15 Seconds by Andrew Gross Page B

lowered him from the beam, the ropes still horse-collared around Wayne’s neck. He surely could have saved the kid a lot of pain and aggravation. But he had to pay—that was clear. Just like that girl and her baby had paid.
    Just like Amanda had paid. Forfeited half her life just for being young and foolish.
    Now Wayne had to pay too.
    Vance hoisted up the body by the armpits. He figured as long as he had the apparatus all rigged up, he might as well put it to some use, and cinched the rope tightly around the kid’s neck, placing the noose under his chin. Then he began to squeeze.
    Squeeze. With all the strength he had from those years of running that lathe.
    All those years on the force and the way they’d pushed him aside without much of a thought to him.
    Squeeze.
    Wayne jerked awake, his eyes bulging. He made a gurgling noise and twisted to see what was happening. Strangled whimpers emanating from his throat as Vance tightened the noose, the boy suddenly understanding what was going on, his arms thrashing around behind him. Vance telling him in a soft voice, “No point in struggling, son. I told you plainly, you had to pay for what you’ve done.”
    Wayne, grasping at Vance’s sides, jerking his head back and forth in some desperate, futile effort to say, “No, please, no . . .” But that just made Vance squeeze even tighter, spittle seeping out of the young man’s mouth and onto his chin. His fists striking with diminishing force against Vance’s thighs. His words barely even intelligible . . . His eyes stretched to the back of his head.
    Please.
    Vance didn’t let up. Not until there was no more fight in the boy. Or gasping for air. Not until he fell back on the floor in a curled-up heap.
    He’d told him it had to be done.
    Then he loosened the noose from Wayne’s blotched neck and undid the makeshift winch and pulley and set them aside. He wrapped the long rope over his arm into neat circles, unscrewed the propane tank from the welding torch, and put them carefully back into his bag.
    Not much blood, he thought, pleased with his work. Just a few drops of spittle on the floor, which he wiped with a cloth and disinfectant. Then he put his arms under the dead boy’s armpits and lifted him up over his shoulders. Young Wayne was a sizable lad, though Vance had expected more of a fight out of him. Vance carried him outside and into the woods to the spot he had prepared. He’d already dug the hole, about forty yards in, amid a thicket of brush and brambles no one would ever find. Sweat picked up on Vance’s back as he carted the heavy weight in the humid night.
    When he got to the hole, he was wheezing a bit. He dropped Wayne faceup, and puffed his cheeks so as to catch his breath.
    He thought, Maybe I ought to say something, staring down at the young face. You probably weren’t a totally useless fool, though my daughter liked you, so who knows . . . Still, events don’t happen of themselves. They have a cause, and you were part of that cause, son. So here you lie . . .
    He rolled Wayne’s torso inside the ditch and then kicked in his legs, which didn’t seem to want to go in. Then he started to fill up the hole with the shovel he had hidden here in the bushes.
    When he was finished, he smoothed things out as best he could, but no one would ever find him here. No one but that tramp Brandee would even miss him likely.
    Wheat from chaff, he said to himself, leaning on the shovel. The lowest rung on a tall ladder.
    But he would do what he had to do and find his way to the top.
    Vance took the shovel and headed back.
    He had names.

Chapter Nineteen
    C arrie drove to her parents’ house in Atlantic Beach after work that day. Raef had just come back from the physical therapist.
    It was a small, three-bedroom ranch backing onto a public golf course near the beach, but it was near the Wolfson Children’s Hospital, where Raef went every day to the rehabilitation center. He’d gotten most of his major