Deadline

“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.”