Deadline

by Sandra Brown

  But the Nolans lived in a rarified society that had intimidated him as an enemy target never had. The guidelines of southern gentility hadn’t been written down in any book, yet everyone in the Nolans’ circle seemed to know and understand them. Often, he’d reconsidered the choice of whom he should court with a goal toward marrying. He’d thought perhaps the bar should be lowered a notch or two.

  However, to his amazement, his gauche bumbles had made him more lovable to Amelia, not less. He was different from the beaux she was accustomed to, and that was his allure. His etiquette missteps appealed to her rather than appalled. Once he realized that, he’d played into the role and became a puppy, whose efforts were ardent if clumsy and who was eager to win favor.

  The ruse backfired somewhat, because her unqualified acceptance had made him fall in love with her. A little. Much more than he’d bargained on. He’d expected never to feel anything except contempt for her and everything she represented—the wealthy, rapacious, greedy, soul-stripping aristocracy of the US of A.

  Often he’d wished she didn’t love him so much. If she’d been judgmental and critical, if she’d patronized him, if she’d been intolerant of his postwar condition rather than extremely concerned, it would have made the mission easier. His goal had been to break her, not to break her heart.

  He’d also wanted to despise with a passion his father-in-law and his patriotic, flag-waving idiocy. He’d scorned the statesman’s politics and the government he represented, but he’d discovered that it was hard to work up that level of antipathy for the man himself. Nolan was a fair-thinking, generous gentleman.

  But the hardest act of all was the evolution of a loving daddy into a drunken, abusive brute that his sons feared. They’d gone from running toward him, arms raised, all smiles because he was home, to cowering whenever he walked into a room and cringing at his raised voice. He had a lot to make up to them.

  Soon he would.

  After all these years, the goal was days away from being achieved. Willard Strong would be convicted of killing Darlene, and, by extension, Jeremy Wesson. After that, he could wage his private war with impunity. He could wreak havoc in all fifty states, and nobody would be looking for a dead man.

  There was one hitch that needed to be ironed out.

  He’d been shocked to learn that the woman found dead behind Mickey’s wasn’t Amelia. Jesus, he still couldn’t believe he’d mistaken another woman for her.

  The day of the storm, the ocean had become so choppy, he’d decided against going all the way back to Savannah, and instead had docked the boat on Saint Nelda’s. He hadn’t been to the island that much, so he wasn’t concerned about being recognized.

  If he happened to cross paths with someone who’d known Jeremy Wesson, it was still unlikely they’d see through the thick beard that covered the lower third of his face, or beyond the cap he wore to cover the patch of missing scalp he’d sliced off himself and tossed into that dog pen. In the fifteen months he’d been in hiding, he’d also put on thirty pounds.

  So when he tied up at Saint Nelda’s pier during the downpour, he hadn’t felt in danger of being discovered. He’d been standing inside the wheelhouse of the boat, drinking a cup of coffee and staring out at the water-logged village, when he spotted her.

  The rain had been like a curtain, and it was well past dark. She might have gone unnoticed if not for the raincoat. That loud, ugly rain slicker Amelia had bought in Charleston was hard to miss, even in the feeble glow of light coming through the windows of the general store.

  For the four hundred and eighty-something days since he’d left those damn dogs fighting over Darlene’s remains, he’d been biding his time until he could remove Amelia and reclaim his sons. It would have been lunacy to attempt anything as bold as kidnapping Hunter and Grant while Amelia remained a key factor in Willard’s trial and was frequently the subject of news stories. Besides, he knew that her testimony would help convict Willard, and he hadn’t wanted to hamper that.

  But over those boring days and lonely nights, he’d contemplated several scenarios, thinking hard about how he would bring about her removal when the time was right. He searched for an option other than death, because…Well, just because.

  There was such a thing as overplanning, however. Sometimes one could miss an opportunity while strategizing. When a plum was dropped into your lap, it was practically obligatory to accept the gift from Fate, wasn’t it?

  Reclaiming his sons would be more easily accomplished with their mother permanently out of the picture. The unfairness of that could be contemplated later. But at that moment in time, he had to act.

  He’d set his coffee aside, secured a ball-peen hammer from the toolbox, and tucked it inside his own slicker. A man making a mad dash through pelting rain wouldn’t arouse suspicion. But it didn’t matter, because he made it to the parking lot behind Mickey’s without anyone seeing him.

  He’d hunkered behind the Dumpster to wait.

  But—damn it all—when she emerged from the store, the guy was with her, the one who’d been playing on the beach with his kids, the tall, rangy stranger with whom Amelia had sat on her porch the night before, in side-by-side rocking chairs, drinking wine.

  Heads down, they ran to her car. He could hear them laughing as they dodged puddles. The guy opened the car’s rear door and stowed her purchases in the footwell. She opened the passenger door and tossed her purse onto the seat. They exchanged a brief good-bye, then he jogged away, back toward the store.

  As she was making her way around the rear of the car, she dropped her keys. She bent down to pick them up. He seized the moment. He didn’t think of her face, her eyes, the body he’d made love to. He didn’t think of her kind nature, her musical laugh, or her cute frown of concentration. He thought nothing of her humanity. She was a target, like the dozens he’d taken out in Iraq and Afghanistan from hundreds of yards away. She had to go. That’s all there was to it.

  He heard the sound, felt the give, when the hammer breached her skull, only fractionally impeded by the hood of the slicker.

  Never knowing what hit her, she fell face-first into the mud. He took her by the ankle and dragged her behind the Dumpster. He straightened the hood over her head. Then he ran back to the boat. It had been remarkably easy and quick. His coffee hadn’t even gone cold.

  Dawson Scott was the name of the guy who’d almost spoiled it. He was a hotshot writer for a magazine. Jeremy had heard all about him this morning while he was eating a tall stack with a side of sausage at a truck stop off I-95. He was sitting at the counter, so he could see the TV mounted up on the wall above it.

  The sheriff’s-office spokesman was coy, but, when pressed by reporters, told them that Dawson Scott had been held in jail overnight and was still a person of interest in the girl’s murder. It had been all Jeremy could do to keep from laughing out loud.

  Investigators were also questioning some other guy. Jeremy couldn’t remember his name, but it was inconsequential. What mattered was that one person they were not looking for was the late Jeremy Wesson.

  He’d feel damn good about things if not for that one hitch: he’d have to figure out something else for Amelia.

  He was looking forward to the day when he could leave this cabin, with its moldy walls, saggy bed, clanking generator, and cookstove that smelled of propane even when not in use. Every critter in South Carolina seemed to find its way inside. He couldn’t even identify most of the scat he had to sweep up every time he returned to the cabin.

  Its one redeeming feature was that nobody knew it was here.

  Which was why, as soon as he turned off the radio and heard the light thump, indicating that somebody had stepped onto the porch, he acted reflexively. A yank on the dirty string killed the single ceiling light. Moving soundlessly and efficiently across the buckled hardwood floor, he slid the pistol from his waistband and flattened himself against the wall on the backside of the door.

  By habit, he kept a bullet chambered. The pistol w
as ready to fire. He raised it to chin height, held his breath, and waited.

  Jeremy heard the doorknob move fractionally. After that, nothing. But even without that telltale, almost inaudible metallic squeak, he would have known someone was on the other side of the door. He sensed a presence that signaled danger, and hell if he was going to wait and let some yokel deputy arrest him. Or try.

  He grabbed the doorknob, jerked the door open, and thrust his gun hand forward. The bore of his pistol came to within an inch of the other man’s forehead.

  Jeremy’s breath whooshed out and his arm dropped to his side. “Hell, Daddy, I almost shot you.”

  * * *

  Looking harried, Headly blustered into the kitchen through the utility-room door. Taking in the scene, he noticed the empty candy wrapper on the table. “Got any more Hershey’s?”

  Dawson said, “Fresh out.”

  Amelia offered to make him a cup of hot chocolate.

  “That would be great, thanks.”

  He pulled a chair from beneath the table and sat down. “How are you?”

  He’d addressed the question to Dawson, who raised his shoulders in a laconic shrug. “Fine. Why do you keep asking?”

  Headly opened his mouth as though to answer, then seemed to think better of it. He turned to Amelia instead and asked about Hunter and Grant.

  “When they got here, they were keyed up. It took two storybooks to get them to sleep.”

  “I’m sure they were glad to have you tuck them in.”

  “Actually, Dawson read them to sleep.”

  Headly’s gaze swung back to Dawson and held until Dawson said querulously, “You barged in here like your hair was on fire. What’s up?”

  “The boat you noticed?” he said to her, nodding his thanks as she delivered his cocoa. “Coast Guard’s routine patrols made note of it because it stayed anchored just offshore for several days. But it was only a guy fishing, they said. Nothing suspicious. No interaction with other craft.”

  “Did they get the name of it?” Dawson asked.

  “CandyCane.” Headly paused as though waiting for an Ah-ha from one of them. “Nothing?” he asked, looking at her.

  “To my knowledge, Jeremy never did any boating and very little fishing.”

  “Where’s it registered?” Dawson asked.

  “Rhode Island. But to an owner who doesn’t exist.”

  Amelia exchanged a glance with Dawson and when she looked back at Headly, he continued.

  “We don’t know that Jeremy and the CandyCane are connected, and we won’t until we find it. But it fits. It was offshore and in sight of your house for days, during which time creepy stuff happened and you sensed yourself being watched. And…” He paused and sipped from his mug of chocolate. “It docked at Saint Nelda’s pier on Sunday evening.”

  “Walking distance from where Stef was murdered,” Dawson said.

  “The guy who tends the gas pumps ran out to tell the boater that he was out of luck if he needed fueling. The power was out, so the pumps were shut down.”

  “I must have been his last customer,” Dawson remarked.

  “You were. He confirmed that to Tucker. Anyhow, the boater—only person onboard as far as the gas guy could tell—said he was just waiting out the storm.”

  “Did the gas guy note what time the boat pulled out?”

  “No. He closed down and retreated to his one-room apartment behind the bait shop. He says he curled up with a book and a Coleman lantern, read for a while, then went to bed. The CandyCane was gone the next morning. That’s all he knows. But I doubt Jeremy hung around for long after killing the girl.”

  Every time Amelia heard words to that effect, they jarred her. She was functioning as she must, speaking her lines correctly, but whenever Jeremy was cited as Stef’s murderer, she underwent a cruel reality check. She was still finding it impossible to accept.

  It had been a crime of such deliberate but detached violence, she tried to imagine it of the sweetly smiling man with whom she’d exchanged wedding vows, who’d held Hunter for the first time with endearing awkwardness, who’d swung Grant in his arms until he’d squealed with delight.

  In her mind these images of Jeremy the husband and father, and Jeremy the killer, were irreconcilable. It was even hard to imagine that level of depravity from the man she had fled the night he struck her.

  How many faces had Jeremy worn? Which was the real Jeremy? Would she ever know? Did she want to?

  Her mind came back to the present and to Dawson, who was asking Headly why Tucker hadn’t bothered to ask before now about boats that had docked at Saint Nelda’s on Sunday.

  “He did. People who live or work around the dock were canvassed. The gas guy mentioned the CandyCane, but Tucker didn’t follow up because he didn’t think he needed to. You and Arneson were better prospects.”

  Amelia asked, “What did this boater look like?”

  “Stocky, full beard.”

  “Stocky doesn’t sound like Jeremy.”

  “Weight gain is as easy as growing a beard,” Dawson said. “It just takes longer, and he’s had time.”

  Headly finished his hot chocolate and pushed the mug aside so he could lean forward on the table. “Amelia, I need you to tell me every single thing you can possibly remember about him.”

  “I have.”

  “Not even close. You gotta dig. Friends, enemies, likes, dislikes, fears, phobias, people, places, and things, anything he ever mentioned to you, any name he ever dropped. A receipt you found on his dresser. Matchbook. Post-it note. Movie ticket. Itinerary.”

  “You’re talking about years,” she exclaimed.

  “I realize that. But he’s proven himself to be incredibly resourceful. He’s successfully faked his death for more than a year. He might have been shadowing you for all this time, and you never knew he was there. He wants his children and—”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “Then why isn’t he long gone from this area? Why did he kill a girl he didn’t even know unless he mistook her for you?”

  She looked at Dawson, who said, “You know what I think.”

  Yes. He had already argued these same points with her.

  “He wants his kids, Amelia,” Headly said gently. “And you’re an obstruction he must eliminate.”

  She hugged herself tightly. “You’re scaring me.”

  “You should be scared,” Dawson said. “You need to be. Because this guy is not screwing around, and if you ever doubt that, you only have to remember how viciously he killed Darlene and then Stef. Defenseless women. In cold blood. Think about that. Remember who his father was.”

  Thinking back to the photograph of Carl Wingert, which had held an inexplicable fascination for her, she recalled the ruthlessness that had defined his features. She pictured Jeremy as he’d looked during one of his rants, and while their facial features bore no resemblance, the intensity of their malevolence was identical.

  She exhaled and said with resignation, “Of course I’ll do whatever I can to protect my children.”

  Headly appeared satisfied. “With any luck, he’ll make a mistake and trip himself up. He did with the fingerprint. Same as Carl.” He chuckled. “The slippery bastard had never been fingerprinted, which was a major frustration to those of us trying to catch him.

  “That is, not until the late eighties when he used a homemade bomb to blow up a mail truck. First and last time he ever used explosives, because apparently he wasn’t very good with them. The thing went off as soon as Carl set it into place. It’s a wonder it didn’t kill him, but all he lost was his thumb and index finger. He also left the print of his middle finger on one of the bomb fragments. We didn’t—”

  He must have realized that both she and Dawson were gaping at him. Dawson hissed, “Son of a bitch.” Then he came out of his chair so suddenly it toppled backward. “Son of a bitch!”

  “What?” Headly demanded.

  She wheezed, “Which hand? Which hand is missing finger
s?”

  “The left.”

  She covered her gasp with her hand. Dawson spoke for her. “He’s Bernie.”

  Chapter 18

  Jesus, I can’t tell you how glad I am to be ditching this old geezer.”

  Carl pulled the loud pink shirt over his head, balled it up, and tossed it into the trash can. He popped a pair of contacts out of his eyes and sighed with relief. “Hate those damn things.” The contacts went the way of the shirt. They wouldn’t be needed again. Bernie wouldn’t be needed again.

  Jeremy took two beers from the rusty refrigerator, twisted off the caps, and passed one to his father. “I didn’t expect you until tomorrow.”

  “I didn’t expect to leave the island until tomorrow, but things were getting too hot over there.” As he exchanged plaid Bermuda shorts for a pair of khaki pants, he told Jeremy about the deputies who’d been at Amelia’s house earlier that day.

  “Why so nervous? They weren’t looking for you.”

  His son’s amusement annoyed him. “I haven’t escaped capture this long by being careless. Cops get close, I get as far away as possible as soon as possible.”

  “You went to the writer’s house on Monday morning while the cops were there.”

  “Ordinarily I wouldn’t have gone anywhere near the place. But then you had gone and killed the wrong woman. Here you had crowed in my ear—by the way, you weren’t supposed to call me.”

  “I’ve explained about burner phones, Daddy. They can’t be traced.”

  “I don’t trust them. None of that technology shit. Don’t use the phone again. Anyway, you boasted that you’d killed Amelia. Next thing I know, Dawson Scott is at my back door and Amelia is cozied up in the passenger seat of his car! The following morning, I had to go over there to see what was what. For all I knew, they were telling her that her supposedly late ex-husband had killed her nanny.”

  “A dead man can’t be suspected of murder.”