15 Seconds. Andrew Gross

a dozen times, which he knew belonged to Wayne, the waste of good spit Amanda thought of as her boyfriend. The other was a silver Kia with an “I Heart Daughtry” decal on the back and a pair of pink felt dice dangling from the inside mirror.

      For a while Vance had heard sounds of laughter coming from inside. Music. A party going on. Something crashing onto the floor. More laughter. It made his blood curdle.

      Then, for the longest time, he heard nothing at all.

      He sat there, feeling his life’s futility coursing through his body, to the tips of his rough, workman’s hands. How things hadn’t quite worked out the way he planned, yet he smiled, thinking the story wasn’t quite over yet. He needed only one thing—something clear and fixed in this world of uncertainties—and that one thing was that someone take responsibility for what had gone down. That at the end of the line, someone had to pay for what had happened to that poor girl and her baby, not to mention Amanda, and what was happening tonight might only be the first step. When it was all over, the person he would likely find would be the one who had profited the most.

      From what had befallen his little girl.

      That was what was wrong with life, Vance thought, how no one ever did … pay. The ones who bore the guilt. Those people always squirmed their way out, with reams and reams of legal arguments, hiding behind oily lawyers. The banks, who had taken his home; the functionaries who had pushed him out of his job; the fools in Washington and on Wall Street, even those people out in Hollywood—they did just fine, while the rest of us had no career, no home, no insurance. You were just a cipher, left with nothing. Just silt running through your hands. Only the little people had to pay. While the rest went on …

      And for a man who was brought up knowing what happens when right and wrong collide, this was a heavy cost.

      There is wheat and there is chaff, the Bible says. Wheat and chaff.

      And it was simply a matter of separating the one from the other: those who had been harmed from those who were responsible. You didn’t need no fancy degrees or badges or fitness hearings.

      Someone just had to own up. That’s all he was saying.

      His little Amanda was just at the end of the line.

      Vance just kept his eyes on that trailer, knowing pretty soon the door would open.

      Wheat from chaff. He flexed his fingers. Someone had to own up and it would start right here.

      That’s all.

      CHAPTER FOURTEEN

      I pulled into a McDonald’s off the highway certain that after fleeing the Hyatt half of the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Department that hadn’t been actively looking for me before was probably looking for me now.

      I felt Mike’s phone vibrate.

      I dug it out and looked at the screen. It was Liz. Thank God. She sounded off the planet. I figured I knew why.

      “Henry, I just heard on the news. What the hell did you do up there?”

      “Someone set a trap for me, Liz. I don’t know if you heard the whole story, but—”

      “Henry, I told you to give yourself up if they found you again! Not to resist.”

      “I couldn’t give myself up! Liz, I have something bad to tell you. Don’t freak out. Have you heard from Hallie? In the past few hours?”