Deadline

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?”