15 Seconds Read Online Free Page B

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.
    â€œNo, 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
    O kay, 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