by Sandra Brown
It was an ill-chosen strategy. Amelia remained calm. She didn’t get flustered, even as she stressed the immediate threat that Willard Strong had posed to her and her children.
Eventually the lawyer must have sensed that her composure was more persuasive than his theatrics and that all he was accomplishing was to irritate the jurors and make them more, not less, sympathetic toward her. After an hour of getting nowhere, he wrapped up rather quickly and told the judge that he had no further questions for her.
She stepped down, and the bailiff led her out through the same side exit as before. Dawson whispered, “Let’s go,” and together he and Headly left through the door at the back of the courtroom.
They intercepted Amelia in the corridor. Cell phone in hand, she was punching in a number when she noticed them walking toward her. Her hands dropped to her sides. “They let you out of jail?”
“You sound disappointed.”
Headly stepped forward and extended his right hand. “Ms. Nolan. Gary Headly.”
She shook his hand, but with a notable lack of warmth. “Are you his lawyer?”
“Second-generation family friend. Also his godfather. But please don’t hold that against me.” His friendly smile wasn’t returned.
Dawson tilted his head toward the courtroom. “You did great in there.”
“It wasn’t a talent show.”
“I know that,” he shot back, matching her ire. “All I meant was that your reason was effective against his ranting.”
“I’m just grateful to have it over and done with. Now, if you’ll excuse me.” She made to go around them, but Dawson sidestepped and blocked her path.
“Where are you going?”
“To pick up my children.”
“Are they all right?”
“No. They’re not all right.” She pushed back her hair, hooking a strand behind her ear, which was a sure signal that the composure she’d exhibited in the courtroom was about to desert her. “They keep asking where I am and when I’m coming to get them. They sense that something is wrong, but they don’t know what, and not knowing is frightening to them, especially to Hunter, who is remarkably perceptive for his age. At some point I must tell them that their adored nanny is dead.” Her voice cracked, which she tried to cover by clearing her throat. “I have to go.”
This time Dawson didn’t physically try to stop her, but he spoke her name with appeal.
She turned back, but her body language remained hostile. “If you’re still after a good story, why don’t you write one about yourself?”
“I’m not interesting.”
She gave a caustic laugh. “Oh, but you are. You’re secretive, mercurial, a study in contradictions. Beyond that, you’re…”
“What?”
“Just so I’m clear, those pills you were taking weren’t doctor prescribed, were they?”
He wouldn’t admit it out loud, not inside the courthouse. But he gave one shake of his head.
Softly, but bitterly, she said, “Right.” As she turned to go, her cell phone, still in her hand, vibrated. She looked at the LED and answered immediately. “Deputy Tucker?” She listened for a moment, her face going pale. “Where did you find him?”
Dawson was beside her in an instant, whispering, “Dirk?”
She looked up at him and nodded. “I see,” she said into the phone. “Well, please keep me—”
“Excuse me, Ms. Nolan.” Headly took the phone from her hand and raised it to his ear. As he started walking purposefully toward the elevator bank, Dawson heard him say, “Deputy? My name is Gary Headly. I’m a friend of Ms. Nolan’s. Also an agent with the FBI. We’re on our way. Please be there to meet us.”
* * *
Amelia felt disoriented from the shock waves that just kept coming.
She had spent a virtually sleepless night, alternately pacing the floor and tossing in bed, sometimes sobbing over what had happened to Stef, then trembling in fear that she had been the intended victim. Off and on she prayed fervently for the safety of her children, bargaining with God to preserve them.
And at any given time, she was despising Dawson Scott for his multiple deceptions and half truths and omissions, even as her body betrayed her with stirring recollections of his nakedness, his blatant arousal, the sheer carnality of his kisses, and her responses to them.
At dawn, she’d had to shelve all the emotional turmoil and pull herself together for her court appearance. Actually, it hadn’t been as terrible as she had anticipated. Mike Gleason had raked her over the coals, but she, like everyone in the courtroom, realized that it was desperation, not conviction, that had fueled his fiery attack on her character. She almost felt sorry for Willard Strong, who’d had to sit by and watch his case being damaged rather than strengthened.
But it was over, and she didn’t have to think about it anymore. She wanted to collect her children and return to the beach house, splash in the surf, feel the sea breeze in her hair, and taste the salt air. She wanted to laugh and romp in the sand with her sons. But even as she visualized such playful abandon, her heart felt anything but carefree.
The specter of Stef’s murder clouded her happiness over having the trial behind her. She must figure out how to explain the nanny’s sudden absence to her sons, how to tell them in a way that was honest but that wouldn’t leave them with an acute fear of death.
She hoped that by now they would have forgotten about Dawson altogether so she wouldn’t be required to talk about him.
But he had a way of turning up when she least expected him, as he had in the courthouse corridor. His night in lockup had left him looking hollow-eyed and underfed. But still incredibly good. At the sight of him, her body had quickened in spite of her determination to remain aloof.
The situation had turned truly bizarre when the older man, who’d introduced himself only moments earlier as Dawson’s friend and godfather, seized her cell phone and started throwing his weight around.
Now, without being given sufficient time to process this staggering series of events, she was flanked by Dawson and Headly as they entered the building that was becoming uncomfortably familiar.
As instructed, Deputy Tucker was waiting for them in the lobby where she and Dawson had talked last night. His first words were for Dawson. “You should feel right at home.”
Dawson ignored the dig and didn’t respond.
Tucker acknowledged her with a polite nod, then turned to the older man. “You must be Agent Headly.”
Headly shook hands with him and proffered his ID.
As the deputy handed it back, he said, “The sheriff’s office is working the DeMarco case in conjunction with Savannah Metro PD. If we need additional help, we’ll go to GBI. Why’s the federal bureau horning in?”
“Not the Bureau. Me. And I’m here only as a friend of Ms. Nolan’s.”
“Huh.” The deputy regarded Headly skeptically, then addressed her. “Reason I called you, I thought you’d want to know that Dirk’s last name is Arneson. We’ve got him back there now talking to Wills.”
“Where did you find him?” Dawson asked.
“Here in Savannah. One of those temporary apartments that rents by the week, but a nice one.”
Amelia said, “Stef told me that he works on boats.”
“Electronics systems,” Tucker said. “Fancy, high-tech gizmos. We’re running down his current employer to check that out.”
Sizzling through her mind was the word electronics, which was closely related to Jeremy’s field of expertise. She saw that Dawson had picked up on that, too. He had planted in her mind the possibly that Jeremy was alive and posing as Dirk. If that was true, just knowing that he was under the same roof was making it hard for her to breathe.
Headly asked, “Did he have identification?”
“Florida driver’s license, an insurance card for a 2009 Ford pickup, one credit card, one gas card. All legit and nothing overdue.”
“Has he been cooperative?” Dawson asked.
“More or less. Arresting deputies said he gave them some attitude. Probably because there’s an outstanding warrant for him in Florida.”
“For what?”
“Parking tickets.”
“Parking tickets?”
The detective gave Dawson a look. “What? You were expecting something else?”
“Weren’t you?”
Tucker merely shrugged. “When the deputies told him that parking violations weren’t the issue, he claimed not to know why we wanted to talk to him.”
“He denied knowing Stef?” Dawson asked.
“No. He admits to hooking up with her a couple of times, but swears that until the deputies told him, he didn’t even know that she was dead.”
“It’s been on the news,” Dawson said.
“We pointed that out to him. Still claims he hadn’t heard anything about it. He also provided an alibi for the night she was killed. Says he and a couple other guys have been working on a yacht that’s tied up over there on Saint Nelda’s south dock. But the day Miss DeMarco was killed, they hadn’t gone to the island, on account of the storm. They were afraid they wouldn’t be able to get back, and they had nowhere to stay out there. He says that at the estimated time of her death he was playing poker with his friends in his apartment. He gave us their names. We’re trying to track them down, but he tells us they went to New Orleans yesterday for another job.”
“A poker night with suddenly absent friends?”
For once the deputy agreed with Dawson. “I hear ya. We talked to the captain of the ferry that goes out to Saint Nelda’s. From the description we gave him, he knew right off who we were talking about. Says he’s carried him back and forth many times.
“But he can’t remember if Dirk was a passenger on the ferry on Sunday. Because of the weather, he had his hands full piloting the thing before they shut down ferry service altogether. He can’t swear one way or another whether he hauled Dirk that day or not.
“And, too, the owners of that yacht are in North Carolina. Dirk had access to it, and he knows how to pilot it, even in bad weather, because he installed all the safety geegaws.”
“You’re saying he might not have needed the ferry to get himself to the island and back.”
“Righto. We’re looking at him hard,” Tucker said. “He admits to being sort of a drifter, moving from job to job along the East Coast. His ‘permanent address’ is a post office box in Florida.”
Amelia, Dawson, and Headly exchanged a look. Dawson came back to Tucker. “Does he have any kind of scar on his head?”
“Scar?”
“A patch of hair missing. Like he suffered a serious wound.”
“The hell you talking about?”
Before Dawson was forced to explain the reason for his question, Headly intervened. “Ms. Nolan doesn’t know Dirk by name, but she may recognize him by sight. If so, it could have some bearing on your investigation. Can she take a look?”
Tucker motioned them toward the door. “Any help we can get.”
She said, “I don’t want him to see me.”
“He won’t. He’s in an interrogation room. There’s a one-way window.”
The four went through the door that opened into a large squad room furnished with work stations partitioned off from one another. A few personnel were about, doing various things. They all stopped what they were doing and watched them traverse the room. Tucker led them out of that room and into a sterile corridor. They made a left turn into another seemingly endless corridor identical to the first.
Tucker, in step with Amelia, asked, “Did Miss DeMarco seem to welcome his attentions?”
“From what I gather, yes,” Amelia replied. “She always looked forward to meeting him.”
“Did she ever tell you where their dates took place?”
“Mickey’s is the only night spot on Saint Nelda’s.”
“For that reason, we started there. Neither Mickey nor any of his employees ever remember seeing her there with a guy fitting his description.”
Amelia shook her head in puzzlement. “I don’t know where else they would have spent time.”
“Our guess: the yacht. It’s snazzy. He probably wanted to impress her. But when we asked him if he’d ever entertained her on the boat, he denied it. I figure because he doesn’t want to lose his job. If his alibi doesn’t pan out, we’ll get a search warrant.” Absorbed in thought, he stroked his cheek. “Her purse was left behind with cash and credit cards. She wasn’t sexually assaulted.”
“You’re wondering about Dirk’s motive,” Dawson said.
“His or whoever’s. To have delivered a blow that vicious, the perp wanted her dead, no question. But we haven’t determined why.” He motioned them through another turn. “Almost there.”
He went ahead of them and stopped in front of a door with a square window in the top half of it. In order to reach it, Amelia had to take what seemed the longest walk of her life. Then, for several moments after coming even with the door, she couldn’t bring herself to look.
Finally, Tucker prompted her. “Ms. Nolan? Do you recognize him?”
She took a deep breath and turned her head toward the window.
He was sitting at a table, talking to Deputy Wills. Just as Stef had described him, he had a beard. Elaborate tattoos extended from his wrists up into the short sleeves of his shirt. His hair was buzzed so short, it showed up as more of a shadow over his scalp.
She fell back against the wall and expelled a gust of breath. “It’s not him.”
Dawson and Headly moved up to the window to take a look.
Tucker was completely flummoxed. “Not who? Who’d you expect?”
Feeling profoundly foolish, she stammered, “I thought…thought if I saw him, I might recognize him, but I’m sorry, I don’t. I’ve never seen this man before. I apologize for wasting your time, Deputy Tucker. But, please, keep me informed on the progress of your investigation. I want you to catch the person who killed Stef.”
“We’ll catch him.” He hitched his thumb toward the one-way window. “Maybe we already have. We combed Miss DeMarco’s clothing and your car for trace evidence. Collected some. Everything’s been sent to the lab.”
“A lot of people have ridden in my car. I have two little boys who track things in.”
“I’m aware of that. Would you be opposed to supplying us with hair, saliva swabs from the three of you?”
“Of course not.”
He looked at Dawson. “You, too.”
Dawson held up his hands in surrender. “Anytime.”
“May not be necessary,” Tucker said, somewhat grudgingly. “I’ll let you know.” Coming back to Amelia, he said, “I hate that you’re being put through this. Especially after, well, I know what you went through when…Your husband, and all. You testified at Strong’s trial this morning, right?”
“Yes. It’s over now.” She paused a beat. “I don’t think I can find my way out.”
He took the hint, and they retraced their path through the intersecting corridors. Tucker went as far as the lobby door with them. Holding it for her, he thanked her again for coming. With escape in mind, she walked toward the exit. Dawson stayed even with her. Headly followed.
Dawson’s theory had been debunked. The possibility of Jeremy’s still being alive was just so much hooey. Dirk Arneson wasn’t a reincarnation of Jeremy. Jeremy hadn’t seduced and then murdered Stef. He hadn’t lifted photos from beneath her doormat or repaired a beach ball. He wasn’t monitoring her every move. He wasn’t a threat. He was dead. It was preposterous to think otherwise.
So why didn’t she feel vastly relieved?
Because even though the matter should have been settled the instant she laid eyes on Dirk Arneson, it didn’t feel settled. Instinctively she knew there was something she was missing. Something vital. She felt it simmering between the two men, who were talking to each other in a furtive manner that made her pause just as she was about to push open the exit door.
&n
bsp; She caught Headly asking Dawson, “Disappointed or glad?”
“You tell me. They’re your obsession.”
Abruptly she turned to face them. They drew up short and ceased talking. She gave each of them a hard look, growing angrier with each loud tick of Dawson’s saucer-sized wristwatch. Looking him square in the eye, she said, “It’s time you explained to me just what the hell is going on.”
Chapter 15
Dawson and Headly followed her in Headly’s rental car to a restaurant that was preparing for its lunch trade. A line had already formed for people who desired tables, but they secured a small round one in the bar, which was separate from the restaurant. It was quieter and dimly lighted. The darkness provided a sense of privacy and fit their somber mood.
Amelia and Headly ordered iced tea. “Bourbon on the rocks,” Dawson told the waitress, and when she moved away to fill the order, he read the censure in two pairs of eyes. “I went cold turkey on the pills. Cut me some slack.”
No one said anything until after they’d been served. Headly stirred two packets of artificial sweetener into his tea. Dawson rattled the ice in his drink, then took a sip. He noticed that Amelia didn’t touch her glass, but kept her hands clasped together in her lap as though holding on for dear life. In that small, quiet way, she was bracing herself. Dawson doubted the measure would be sufficient for what was coming.
Headly folded his forearms on the edge of the table and leaned slightly toward her. “Have you ever heard of Golden Branch, Oregon?”
“No.”
“The shootout there in ’76?”
“Shootout?”
“Between several law enforcement agencies and members of a radical group called Rangers of Righteousness.”
“I think I’ve heard of them. Domestic terrorists?”
“Precisely. We went to Golden Branch to serve several arrest warrants. It resulted in disaster. Seven people died. Two lawmen, five members of the group. The first one to die was a deputy US marshal. He was standing no more than a yard away from me when he took a bullet in the throat.”