Free 15 Seconds by Andrew Gross Page A

daughter’s phone.
    “Who are you? Where’s Hallie? Where’s my daughter? ” I demanded, my body heaving with mounting dread.
    “Oh, we’ll get to all that pretty soon. I promise,” the man said. “But if you ever want to see her again— alive, that is—I think there’s just one little thing you oughta know . . .”
    “Go on,” I said. I ducked behind two boosters introducing their wives.
    “If I happen to hear that you get caught by the police, or even turn yourself in . . . Or if it comes out in the press that your little girl is missing, meaning if you tell ’em, Hallie here’s gonna end up with a bullet in that smart, pretty brain of hers. And that’s if I’m feeling generous. You hear? ”
    The crowd was loud and buzzing all around. I tried to think if I had ever heard the voice before, but it was Southern, slangy, and wasn’t clear.
    “You hearing me, Doc?” he said again, like ice this time. Waiting.
    “Yes.” I swallowed, razors in my throat. “I hear.”
    “So here’s a little present for you—just so there’s no doubts, about our arrangement.”
    My heart started to race. Suddenly Hallie got on, her voice shaking with fear. “Daddy . . . Daddy, is that you?”
    “Yes, hon, it is! It’s me.”
    “Oh, Daddy, I’m so sorry . . . Please just listen to what he says. He’ll do it. I know he will. He’s crazy! Just do what he says. Please. He—I love you, Daddy,” she blurted as the phone was yanked away from her 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. 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 out 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