15 Seconds Read Online Free PDF Page A

about to give it, the accelerator pressed to the floor, doing sixty on a crowded, suburban street. Seventy. “It’s . . .”
    Then I stopped.
    A few lengths in front of me was a blue sedan that looked like the one I saw, and it was weaving in and out of traffic. “Hold it!” I said, as if I’d been jolted by EKG paddles. “This may be him!”
    “Sir, I don’t need you to be a hero . . .” the dispatcher shouted at me. “Just give us some identifying characteristics. We’ll take care of it from there.”
    Hero . . . ? I wasn’t trying to be a hero . I was trying to do what was right and at the same time save my own skin! Go back to the scene? Without a plate number or some identifying characteristics. I knew I’d have one helluva time explaining myself back there.
    I was forced to stop at another light. But so was the blue car, which was approximately ten cars ahead of me. I saw a road sign for I-10, one of the main highways, straight ahead ! That’s likely where he was heading. That’s where I’d be heading! The light changed, and the blue car drove on ahead. I leaned and caught a quick enough glimpse of the plate before it was blocked, and again I noticed the light ground, just like I’d seen.
    “Sir . . .”
    I knew I’d lose the guy for good with the dispatcher continuing to bark at me. I waited a few agonizing seconds for the cars in front of me to move, every nerve in my body bristling with electricity and urgency.
    Then I just said, The hell with it, Henry. Let’s go!
    I swung into the turn lane and sped up to the intersection, and went right through the light. I was already in up to my eyeballs anyway!
    “The guy is in a blue sedan heading down Lakeview toward the entrance to I-10!” I shouted into the phone. Which caused the dispatcher to warn me to stop for a third time.
    I ignored her. I spotted the car again—maybe ten or twelve vehicles in front. I kept speeding up, dodging ahead of other vehicles in front of me, making up ground.
    Eight cars now.
    Then, to my astonishment, I spotted another blue car! This one was one or two in front of the one I was chasing.
    Which was the right one?
    Neither had in-state plates, but the second one—the one in front—did have something else on the back plate, and as I squinted in the sun, I saw it began with an A ! I pressed on the gas. The speedometer climbed to seventy. Now I was only a handful of cars behind them. Five or six. We were rapidly approaching the highway. I yelled to the 911 dispatcher, “There’s a second car!”
    If one of them got on the highway and the other remained on Lakeview, I’d have to make a choice.
    The first car I had spotted put on its blinker and began to veer toward the highway, picking up speed. I couldn’t make out the plates, other than an AD or maybe a J or something . . . I couldn’t see part of the plate. The second car stayed on Lakeview. And it had that thing on the plate.
    I had to make a choice.
    I yelled to the operator, “One of them is veering onto I-10. West. The other is staying on Lakeview . . . I’m staying, ” I told her.
    The first car veered onto the ramp, heading onto the highway. I went past it, underneath the overpass, praying that wasn’t Martinez’s killer getting away.
    I hit the accelerator, pulling myself closer to the second blue car. It had light-ground plates, just like the one at the scene. I started to make out the number. AB4 . . . I didn’t know. That could have been it.
    And some kind of image too . . .
    I sped up, inching closer, until I could finally make out the plate number in full. AB4-699.
    It was from Tennessee. And the image I saw . . . It was a U.S. Army medallion.
    And there was a sticker on the back window. Honk if you support our troops.
    Could that be it?
    As I pulled up even, I saw a woman behind the wheel. And a kid in the back. In a kiddie seat. The one thing I was sure of was that the person driving the murder car was a man! I drove