in a painful breath. She knew Martinez. She’d worked with him once or twice, in Brentwood on a community center there. He was a part-time basketball coach. He had a wife and a couple of kids. “On the street?” she asked Robyn.

“Shot. Point-blank. After a routine traffic stop.” The chief’s assistant shook her head. “Right in his car.”

“Oh God …” Carrie felt her stomach fall. She tried to recall, Jacksonville hadn’t had an officer killed in the line of duty for at least a couple of years. “Let me know if there’s anything I can do …” she said, and shook her head kind of uselessly. “Please …”

She went back to her desk, an empty feeling in her gut. She went on the KJNT news website and brought up a live feed from the scene. “Police Officer Reportedly Killed on Lakeview Drive,” the headline read. The shot was from an airborne copter cam. Carrie minimized it and brought up Martinez’s “green screen.” There were several commendations. One censure years ago for excessive force that was never prosecuted. She thought of his wife, Marilyn. She would call her. She knew firsthand how tough this was going to be.

“Carrie?”

Bill Akers stuck his head inside her workstation. Akers was her boss, a captain, in charge of operations, and her department reported in to him.

Carrie stood up. “I just heard …”

“Listen, Carrie …” Akers blew out a breath. “I know it’s your first day back and all …”

“Don’t worry about that,” she answered. “What can I do?”

“We’re setting up a hotline. A lot of personnel are in the field or following up on leads. We’ve got a manhunt going. You mind manning a phone? Anyone calls in who seems legit, take down their info. A detective will get back to them as soon as they can.”

“Of course I’ll take a phone,” Carrie said. “Whatever you need. Is there a …”

“Suspect …” Akers filled in. “Yeah, we have a suspect. We’ve got a picture of him on the screen now.”

He led her over to a terminal in the detectives’ bullpen and showed her a head shot from Florida Motor Vehicles. “Apparently the guy caused a ruckus after Martinez pulled him over for running a light. He’s driving a white, rented Caddie. Name of Steadman. Henry. The guy’s a doctor, if you can imagine. Some big-shot plastic surgeon from down in Palm Beach.”

“We’re sure?” Carrie stared back at the screen. The suspect had a nice face. Bright, intelligent eyes. Wavy, long brown hair. Stylish glasses. A warm smile. Successful, nice-looking plastic surgeons generally didn’t fit the profile a cop murderer.

“Damn sure.” The captain nodded firmly. “Bastard just fled the fucking scene.”