Deadline

by Sandra Brown

  In the confines of the elevator his breathing sounded labored and uneven. He looked pale beneath the fluorescent glare, and his face was moist with sweat. Dawson asked if he was in pain.

  “I’m fine.”

  “We could wait.”

  “I don’t know when they’ll move him. We may not have another chance.”

  The elevator doors opened onto a dimly lighted hallway. “Leave the marshals to me.”

  The two, seated outside Carl’s room, looked at them curiously as they approached. “Evening, gentlemen,” Headly said in his most authoritative tone. “I’m Special Agent Gary Headly, here to question the prisoner.”

  The two marshals looked at each other, then at Dawson, finally back to Headly. One said, “He’s still in serious condition.”

  “Right. He could die. Which is precisely why I need to question him now.”

  “Where’s Agent Knutz?”

  “Probably up to his earlobes in paperwork, which is why I’m handling this interrogation.”

  “With all due respect, sir, you don’t look all that well. Are you up to it?”

  Headly glowered.

  The marshal, discomfited, cleared his throat and gave a nod toward Dawson. “What about him?”

  “This is Dawson Scott. He’s the one Wingert held at gunpoint yesterday afternoon.”

  “I know who he is. Why’s he here?”

  “To dispel any of Wingert’s bullshit.”

  The two marshals exchanged another uneasy glance, then one worked up enough courage to challenge him. “Sorry, sir. I can’t let you go in without—”

  “Authorization?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Fine.” His cell phone was lying in his lap. He nodded down to it. “The AG’s number is programmed under the numeral eight. Wake up our boss and tell him that you’re denying me access to a fugitive that I and the entire Department of Justice have been chasing down for nearly forty years.” Smiling benignly, he added, “He’ll probably be tickled to hear from you.”

  It took the marshal about three seconds to decide. He left the phone where it was. “Are you armed, sir?”

  “Yes. With a catheter up my dick and the bag into which my bladder is draining. You’re welcome to check.” Again he nodded down at his lap, covered only by the flimsy hospital gown.

  The marshal said, “I don’t think that will be necessary.”

  “Son, even if I had a weapon, I can’t move my hands.”

  Meanwhile the other marshal had been patting down Dawson. “He’s good.”

  One of them held open the door as Dawson wheeled Headly into the room where Carl Wingert was strapped to the bed not only by restraints but also by a network of medical paraphernalia.

  Dawson pushed the wheelchair to the bedside. Carl’s eyes were closed. Headly said his name, and when he failed to respond, he told Dawson to poke him. None too gently, Dawson prodded Carl’s elevated bandaged leg. Groaning, he opened his eyes to slits. They flared wide when he saw the two of them.

  Being this close to him again, Dawson suddenly felt claustrophobic. The sound of a thousand bees buzzed inside his head, their racket underscoring the blips and beeps of the various machines and IV drips that Carl was hooked up to. Their tubing created the same tangle at the side of the bed that Dawson had remarked on in Headly’s room.

  Carl was the first to speak. “Well, well,” he said to Headly. “At last we meet.” He took note of the wheelchair. “In the flesh, you don’t look so tough.”

  “You don’t either.”

  “I’ve had better days.”

  Headly shot him a grin. “I haven’t.”

  “Chalk one up for you. You figured me out today.”

  “You’re getting old, Carl. No longer as smart as you think.”

  “Oh, I don’t know about that.” He spoke in a musical, disarming tone reminiscent of Bernie.

  “Do you hurt?”

  “All over.”

  “Good.”

  “Why didn’t they kill me?”

  “Because I ordered them not to.”

  “I wonder why?” Again, another sly smile, then he focused on Dawson. “Tell me, boy, how does it feel?”

  Dawson had been following their exchange, but also studying the nest of plastic tubing at Carl’s bedside. Now he looked at the man. “How does what feel?”

  “Fucking your dead brother’s wife.”

  It took incredible control for him not to lunge at the man and wrap his fingers around his throat. Instead, he leaned down until his face was within inches of Carl’s. “You left me to die.”

  “Well, I sure as hell didn’t want you. You were an ugly little monkey, and I’d been up all night trying to squeeze you out of her. I hated you before I ever laid eyes on you. Flora was carrying on like a madwoman.”

  “You took her newborn from her.”

  “Wrong. I told her you were born dead, told her it would be better if she never even saw you. I just scooped you up like so much fish guts and dumped you down that hole in the floor, hoping to hell you wouldn’t take a breath and start crying.”

  Even now, knowing everything he did about this man, it was inconceivable to Dawson how any human being could be that cold and heartless. “How could you do that?”

  “How could I?” His low chuckle was rife with menace. “You said today that Headly would get the last laugh on me, but you’re wrong. The last laugh is on you.” He looked Dawson up and down with scorn. “You’re no kid of mine.”

  Dawson stopped breathing for several seconds, then he wheezed, “What?”

  “You heard me. You came from someone else’s slime. Don’t know whose. Could’ve been any number of men.”

  “You’re lying,” Headly said. “I studied Flora as thoroughly as I studied you. For whatever warped reason, she loved you and would have followed you into hell. She would never have slept with another man.”

  “Not unless I told her to.”

  The two of them stared at him, stunned by the flippant statement and its significance. “Jesus,” Headly hissed.

  Dawson had no words. Reeling from the shock, he wasn’t sure if he should feel elation or revulsion, if he should shout with joy or weep over the misery and humiliation that the woman who’d borne him had been forced to endure.

  “Sometimes I let guys use her to blow off steam. Or as a reward. She got pregnant with you on just such an occasion when three or four of them—”

  “Shut up.”

  Dawson’s wrath seemed only to amuse him. “Maybe Flora knew which one took, but I doubt it. If she did, maybe she wrote his name down in that diary of hers.”

  Dawson flinched. “Diary?”

  “The sneaky bitch,” he snarled. “I guess she’d been writing in it for years. She died with it clutched to her bosom. You’re digging her up, right?” he asked of Headly. “I tossed the book in with her. Should be a real entertaining read. Or maybe not. She was so damned ignorant.”

  It was obvious that Carl was enjoying himself. He was deliberately goading them, watching closely and hoping for a volatile reaction. Dawson refused to gratify him.

  Instead, he looked down at Headly. “I’ve heard all I can stomach. You?”

  “He was too much for me to stomach at Golden Branch.”

  Dawson had been fiddling with the network of tubes and had isolated one from the rest. “You have enough control to do it?”

  “Left hand. Thumb and index finger.”

  Dawson carefully looped a section of the tube around those fingers twice, so that Headly could get a good grip.

  Rather than being alarmed, Carl cackled. “Headly, you always did play right into my plan.”

  “How’s that, Carl?”

  “I knew you wouldn’t rest until you saw me dead. I knew you’d come to finish me off yourself. And here you are.” Carl raised his head as far as his bandaged shoulder would allow and blew Headly a kiss. “Thank you.”

  “My pleasure.”

  Just as Headly gave the
tube a yank that snapped it free of a machine, the door burst open. The marshals were the first into the room. One shouted Headly’s name. Amelia rushed in behind them, her gaze wild and fearful. “Dawson, don’t!”

  The three drew up short and took in the scene.

  Carl was gaping at the end of the tube dangling from Headly’s hand, his lips working wordlessly. Finally he said stupidly, “Nothing happened.”

  “Of course not.” Dawson took the tube from Headly’s left hand and, slowly winding it around his fist, pulled the other end free from the tangle of tubes on the floor. “It’s not attached to anything. See?” He dangled the two loose ends inches away from Carl’s face. “They really should remove these once they’re no longer in use. What if somebody pulled out your chest tube by mistake?”

  Carl looked in stunned horror at Headly, who smiled. “Carl, Carl, did you actually think I came in here to kill you? And by doing so deny myself the pleasure of watching you rot in chains for the rest of your goddamned life?” Headly shook his head. “No way in hell, Carl. No way in hell.”

  Epilogue

  He drove with the car windows down. The salt air was soft, the surf calm as it sometimes was just after daybreak. As he neared Amelia’s beach house, his eyes were inexorably drawn to the one where Carl Wingert had spent summers as Bernie.

  That was the only thought Dawson gave the man, and it was more consideration than the reprobate deserved.

  He didn’t expect Amelia or the boys to be up yet, but as he alighted, he spotted her on the beach. She was walking near the waterline, a pair of flip-flops dangling from her fingers. She was dressed in roomy, thin cotton pants and a tank top, which she’d probably slept in. Her hair was in a messy topknot. She’d never looked so good to him.

  He had covered over half the distance between them before she saw him. She dropped her sandals and met him at a full run. He caught her against him and they kissed hungrily. They didn’t come up for air for several minutes, and when they did, they continued to hold each other as though to assure themselves that they were together again after a ten-day separation.

  She leaned back into the firm circle of his arms so she could look up into his face. “How was it?”

  “North Dakota can be cold even in September. Around freezing one morning I was there.”

  She brushed a windblown strand of hair off his scruffy cheek, then laid both palms on his chest. In a softer voice, she asked, “How was it?”

  “It was good,” he replied, matching her serious tone. “They’re wonderful people. Salt of the earth. American flag flying proudly from the eaves of the house. Pot roast for dinner. There were pictures of Hawkins all over the house. They wanted to hear everything.”

  Shortly after Dawson’s return from Afghanistan, he’d received a letter from Corporal Hawkins’s parents, asking him to please call them. They expressed an earnest wish to talk to him about their son and his last few days. They repeated the request in voice mails, e-mails, and additional letters. “He thought so highly of you, Mr. Scott. Please call us.”

  He hadn’t been able to bring himself to make that call.

  But talking through the incident with Amelia had been the catharsis he’d needed. Once the ban on the topic of Hawkins had been lifted, he could think about him without cringing inside. As soon as he had accompanied Headly home to DC, he booked a flight to North Dakota.

  “They told me everything about him. I met his brother, two sisters, six nieces and nephews. I was shown his baseball trophies and high school prom pictures. Our talks were heartrending, but healing for them as well as for me.”

  “I want to hear all about it whenever you’re ready to tell me.” She stood on tiptoe and kissed him. “Sleeping better?”

  “Two nights in a row without the nightmare.”

  “Definite progress.”

  “Thanks to you.”

  Several sessions with a therapist in DC had helped enormously, too, although he still gave more credit to Amelia than to the man with all the framed degrees on his office wall.

  “How are Headly and Eva?” she asked.

  “He gets better every day. The Bureau urged him to reactivate until Carl’s case is closed. But that’ll take a while, so he declined.”

  “I’m surprised by that.”

  “I was, too. But he explained that nothing could top that dramatic ending in the hospital, with Carl screaming invectives and begging for somebody to kill him.”

  She dropped her forehead against his chest. “When I woke up, and you weren’t there, I thought—”

  “Carl thought so, too. That was the point. But no such luck for him. Headly wanted a face-off. I helped because I knew how important it was for him to confront his enemy. He would never have been satisfied with less.”

  “Nor would you.”

  “You know me well.”

  She pressed a kiss to his throat, and when she pulled away, she said, “So, it was easy for Headly to turn down the Bureau’s request that he stay on?”

  “Made much easier by Eva. She told him if he returned to work, she was going to grind up Viagra in his food and then withhold sexual favors.”

  “She’d do it, too.”

  “You bet your life. By the way, she invited us up for Thanksgiving.” He stroked her hair. “How was your trip to Kansas?”

  “Quick, but I didn’t want to leave the boys with the Metcalfs for more than one night. The memorial service was terribly sad.”

  “I’m sure Stef’s parents were touched that you went.”

  “They said as much. At least they were relieved of having to go through a trial. Jeremy’s dying spared them that.” She hesitated for a moment, then added, “I saw to his cremation.”

  He held her face between his hands and searched her eyes. “We’ve got a lot of forgetting to do, Amelia.”

  “I know.”

  “I can’t wait to get started.”

  “Me, either.” And for a long moment they just looked at each other with full understanding.

  After a time, she nodded toward the house that Bernie had occupied. “I’m happy to report that it’s been sold. The realtor who brokered the deal was out here yesterday with a contractor. The new owner is having it torn down and plans to replace it with a larger, more contemporary house that he’ll rent long-term.

  “It can’t be razed fast enough, as far as I’m concerned,” she continued. “Every time I glance in that direction…” She trailed off and tilted her head in puzzlement. “You don’t seem at all surprised by this news.” She stared at him for seconds more, then realization dawned in her eyes. “You bought it.”

  “You could never sell this house. It means too much to you. The only solution was to get rid of that one.”

  “I can’t let you do that,” she exclaimed.

  “I have a trust from my folks that I’ve never touched. It seemed fitting to do this with some of the money. Carl didn’t sire me, but he tortured my mother and left me to die. I don’t want any reminders of him around when we’re here.” She was about to protest further, but he stopped her. “It’s done.”

  She relented, asking quietly, “Did they find Flora’s diary?”

  “Yes. Mostly intact. Headly’s read some of it. He’s having the contents transcribed for me.”

  She looked at him expectantly.

  He raised one shoulder. “I don’t know that I’ll ever read it. Maybe. Right now, I need a break from all that.”

  “Will you ever want to know who your father was?”

  “No. It’s enough—more than enough—to know it wasn’t Carl. My quarrel with him wasn’t fathering me, it was abandoning me. My DNA ruled out that any of the men who died in Golden Branch had sired me. I don’t see the point of continuing the saga.”

  Her arms tightened around his waist. She rested her cheek on his chest. “Will you write the story?”

  “Harriet’s bugging me to, but I’ve told her no. I couldn’t write it without including you and the boys. I won’t do that.�
�� He pushed his hand under her tank top and stroked her back, marveling over how familiar and wonderful the feel of her skin was, shuddering to think how close he came to foolishly denying himself this woman.

  “I’ve considered writing about Hawkins. His parents endorsed the idea. Military suicides are at an all-time high. It speaks volumes that a young man with a background as solid as his could sink to that depth of despair. The theme would be the effects of combat even on those with the strongest fiber. It could be a worthwhile piece.”

  “Written by the best.”

  “Awww,” he drawled and eased her cheek off his chest so he could whisk a kiss across it. But when he tried to kiss her in earnest, she resisted. “What?”

  “You said of this house ‘when we’re here,’ and that Eva had invited us for Thanksgiving. Come Thanksgiving, will we still be an us?”

  “I’m counting on it. You’re not?”

  “Yes. Yes. Definitely.”

  “Good to know.”

  “But how will it work? The boys went back to school this week. I was planning to buy a house with a yard and a dog. George embraced the idea of having a room at the museum devoted to PTSD. If we get it past the board, I want to oversee the project. I’ll want to be involved if Daddy’s house is enshrined.” She looked at him ruefully. “And you live in Virginia.”

  “Right. We’ve got some stuff to sort out, but they’re practical matters. Nothing insurmountable. So long as I meet deadlines and attend an occasional editorial meeting, my job is more or less portable.

  “I may read Flora’s diary, or not. I’ll draft a story about Hawkins and then decide if I want it to be published. If not, I’ll write about something else. And when the boys get old enough to learn about their lineage, we’ll explain it. They’ll come to terms with it just as I have. We’ll help them with whatever problems arise. The point is, we don’t have to figure it all out today. We can’t figure it all out today.”

  Placing his lips against hers, he whispered, “We’re past the heavy stuff, Amelia. By comparison, the rest of it will be a breeze. Let’s let up on ourselves for a while. We’ll make decisions on an as-needed basis, love each other like crazy, and live one day at a time.”