Deadline

by Sandra Brown

  “He gives me the creeps.”

  He laughed. “I meant Dawson. Or does he give you the creeps?”

  “Oh. Dawson.”

  Headly waited her out, and she was the first to look away. Taking her foot off the brake pedal, she rolled forward only a few yards before having to stop again. “Dawson and I didn’t get off to a great start. Did he tell you about our initial meeting?”

  “He began playing with the boys on the beach. Things went from there.”

  “More or less,” she murmured.

  “Huh. More, I think.”

  When she said nothing, he chuckled. “Okay. Keep that story to yourselves. Back to my original question.”

  “What do I think of him? In what way?”

  “In any way.”

  “He’s good with the boys.”

  “Surprisingly.”

  “Why?”

  “He has no former experience with kids. He was raised an only child. He was around our daughter, Sarah, a lot, but she’s a few years older, so they squabbled as much as they played.” He told her that Sarah was married and living in London.

  “Children?”

  “Not yet. My wife drops hints about as subtle as crashing meteorites.”

  Amelia laughed. “In the meantime Dawson receives parental doting from you and Mrs. Headly.”

  “Which he resists, of course.”

  Temporarily stopped in the logjam, she looked at him. “Why ‘of course’?”

  “The detachment that makes him a good journalist carries over into his personal life. He sets himself apart, sees himself only as an observer, a loner. That’s why he’s never married. Why he hasn’t even come close.”

  She gave him an arch look. “Mind you, I didn’t ask.”

  “No, but I figured you wanted to know.” He grinned at her and winked. “Oh, there have been a few women who stayed on longer than others. A couple of them were lovely ladies, who met Eva’s rigid standards. But even with them, once things got too warm and fuzzy, he called it quits.”

  “Commitment issues are common. Especially for a man who’s a loner.”

  “I didn’t say he was a loner.”

  She looked at him with puzzlement. “You just did.”

  “I said he sees himself as a loner.”

  “What’s the difference?”

  “His true nature. Would a natural-born loner have gravitated to your children the way he has?”

  “Wait.” She held up her hand, wanting to understand. “You’re saying Dawson fights his natural tendencies?”

  “With a vengeance.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s a defense mechanism.”

  “Against what?”

  “You’ll have to ask him.” He held her gaze for several beats, then called her attention to the traffic. “You have an opening.” Once past the fender bender, he continued. “When you’ve exhausted that subject, ask him what happened in Afghanistan.”

  “I have. He refused to talk about it. You?”

  “The same.”

  “I witnessed him in the throes of a nightmare. We weren’t sleeping together,” she added hastily.

  “Mind you, I didn’t ask,” he said, throwing her words back at her.

  She gave him a smile of chagrin, then turned serious again. “I heard him crying out and went to check. He was in quite a state. Visibly tormented. He woke up screaming. Like Jeremy used to do. Except…”

  “What?”

  “Dawson was drenched with sweat and trembling. Even after he was fully awake and aware of his surroundings, it took him several minutes to recover. He experienced the horror of the nightmare physically and emotionally. After seeing him that way, I believe Jeremy was faking.”

  “The nightmares?”

  “All of it. I think he was only pretending to suffer from post-traumatic stress. If so, that’s yet another betrayal, isn’t it? They’re adding up.”

  “Amelia.” Headly spoke her name quietly. When she turned her head toward him, he said, “Dawson isn’t like Jeremy. Not in any respect.”

  That reassurance, coming from someone who knew him well, was what she’d needed and wanted. They drove the rest of the way to the jail without further comment. But as they approached the visitation center, she said, “He’s not out front.”

  “That’s a good sign. The longer he’s able to talk to Willard, the better his chances of obtaining information. Park and let’s wait inside, where it’s cooler.”

  * * *

  It was a full half hour before Dawson reunited with them in the lobby of the center. Headly reached him first. “Well?”

  “Gleason was four square against it, but he finally caved.”

  “You saw Willard?” Amelia asked.

  “Ten minutes on webcam, but I might have got something. He was all attitude at first, but when I told him I thought Jeremy was still alive, and that it was he, not Willard, who had killed Darlene, he grew considerably more cooperative.” He smiled grimly as he crossed his index and middle fingers. “We’re like this now.”

  “Congratulations,” Headly said. “Skip to the good part.”

  “I don’t know how good or reliable it is. It’s not like Willard has won my unqualified trust. But when I asked him if he knew about a place that Jeremy might run to, he didn’t even have to search his memory. Which lends credibility to what he told me. Once, when he and Jeremy were out at the dog pens, Jeremy made an unflattering comment about the shack. He said something to the effect that it made his look like a Hilton.”

  “His shack?”

  Dawson shrugged. “Willard couldn’t be more specific, because when he asked Jeremy for details, he blew it off. What he had meant to say was that if he had a place like that, it would be better than the shit hole Willard had.

  “However, Willard is convinced that it was a slip of the tongue, something Jeremy hadn’t intended to mention, but when he did, he tried to talk his way out of it. Do you know of any such place?” he asked Amelia.

  She shook her head dejectedly. “If Jeremy owned anything like that, I’m unaware of it.”

  “Fishing cabin, deer blind, hut, boathouse, cowshed?”

  “I don’t know of anything.”

  Headly made a sound of disgust. “The whole thing sounds far-fetched. I think Willard is pretending to remember something that was never said. Or telling you tales to amuse himself.”

  “Or something he knows I want to hear,” Dawson said. “I asked him why he didn’t tell the cops about this conversation when they were searching kingdom come for Jeremy or his remains. He said he did tell them, but, to his knowledge, nobody acted on the information. They were searching the marsh for a decomposing body, not a shack with a living Jeremy inside.”

  Headly dragged his hand down his face, stretching the skin. “A shack that may or may not exist, and if it does, it could be anywhere in the forty-eight contiguous states.”

  “South Carolina.”

  Dawson and Headly looked at Amelia, who’d spoken as though thinking out loud. Realizing that she had their attention, she said, “I found a speeding ticket on our closet floor. It must have fallen out of a pocket when he hung up his clothes. I noticed it had been issued in South Carolina, so I asked him about it.”

  “When was this?”

  “Shortly before we separated. He’d already made Willard’s acquaintance, and even then I wasn’t keen on this new friendship. I hoped he’d gone to Beaufort to visit some of his old friends from Parris Island and the naval air station.

  “When I showed him the ticket, he became irrationally furious. That’s why I remember it. He took it from me, tore it into pieces, and threw them away. He cursed me for meddling and told me to mind my own business. Obviously I’d hit on something he didn’t want me to know about. I suspected it was another woman. But perhaps…” She trailed off to let them draw their own conclusion.

  Dawson looked at Headly and shrugged. “It’s something.”

  Energized, they started toward
the exit. Headly said, “With Jeremy’s Social Security number, the DMV over there should be able to look up the ticket. Once we know where it was issued, we’ll have a starting point to begin a search. I’ll get Knutz on that.”

  He punched a number into his phone. Dawson held the door and allowed Amelia and Headly to precede him. They emerged into the bright sunlight and headed toward the parking lot.

  Headly, phone to his ear, turned his head to say something to Dawson from over his shoulder when suddenly a strange expression came over his face. Then his eyes went completely blank.

  Dawson’s brain processed instantly what that vacant look signified, even as Headly’s knees folded beneath him and he toppled forward. Dawson gave a shout of horror and outrage as he pushed Amelia to the sidewalk and followed her down.

  The second bullet missed her by a hairbreadth.

  The one intended for Headly had found its mark.

  Chapter 22

  Carl Wingert was one of the few criminals in American history who had the gall to bring the fight to the authorities.

  He and Jeremy had spent hours on the roof of a seven-story office building that, due to the recession, had run out of renters. The management company had gone bankrupt, and after being foreclosed upon, the building had stood empty and neglected.

  Situated in an industrial park where other businesses had similarly succumbed to the bad economy, it was a quarter mile away from the jail complex. In between was a four-lane thoroughfare divided by a wide median planted with crepe myrtle trees.

  Trees presented a problem in general, but from that roof, one of the tallest in the whole area, Jeremy could have taken several clear shots. Partially obscured by a ventilation shaft, they’d waited for an opportunity to strike FBI agent Gary Headly where and when he would least expect it.

  The playing field had changed for Carl the instant he saw Headly in the photograph. The only reason the veteran agent would be here in Savannah working in conjunction with the sheriff’s office to solve the Stephanie DeMarco murder case was because Jeremy had been linked to the homicide and, even more damning, to Carl Wingert.

  The authorities hadn’t publicly declared that Jeremy was indeed alive and the suspected culprit, or that he had a direct bloodline to a notorious fugitive from justice, but Carl knew that those dots of information had been connected. That was the only explanation for Headly’s involvement.

  Whether or not Headly had linked him to Bernie Clarkson, he didn’t know. But even if he hadn’t, he would still be hot on Jeremy’s trail if only because he was Carl’s son. Either way, Carl resolved not to wait on the agent to find him. No, by God. The guy wanted him, the guy was going to get him. Just not in the way he planned on it.

  Carl had reasoned that sooner or later Headly would show up at the sheriff’s office to confer with the blubber-gutted deputy and that when he did, Jeremy could pick him off, even from that distance.

  The assassination of an FBI agent on the campus of the sheriff’s office and jail complex would create chaos. Panic and confusion would ensue. Before anyone figured out from which direction the fatal bullet had come, he and Jeremy would be long gone.

  The plan had the stamp of Carl Wingert all over it. It was just audacious enough to work. Certainly there was an element of risk, but it was low enough that Carl was willing to take it in order to rid himself of his nemesis. By doing so, he would also let the rotten American society know that Carl wasn’t done with it quite yet. He may be old, but he was still a fear-worthy entity, a force to be reckoned with.

  He regretted not having taken a bold action such as this decades ago, and blamed Flora and her whining for his years of inactivity. So his resentment toward Headly had had decades in which to ferment, and it now made his revenge even sweeter.

  The hours they’d spent waiting on the roof for Headly to appear had given Jeremy time to assess the conditions, do his calculations, and practice his aim on uniformed personnel and visitors to the sheriff’s office and jail who entered and exited the various buildings on their various errands, little knowing that they were in his crosshairs.

  Jeremy needed no coaching, but Carl kept up a stream of instruction. “You’ll have one chance to take him out, possibly two, but no more before they hear the report. Within seconds, we need to be on the fire stairs.”

  When the time came, Jeremy was mentally primed. All he had to do was make the shot. Carl, who’d been watching the complex through binoculars, recognized Amelia’s car when it wheeled up to the entrance of the visitation center. He reported this to Jeremy. “See her?”

  “On the car,” Jeremy said, his voice tense with concentration.

  “This could be it.”

  But it wasn’t. Dawson Scott alighted and went into the building alone, and while Jeremy would have loved nothing better than to blow him away, he hadn’t had a clear shot, and besides, Dawson Scott wasn’t today’s target.

  Amelia drove away. They waited, ate energy bars, drank from water bottles. Going on two hours later, Amelia returned and parked. This time she and “Guess-fucking-who,” Carl chuckled, parked and went inside. “Got to come out sometime. Set up, son.”

  This time the wait was short. Amelia was the first one out. Headly right behind her, his phone to his ear.

  “Got him?” Carl asked Jeremy.

  “Roger Dodger.”

  But just as Jeremy squeezed the trigger, the agent turned to speak over his shoulder. Carl, who was expecting to see the agent’s head explode, cursed when he collapsed and fell, cranium intact. “Not a head shot, but he’s down. Let’s go!”

  The binoculars hung from his neck by a cord, so his hands were free to grab the tripod as choreographed. Jeremy retrieved two shell casings. The shots had come in such rapid succession, Carl hadn’t realized Jeremy had fired a second time. “Amelia?”

  “Missed her.”

  Carl didn’t waste time on disappointment. There would be another occasion for Amelia. As for Headly, if he wasn’t dead, he was ruined.

  The two of them jogged across the gravel roof and squeezed through the heavy metal door that had given them access to it. Their footsteps echoed loudly in the enclosed stairwell, but there was no one to hear them as they descended through the deserted building. Jeremy was carrying the rifle, but he could still move with more speed and alacrity than Carl, whose hips pained him with every tread.

  Jeremy asked if he needed to take a sec to rest. Carl shoved him aside and went past him. “You’ll have trouble keeping up with me, sonny.”

  As though to underscore their need for haste, the wail of sirens reached them through the exterior walls.

  “Christ, that was fast,” Jeremy said.

  “Don’t think about them. Just keep moving.”

  By the time they reached the ground floor, both were laboring to catch their breath. They left the building through the back door by which they’d entered after destroying the lock. Jeremy opened the rear door of his car and was carefully placing the rifle in the floorboard behind the driver’s seat when a patrol car, running hot, lights flashing, turned into the alley between the abandoned building and its vacant neighbor. It screeched to a halt about ten yards away from them.

  “Stay calm,” Carl said, instantly adapting the persona of Bernie Clarkson.

  The officer behind the wheel was middle-aged, which told Carl a lot about him, namely that he wasn’t the sharpest of cops or he wouldn’t still be on routine patrol. He clambered out while unsnapping the holster on his right hip.

  “Put your hands where I can see them!” He worked the pistol out of the holster and aimed it at them in turn.

  “What’s going on, officer?” Carl asked in Bernie’s age-rusty voice.

  He shouted, “Come out from behind that door! Hands up!”

  Jeremy eased away from the open door of the backseat and, along with Carl, raised his hands shoulder high. “What are all the sirens—”

  “Who are you? What are you doing here?”

  “As of this m
orning, we’ve leased this building for our medical supply company,” Jeremy said. “Came to check it out, see if the utilities had been turned on yet. We were just about to leave when those sirens started screaming.”

  Carl asked, “Was there a robbery in the area?”

  The officer’s eyes sawed between them. “Stay where you are.” He reached for the transmitter clipped to his shoulder.

  “Daddy?” Jeremy said.

  “Got him.” Carl yanked a pistol from his waistband at the small of his back and pulled the trigger only once. The cop went down. “They never learn.”

  Shooting a cop hadn’t been part of their plan. Jeremy said, “We need to get out of here now.” He turned to close the car’s rear door.

  Carl hobbled around the front of the car to the passenger side and was halfway in when he heard the crack. It was still several seconds before he realized that the policeman, lying crumpled on the pavement with a pool of blood forming beneath him, had managed to get off a shot.

  That infuriated Carl. He walked over to him, bent down, and jammed the barrel of his pistol against the officer’s temple. Looking into his fear-stricken eyes, he smiled. “Impress the devil. Tell him you got killed by Carl Wingert.”

  He left the body and the car where they were, but made note of the name on the tag pinned to the officer’s uniform and yanked the squawking police radio from off his belt.

  Jeremy was behind the steering wheel with the motor running by the time Carl slid into the passenger seat. “Drive toward the bridge. Easy like.”

  He jacked up the volume of the radio and had listened for several minutes before anyone tried to contact the officer he’d killed. Muffling his voice, he said, “Nothing moving over here.” The dispatcher gave the officer new instructions, which Carl acknowledged, then switched off. “We should be miles away before they start looking for him.” When Jeremy didn’t respond, he looked over at him. He was sweaty and grim-faced, focused on his driving.

  Then Carl noticed that his hand was flattened against his right side. Blood was leaking between his fingers. “Jesus! He hit you with that shot?”