15 Seconds. Andrew Gross

in midsentence.

      “Just wanted you to have a sense of what’s really at stake here, Doc. Pretty little thing, if I say so myself. And she surely can ride.”

      “You touch a hair on her head and I’ll kill you myself, you son of a bitch! So help me God …” I shouted above the noise, my blood on fire.

      “Now don’t you be giving me orders,” the man said. “That wouldn’t go over well. Long as you heard exactly what I said, about if I hear the cops find you.”

      “What is it you want? Why are you doing this to me? I have money. I can pay you. Please …”

      “We’ll get to what I want. In a while. First, go get yourself a new phone. One of those disposable ones. Text the number to Hallie here. Okay? That is, if you ever want to hear from her alive again.”

      I shuddered.

      “So get on now, y’hear?” I could hear the laughter in his voice. “You keep yourself safe. Remember, longer you stay out there, Doc, longer your little girl lives.”

      “Listen! Don’t hang up! Listen …”

      I heard the phone click off, and all trace of my little girl with it. I pushed the button to call her back, but no one answered. I was left staring at her name on the cell-phone screen.

      My knees felt weak.

      I turned in the crowd, every corner of me filling up with a mounting sense of dread. He was right! I had to get out of here! I still had the cop to worry about. Liz had told me just to give up if anything went wrong. But now I couldn’t do that. Now I had to do everything I could to get away!

      I scanned the lobby and realized there was no way I could go back the way I’d come in. If the police were waiting for me here, there were probably dozens of them all around. I glanced back at the one I had seen, still protected by the crowd.

      A heavyset man in a green Sharks headdress shifted from my line of sight just as I did so.

      Suddenly the cop and I were eye to eye.

      My heart felt like it exploded. He looked straight at me, seemingly trying to pierce through the golf cap and the shades …

      Then, suddenly, he did just that!

      I watched his eyes grow wide and his face light up with recognition. He took a step toward me. I moved away, pushing my way through the throng of boosters. I thought I heard him shout something, echoing, above the din of the lobby. I began to run.

      Then I heard him call out: “Steadman!”

      I spun and saw him pull out his radio, signaling the others. I slithered through the dense booster gathering, thirty or forty strong, and came out directly in front of the elevators. A door opened in front of me. I didn’t know where it would take me, other than away. Which was all I wanted right then. I jumped in.

      The cop was already running after me. “Steadman. Stop!”

      Bystanders turned. The cop still had to cross the lobby and make his way through the crowd. I jammed my finger against the heat-sensored panels. Pushing on every upper-floor—30 … 32 … 34.

      The doors didn’t close. C’mon, goddammit, shut!

      I watched, in mounting horror, as the cop elbowed his way through the shocked crowd. Midway through, he stopped, his eyes locked on me in the elevator, still thirty feet away.

      He pulled out his gun.

      C’mon, c’mon, close! I realized he saw me as nothing more than a cop killer. He’d be justified to shoot. He wouldn’t hesitate for a second. They already hadn’t hesitated! I kept pressing on the arrow. And on the upper floors.

      Close.

      The cop finally made it through. Suddenly we were face-to-face again. He leveled his gun at me. I realized he could squeeze off a shot at any second and I’d be dead. Close, you sonovabitch. Close!

      That’s when the doors finally started to shut. The cop sprinted toward me, aimed, and squeezed off a shot, which slammed into the doors as I ducked behind them.

      Another made it into the car, ripping into the wood walls. The guy was crazy! What if there were other people in here?

      A third clanged off the handrail.

      The doors finally squeezed shut an instant before he made it over to me. I could hear the cop holler, “Shit! Shit!” and bang on the doors as the elevator started to rise. All the higher floors were lit up now, and I knew in that instant that all that would happen if I went up there was that I’d be trapped and captured … and then Hallie …

      As if by instinct, I hit the button for the third floor. The elevator came to a sudden stop. I bolted out, knowing it would keep on going up, floor by floor, all the way to the top.

      I ran down the hall, searching frantically for the fire exit. I didn’t know how many cops were spread about—or would be, in a matter of minutes. But the elevator was heading up to the roof. They’d have to check around up there. They’d have to search all the upper floors. Room by room.

      By that time the entire building might be on lock-down.

      I had to get out of here fast.

      At last, I found the emergency stairwell and bounded down the stairs, two at a time, my heart almost in spasm. I was completely winded and gasping by the time I reached the ground floor. I fully expected to run right into some trigger-happy policeman who would force me to the ground with a gun at my head.

      Mercifully, no one was there. I pushed open the pneumatic door and, with a whoosh, found myself outside.

      Thank God. I didn’t wait to get my bearings—I just sprinted, fast as I could, away—spotting the golf course to my right and realizing I was heading toward the clubhouse. Where my car was parked!

      I spun around and didn’t see anyone behind me. No one shouted my name. I just prayed that I wouldn’t feel a bullet ripping into my back. Ahead, I saw the garage, which I figured was reserved for golfers. I knew I couldn’t use Mike’s car anymore. The police might have found him by now, and if they hadn’t, they surely would soon. Any second it might be over the airwaves … and then I was cooked.

      I ran inside the garage and spotted one of the green-vested valets hustling to get a car and I waited behind a stanchion until he climbed inside a Lincoln—and I saw him feel under the seat for the key. Then it started up. I had a flashback to my old parking-attendant days, one of the jobs I did to get myself through med school. I counted the seconds until the Lincoln drove off, then I ran over to a red GMC parked nearby. The door was unlocked and I felt frantically under the seat for the key.

      Shit. Nothing. I had to try another car.

      I hopped out and tried a blue Lexus SUV in the next bay. I figured there was a security camera here and that someone might well be watching me right now. Heisting a car.

      This time I found the keys under the floor mat.

      I started it up and drove out of the garage, leaving Mike’s Jag behind. It didn’t matter that my DNA was all over it. I wasn’t about to deny taking it. I knew I had only a short time before all exits from the hotel were shut down. I drove out to the front gate. There was a guard there. I’d had to talk my way past him the first time, but now he gave me just a lackadaisical wave, as if to say, Hope you hit ’em well. See you next time.

      I made a right, knowing I was only minutes from the highway. I was so excited, I wanted to whoop out loud.

      But then a sober realization ran through me, and my whole body began to tremble.

      I suddenly realized that if there was even a chance I was only a person of interest an hour ago after fleeing the scene of Martinez’s killing, that possibility was now long gone.

      My daughter was in peril. And I was a full-fledged suspect in two murders now.

      CHAPTER THIRTEEN