Deadline

“Nobody is after me. Okay?” Hitching his thumb over his shoulder, he said, “I picked up groceries, if you’re hungry.”

“In a while. I need to think.”

They sat in mismatched chairs and drank their beers. Jeremy was the first to speak. “How are my boys?”

“Good, last I saw them, which was Monday morning when I drove Amelia and them to the ferry. When I talked to her this afternoon, they were still at the curator’s house.”

Jeremy thoughtfully picked at a loose corner on the label of his beer bottle. “Do they ever talk about me?”

“Not that I’ve heard.” Noticing Jeremy’s pained expression, he said, “You haven’t been around for a long time. They’ll have to get to know you again.”

“When can we get them?”

“We’ve got to take care of Amelia first.”

Jeremy shifted in his seat. “About that, why don’t we just snatch the boys and disappear? Why does she have to die?”

“Because she would never give up looking for them, that’s why. You were married to her, you should know. Even after the law dusted their hands of ever finding them, she wouldn’t. She’s got the means to hire people to track us down. I don’t want to be worrying about that for the rest of my days. Better to simply—” He made a chopping motion.

“I guess,” Jeremy mumbled and took a swallow of beer.

“Needs to be soon, too.”

“You’re right. If we’re going to do it, let’s get it over with. I want my boys. The longer we wait, the dimmer their memory of me becomes.”

Carl murmured in agreement, but he was only half listening. Thinking out loud, he said, “Something’s not right.”

“Not right with what?”

“This situation.” He finished his beer, then got up and began to pace. “I feel like I’m missing something, and when you miss something, you get caught.”

“Amelia doesn’t suspect that I’m still alive, does she?”

“She’s given no indication of it. Even when I saw her today, she was definitely upset over the nanny, but she acted like herself and said her sweet good-bye to dear old Bernie. ‘Until next summer…’ Like that. She was sad to be closing up the house and leaving the beach. She loves that place. The kids, too. They play—” That sparked a thought. “Where are the pictures?”

“Bottom drawer of the bureau.”

“None of me, right?”

“No. First thing I looked for. I know how you feel about pictures of us. Mom told me that the maddest you ever got at her was when you caught her taking pictures of me as a toddler.”

That wasn’t the maddest he’d ever got at Flora, but Jeremy didn’t need to know that.

He found the pictures—apparently taken by Dawson Scott—in the drawer, paper-clipped together. He took them over to the dining table so he could spread them out for better viewing.

“Damn fool thing you did to get these,” he said to Jeremy as he joined him at the table.

“Curiosity got the better of me. I saw y’all leave, saw him jog over to her house and put something under the doormat. He was dressed up, so I figured he was going to dinner, too, and wouldn’t be back for a while. I got back to the CandyCane with time to spare.”

Carl still thought his son had been reckless to row a dingy to shore and then back to the boat. The margin for error had been huge. And for what? The photos seemed harmless enough, hardly worth the risk Jeremy had taken to obtain them.

Jeremy picked up a picture of his sons playing in the surf. “As long as he was at it, I wish he’d taken more shots of them and fewer of Amelia.”

“Why’d he take them at all?” Carl asked. “You checked him out on your computer?”

“Didn’t even have to dig. He’s exactly what he claims to be. He’s won prizes. He covered Afghanistan for his magazine. Just back from there, actually.”

“So what’s he doing down here?”