by Sandra Brown
“Don’t be sorry,” Headly said. She was about to lose it, and he knew that if he applied the pressure he wanted to, she would probably collapse and he’d get nothing more from her. Gentling his tone, he said, “Did you get his name?”
She shook her head.
“Did he tell you where he lived?”
“No.”
“Where he was going?”
“He…he was taking flowers to a sick friend and had gotten off on the wrong floor.”
Like hell a sick friend, Headly thought. He’d been reconnoitering the hospital. “You’re doing great, sweetheart. Now, start at the beginning and tell me exactly what you said, what he said, as best as you can remember.”
She recounted the conversation in stops and starts but without folding completely. “He…I don’t know how to describe it.”
Headly pounced on her hesitancy. “Describe what? He what?”
“He perked up some when I told him that Dawson Scott was your godson. You know? Like a light came on.”
Headly shot a glance toward Eva, who was holding out her phone, looking as gut sick and every bit as fearful as Headly felt. “Straight to voice mail.”
* * *
“What a disappointment.” As Dawson spoke, he was looking into Amelia’s face, wanting it to be the last thing he saw before he died, not Carl Wingert’s gloating sneer.
But Carl didn’t pull the trigger. Dawson’s remark had piqued his curiosity just as he’d hoped it would. “Disappointment?”
Dawson shifted his gaze to the criminal. “I’m not sure you’re worth writing about, after all.”
“That’s why you went to the cabin? Hoping to get an interview with me?”
Dawson could tell the idea appealed to him. “With the famed Carl Wingert. I had to settle for an interview with Jeremy instead. Now I’m thinking maybe he was the better subject.”
“Awww. You’re hurting my feelings.”
“You’re just not that glamorous anymore, Carl. Killing me, killing Amelia. That’s your grand finale? Hate to tell you, but that’s a lame ending to your illustrious outlaw career.”
Without his white hair and bushy eyebrows to give him a benign mien, Carl’s smile was one of unmitigated evil. “Who says killing you will be my finale?”
“You think you’ll be able to shoot both of us, then waltz out of here?”
“Yep. The same way I waltzed in, while her guards were chatting up the girls working the desk. Nobody pays attention to an ailing senior citizen.”
“Clever disguise.”
“Don’t I know it.”
“But hardly razzle-dazzle.”
“I have other plans that don’t include you.”
“Hunter and Grant?” Speaking for the first time, Amelia asked tearfully, “Will you take them?”
“Hell, no. What would I want with a pair of kids?”
“But…but I thought that’s what all this was about. You and Jeremy staged his death so you could get the boys and no one would ever dream that their father had taken them.”
“That was Jeremy’s goal, not mine.”
“He’d have to love his grandsons to want them, Amelia,” Dawson said. “And he doesn’t love anybody.”
“I’ve got nothing against the boys.” He nudged Amelia. “Nothing personally against you, either.”
Dawson jumped on that. “Because her marriage to Jeremy, his faked PTSD, their divorce, were essential to the setup, right?” Keep him talking. Keep him distracted. Stoke his ego. Pray for a miracle.
“Right. You, Amelia dear, were instrumental at several stages. But I no longer need you. Thanks to Jeremy’s deathbed confession, that white-trash cretin has been exonerated.”
Dawson said, “If all had gone well, if the cop hadn’t shot Jeremy and Willard had gone to death row, you and Jeremy would have been free to wreak havoc. Was that the plan, Carl?”
“Point’s moot.”
“Yes, but just so I’m clear, how was it going to work exactly? Your eyesight is dicey, your hips are shot. My guess is that you would have stayed in the background and thought up ways to rob, destroy, and kill while Jeremy actually did all the work and took the risks. Am I warm?”
“What risks? It was perfect,” he boasted. “No one would have suspected a dead man of, say, blowing up a bus full of troops.”
“Hmm.” Dawson nodded his understanding of the concept. “But things got royally fouled up when Jeremy got antsy, overanxious, killed Stef, and left a fingerprint. That was a major uh-oh. Suddenly Jeremy Wesson isn’t dead anymore.”
Carl said nothing to that, but Dawson could tell he’d struck a nerve. Carl’s trigger finger was twitching.
Talk fast. “Jeremy didn’t have your smarts, Carl. He tried to be as ruthless as you, too, but in the end he developed a conscience. He died talking about his children. Lamenting the way he’d treated Amelia. With his last breath, he was crying over his mother.” Dawson watched Carl’s eyes. They remained implacable, the reptilian lids unblinking. “You killed her, didn’t you?”
“Too bad you didn’t write mysteries. You seem to have a flair for them.”
“How did she die, Carl?”
He replied querulously. “Pneumonia. If I was guessing. She had a cough that wouldn’t go away. Got worse. She was hacking up disgusting stuff. Complained of her chest hurting.”
“You wouldn’t let her get medical treatment.”
“She always had weak lungs. She’d recovered before.”
“But not this time. So you killed her.”
“I didn’t raise a hand to her. The disease killed her.”
“But you left her there, didn’t you? Left her in that cabin to die alone.”
“I had to go get supplies. I didn’t know she was going to be dead when I got back.”
“Sure you did, you gutless son of a bitch. Abandonment is your specialty. When the going gets tough, you run.”
He’d struck another nerve. Carl’s expression turned even harder, colder. And something else: defensive.
“I never left anybody who could have made it.”
“Jeremy could have. Flora could have.”
“You through?”
“One more question. Why us?”
“What?”
“Why kill us? Why aren’t you out blowing up a bus full of troops? My guess is that you’ve run out of steam. Without Jeremy, you’ve got no muscle. You’re all talk.”
“Is that your guess?” His malicious grin made Dawson’s blood run cold. “Well, you’re wrong. This is perfect. See? I kill you, I crush Headly.”
Dawson’s heart constricted. He thought, We’re dead, but he brazened it out. “Gary Headly? The FBI agent that Jeremy shot?”
Carl snickered at Dawson’s feigned indifference. “I thought about taking out that pretty wife of his, but that’s so predictable. Headly would expect that, which is why she’s guarded.” Again that chilling grin. “This is much better. His godson. I kill you, he’ll never get over it.”
“You’re right, if you kill me, Headly will grieve his heart out. But he’ll also have the last laugh on you.”
“Just for shits and giggles, what makes you think so?”
“Headly knows you inside and out, Carl.”
“I doubt it.”
“Close enough. He’s made studying you his life’s work. But to nail your character he actually needed only one day. The day before Thanksgiving 1976.”
Carl glared at him.
“Yeah, I thought that would ring a bell. Headly’s been on to you since Golden Branch. On that day, you revealed the caliber of man you are, and Headly’s opinion of you hasn’t wavered.”
“Like I care about his, or anyone’s, opinion of me.”
“How many bullets did that man take for you while you were running for your damn life?”
“He was going to die anyway.”
“We’ll never know.”
“He knew. He had a hole in his head, for chrissake. He volunteered to hold the
m off.”
“While you ran. How hard did Flora have to beg for you not to leave her and Jeremy behind?”
“I didn’t leave them though, did I?”
“But you wanted to.”
“She could barely walk. Blood all over the damn place. I had to bind her up in a sheet, and even then she left a trail.”
Like a potent narcotic, a slow rage was seeping through Dawson. He embraced it. He wanted it to saturate every cell. “During the standoff, and while you were escaping through the woods, how did you keep Jeremy from crying?”
“Doped him. Only way to shut him up.”
“You doped your son. How old was he?”
“Eleven months.”
Amelia started with surprise. Her lips parted in a silent exclamation.
Dawson registered her stunned reaction, but his gaze never flickered off Carl. “The newborn never made a sound.”
Carl snorted with contempt. “So they found it?”
“Headly did.”
“Figures.”
“When did Flora go into labor?”
“Around midnight. She was still at it when the cops showed up. It was a nasty business. Thought I was never going to get the thing out of her.”
“But you finally did.”
“Had to cram a towel in her mouth to keep her from screaming.”
“As soon as the baby was born, you stuffed it down through a hole in the floor.”
“First time I’ve thought about it since.”
His blasé dismissal of what he’d done was as shocking as the barbarous act itself.
Dawson swallowed bile and had to force himself to continue. “As they were searching the house—”
“They didn’t find me,” he said in singsong.
“But Headly found the baby in the crawl space.”
“What a frigging Boy Scout.”
“Barely alive. Still attached to the placenta.”
“You’re breaking my heart.”
“That’s when he knew you are an irredeemable sack of shit.”
“Who’s gonna kill you now.”
Carl pulled the trigger, but Dawson had anticipated it and dropped. The bullet missed him. Carl roared in outrage and flung Amelia out of his way as though she were a rag doll.
That was his undoing. She was the only reason the SWAT-team snipers on the neighboring roof hadn’t fired before then. Now they had a clear target. As the gunfire erupted, shattering window glass, Dawson lunged forward to cover her and keep her down. SWAT officers barged through the door.
It happened within seconds.
“Are you hit?” Dawson asked Amelia.
Dumbly she shook her head.
As the room filled with SWAT officers, he crab-walked over to Carl, who lay on his back staring at the ceiling, his eyes open, his slack features forming an incredulous expression. Dawson grabbed the front of his bloody shirt and yanked him into a sitting position. The man’s bald head wobbled on his neck.
Dawson shook him until his unfocused eyes found him. Teeth clenched, he said, “Look at me, old man. While you’re burning in hell, remember my face. I’m the other son you left to die.”
Diary of Flora Stimel—November 27, 1977
He would be a year old today. I woke up remembering what the date was, and it’s kept me sobbing all day.
Carl asked me what the hell was the matter, and when I reminded him that this was the anniversary of Golden Branch, I thought he was going take my head off. He got so mad, he stormed out of the room. (We’re in some crappy motel in Colorado that has a dusty cow head on the wall.)
It’s okay with me that Carl left. Jeremy’s been acting up. I guess what they say about the twos is right. They can be terrible. Jeremy was being noisy and restless, jumping on the bed, and getting on Carl’s nerves. My crying was aggravating him. So it’s just as well that he went somewhere to cool off. While he’s gone, I have a chance to write in this diary. I’m way behind.
This seems like a good day to pour my heart out. My heart that’s broken. Broken hearts truly do hurt. I didn’t know that for a fact until I had to leave my baby in that awful old house up in Oregon. Carl told me he was born dead. I’m not sure I believe him, but I never heard the baby cry, and I sorta hope it’s true, because then I don’t have to feel so guilty for running off and leaving him. I’d burn in hell for sure if I’d left him there still alive. I think about that all the time. I guess you could say it haunts me.
And I wonder sometimes, what if Carl was wrong (or lied), and the baby was alive when we escaped, and some cop found him? Where is he now? Would he be in an orphanage or something? Or was he given away to a good family?
What if we crossed paths someday and didn’t even know each other? Maybe I would recognize him if he looked anything like Jeremy. Or he could have blond hair like mine. What color would his eyes be?
Why do I do this to myself? It’s torture to think about what he would look like and what he’d grow up to be.
Of course I look at Jeremy and wonder that, too. What kind of life is this for a child? I chose Carl. I chose this life. Poor little Jeremy has no choice except to go along. I guess if that other baby boy had lived, he would have gone along with our way of life, too. That’s a sad thought. Almost as sad as knowing that he died before taking his first breath.
And I’m sure that’s what happened. Carl wouldn’t be so mean as to tell me that the baby was dead if he wasn’t.
Wherever my other little boy is, I hope his soul is at peace.
Mine isn’t. It never will be. Not over this.
Chapter 29
I’m going to have a drink. Want one?”
“Please.”
“Anything you want, it’s on the house.” Dawson poured two minibar bottles of bourbon into glasses. “Somebody gets shot in your room, hotel management goes all out to make up for it. To say nothing of how bad they felt about my overlooked room-service order.”
After Carl was taken away, they had been questioned extensively by Knutz. Acting on Headly’s telephone call from his hospital bed, the FBI agent had assigned men the job of checking hospital security cameras. Others were sent to warn Dawson. He didn’t answer his cell phone or his room phone, but sheriff’s deputies, waiting in the lobby for their charge, verified that he was in his room and that Amelia Nolan was with him.
Knutz had been hesitant to bust in on a romantic rendezvous, but when a desk clerk remarked on an elderly man with a bouquet of flowers entering the hotel and going up in the elevator, Knutz mobilized a SWAT team from Savannah Metro.
Meanwhile, a silent evacuation of that floor of the hotel was conducted while agents in the room next door to Dawson’s, using listening devices, confirmed a hostage situation. Snipers took up positions on the roof of a neighboring building that afforded them a view into the room through a window. When Carl pushed Amelia aside, they were ready.
After all the officials finally had cleared out, Dawson was informed by a nervous manager that he was being moved to the hotel’s best suite. It didn’t rate five stars, but it had a living area separated from the bedroom by a pair of French doors and was better appointed than his previous room.
Now he passed Amelia her drink. She was curled into the corner of the sofa. He took one of the easy chairs and raised his glass in a mock toast. “Cheers.” He shot his drink and set the empty glass on the coffee table. He looked across at her, knowing the time had come for the inevitable denouement. “Well, now you know the reason.”
She nodded.
“Can’t say you weren’t forewarned to keep your distance.”
He got up and walked over to the windows. From this perspective on the top floor, he could see that there were still a few patrol cars parked in front of the hotel. The media vans had come and gone, following Carl to the hospital’s trauma center. His condition was reported as “serious.”
The man wanted for decades by the FBI had been nabbed. He was the story now. No doubt national news crews were keeping the airlin
es into Savannah oversold. Dawson Scott, magazine journalist, would be a footnote in the news coverage, and he hoped he remained so. None of the SWAT officers swarming the hotel room had overheard his declaration. He hadn’t told Knutz about his relationship to Carl. Outside the Headlys and Amelia, no one knew. Well, except for Carl himself.
“They’ll be pulling off the guards on Saint Nelda’s if they haven’t already,” he said. “You and the boys will be safe.”
“Tucker is going to leave several deputies out there to discourage the media. Just until the hubbub dies down. A few days.”
“That’s good. Kids all right?”
“I talked to both of them on the phone. They’re as happy as little clams. The deputy is spoiling them. She told me there was no need to come back tonight, since it would be such a short turnaround.”
Knutz had asked that they meet with him at nine o’clock the following morning to “wrap up.”
Dawson turned back into the room. He looked at her for a moment, then spread his arms out to his sides. “The secret’s out. Any questions?”
She took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “How old were you when you found out?”
“Thirty-seven.”
She looked at him with stupefaction. “You haven’t known until now?”
He returned to the chair and sat down. “To be precise, it was eight, no, nine days ago, that I learned the fate of my brother. I knew all about the standoff in Golden Branch and how I came to be. Carl, Flora, all that.
“My parents—adoptive parents—never hid my origins from me. I grew up knowing how Headly had found me, nearly dead but miraculously still breathing. I spent a couple months in a neonatal ICU, then was released with a clean bill of health.
“The authorities kept my existence a secret from the press, one of those things they hold in abeyance for crime-solving purposes. Headly and the agent in charge that day also kept a lid on it to protect me, my identity.
“I, Flora’s newborn, was the only baby found inside the house. But it wasn’t my DNA on the baby blanket. For thirty-seven years, that remained a mystery. The DNA had been tested, and it was confirmed that Flora was the mother of whoever it belonged to, but where was the child? Who was the child? What had happened to it? Carl and Flora had never been spotted with a child, not even while under surveillance in Golden Branch. He remained the mystery baby.