Deadline (26 page)

L
ike everybody, when it was expedient, Dawson told white lies. Those small equivocations were harmless, usually told to protect the one being lied to as much as to shield himself from some unpleasantness. They rarely pricked his conscience.

But it chafed to be devious with three people who mattered to him. Eva had been too relieved over Headly’s condition to notice his shiftiness. Headly had known something was up, but his sharp mind had been dulled by anesthesia. Amelia, however, had known he was lying. By omission, but that counted. He’d lied to her. Except for the kiss. That hadn’t been a lie. And however this turned out, he hoped that she would come to realize that in that kiss, he’d been completely honest.

Since he’d left Savannah, there had been three calls from her to his cell phone, which indicated to him that she must have discovered he wasn’t on his way out to meet Tucker and Wills.

He hadn’t answered those calls, he hadn’t listened to the voice mails she’d left, fearing that if he did, he would be persuaded to return. Short of making a U-turn, he might be tempted to tell her what he planned to do, in which case she would try everything within her power to stop him.

He couldn’t allow that. He might fail, but he couldn’t live out the rest of his life with even a semblance of peace if he didn’t at least make this attempt to have a face-to-face with Jeremy and Carl.

Actually what Amelia had said this morning about their perception of him—that of a reporter on the trail of a good story—had reminded him of his one talent. The single thing at which he excelled was getting people to talk to him about themselves.

That had sparked an idea. After the attempt on Headly’s life, the idea had crystallized and expanded into a resolve.

Acting on the tip Willard had given him, he had called Glenda even before reuniting with Headly and Amelia in the lobby of the jail visitation center. God bless her, she’d undertaken the task he’d requested, persisted throughout the day, and when he called her from the hospital corridor, she’d given him something to go on.

He should share what he’d learned with the authorities, but although he’d told Amelia that he was about to, he had no intention of doing so. If he was later brought up on charges of obstruction of justice, his defense would be that he hadn’t wanted to get everyone excited if Glenda’s information turned out to be useless.

But the real reason he’d kept the information to himself was because he wanted a crack at Jeremy and Carl. He wanted that badly. If they were arrested or killed, he would never get an opportunity to speak with them without being monitored. He had a sliver of a chance to have a candid, no-holds-barred, one-on-one conversation with them, and he was taking it.

Carl and Jeremy knew him only as an ambitious journalist who had ingratiated himself with Amelia and her children in order to write a story that would be fat with intimate details. They didn’t know about his relationship with Headly. That was a major advantage.

Another was Carl’s personality.
He has a colossal ego.
If Headly had told Dawson that once, he’d told him that a thousand times. Most sociopaths had elevated opinions of themselves, which was why they were capable of such derring-do. Dawson reasoned that Carl fit that profile and that he would welcome being given a soapbox from which to vent his spleen. Dawson could provide him a huge audience.

That is,
if
Carl or Jeremy didn’t kill him before he could state his purpose.

He was taking a bold, possibly even foolhardy chance, but Carl should relate to that kind of chutzpah. He’d based a criminal career on it. Dawson’s sheer audacity might make Carl curious enough not to pull the trigger before Dawson could make his pitch, and he’d have to make it fast.

“I want to commit your story to print.”

That should get the megalomaniac’s attention.

An interview with him wasn’t unprecedented. Carl had granted one once before. Dawson had heard about it through Headly. “In the mideighties, a reporter for the
Washington Post
wrote and published an article about Carl. A lot of the background information on him and his crimes came from me. The writer wanted to be fair, give Carl a chance to rebut what I’d said, set straight any misconceptions about him. In the article, he made it clear that he wished for an interview with him.

“Carl took him at his word. A few weeks after the article appeared, the reporter was kidnapped. Several days after his disappearance, he mailed in a handwritten transcript of a lengthy interview. The newspaper published it in its entirety, and the reporter was awarded a Pulitzer for it.”

Carl now had thirty more years to tell about than he had during that first interview. Dawson planned to ask him about the past seventeen specifically. Had he committed crimes that weren’t attributed to him, or had he semiretired as he appeared to have done? Had he urged Jeremy to follow in his footsteps, or had that been Jeremy’s decision alone? What about Flora?

There was much Dawson wanted to ask him.

But first, he had to find him.

The car he’d rented when he arrived in Savannah less than a week ago was still at the beach house, so he’d taken a taxi from the hospital to the airport, where he arrived at one of the car rental companies just as it was about to close for the night.

Avoiding I-95, he crossed into South Carolina on a dark, two-lane highway. It meandered through thick forests that had thus far escaped developers who sacrificed nature preserves to golf-based communities for retirees.

For miles, the only lights he’d seen were the twin beams of his headlights and a slender moon that was occasionally obscured by thin clouds. The air was soft and thick with humidity. Dotting the flat land were marshes and swamps of murky water.

You wouldn’t want to lose your way out here. But if you were looking to hide, the conditions were excellent.

He’d had Glenda searching out parcels of land in the region that had switched hands during the time Jeremy was stationed at Parris Island. It was a long shot, but Glenda came through with a solid possibility. She reported her finding when he called her from the hospital.

“Twenty acres, located between Beaufort and Charleston about a half mile inland. It changed ownership in 2006.”

“What snagged your attention about this particular transaction?”

“It was purchased by a corporation.”

“Not that unusual.”

“No, but the plot is in the middle of freakin’ nowhere, no channel connecting it to the ocean, not even a county road’s access. A third of it is marshland. What would a corporation want with it?” Before Dawson could form a reply, she said, “I checked to see what kind of business it did and—Hello!—the corporation isn’t registered in any of the fifty states. Looks phony.”

Dawson tried and failed to pat down his mounting optimism. “Corporations are dissolved. They change names.”

“They do. But property taxes were paid as recently as two months ago, automatic draw on an account.”

“Bearing the corporation’s name?”

“You got it.”

Holding a wrinkled piece of paper flat against the wall, he’d scribbled down the coordinates of the lot that had been mysteriously purchased the year that Jeremy Wesson met Amelia Nolan. “Glenda, you’re an angel.”

“You’re an asshole, but you saved that lady’s life today, so I guess that makes you okay.”

“Who said?”

“That you’re an asshole?”

“That I saved the lady’s life.”

“CNN.”

That was disturbing. He didn’t want to be alluded to as a hero. That would be the biggest lie of all. He wasn’t a hero.

The road he’d been on had become progressively narrower with each mile. Then the hardtop had given way to gravel until, now, he was bumping along a dirt track. It tapered to a dead end about ten yards away from a seemingly impenetrable field of cordgrass.

He killed the car’s engine and turned off the headlights. The darkness was unrelieved. Fumbling for his cell phone, he clicked it on and checked the GPS app that had brought him to this intersection of the property lines that formed the southeast corner of the twenty-acre plot. This spot also was nearest to the Atlantic and had the lowest elevation of the property.

Switching on his flashlight app, he got out of the car, walked toward the high grass, and sank to his ankles in viscous water.

Twenty acres of dry ground wouldn’t be that difficult to navigate in daylight. But it would be crazy to strike out through a salt marsh in total darkness, not knowing where he was going or even what he was looking for. Until sunrise, he was stuck.

He got back into the car and turned off his phone. Then, as a safety precaution, he removed the battery, having heard that one could transmit a signal even if the phone was turned off.

He didn’t want to be found until after he had found Carl and Jeremy.

Amelia and Eva had passed the night in the hospital waiting room. Eva hadn’t even considered a nurse’s suggestion that she go to a hotel and get a good night’s rest. She wouldn’t leave and miss even one of the periodic visits with Headly that she was allowed.

In the event that his condition changed for the worse, Amelia didn’t want her to be alone, so she had declined Tucker’s offer for a deputy to escort her back to Saint Nelda’s. Further, she didn’t want to leave the place where she’d last seen Dawson. She was entertaining a silly notion that if she stayed, he would soon return with a full explanation for his sudden departure.

Now as dawn approached, her eyes felt gritty and dry. She longed for a shower. She had stinging scrapes on her right palm and elbow, which had borne the brunt of her fall when Dawson had pushed her to the concrete. But these physical discomforts were negligible compared with her emotional upset. She was desperate with worry over him.

As Eva returned from a visit with Headly, Amelia lowered her cell phone from her ear and disconnected. “I’m not even getting Dawson’s voice mail anymore. How’s the patient?”

“
Im
patient. Cranky. Fretful. His blood pressure has gone up. The nurses are blaming it on pain, but I know better. Lying still, unable to move his arms is driving him crazy. He thinks we’re not telling him the truth about the paralysis being temporary. And every time I go in there, he asks me about Dawson.”

Amelia looked at her wristwatch, running her finger around the crystal, remembering that it might never have been recovered if not for Dawson. “He’s been gone for hours. Why hasn’t he called me back?”

“I’m sure there’s a good reason.”

“I’m sure of that, too. But I’m unsure I want to know what it is.” The more she thought back onto their last conversation, the more convinced she became that Dawson had withheld something from her, not because he didn’t trust her but because he predicted a negative reaction. “Should I share my concerns with Agent Knutz? The detectives?”

“What would you tell them?”

“That he lied about where he was going.”

“Men frequently lie to women about where they’re going.”

“They would probably think he went out to buy drugs.” Quickly she added, “He only needed antianxiety pills to help him sleep, you know.”

“I know.”

“He hasn’t even had a drink in days.”

“You’ve been a good influence.”

“Me? No. I haven’t had anything to do with it.”

Eva smiled knowingly. “In a very short period of time, you two have become remarkably close.”

“One step forward, two back.”

“Oh?”

She hesitated. “Woman to woman?”

“Anything you tell me will go no farther, Amelia. I promise you.”

“Truth is, he makes my head spin.”

The older woman laughed softly. “So there
is
an attraction.”

“Definitely.”

“That’s good, isn’t it?”

“It would be, if he was consistent. One minute it’s like he can’t get enough of me. Then the next, he’s pushing me away, literally keeping me at arm’s length.”

“Has he told you why?”

“Is there a why?”

“Obviously Dawson thinks so.”

“Your husband says he regards himself a loner.”

“We’ve tried to turn that thinking around.”

“Headly told me that, too. But there’s more to this resistance than general self-denial. I think he’s resisting me for a specific reason.”

“What makes you think so?”

“I feel it. I believe it must have something to do with Jeremy.”

Eva said nothing, just waited for her to elaborate.

“Possibly with Jeremy’s PTSD, with him being who and what he is.”

“Dawson would never lay your ex-husband’s sins at your feet. I know him well enough to assure you of that.”

“No, I don’t believe he would either. I think…I think…Actually, I don’t know what to think.” She bent her head low and massaged her temples. “Where did he go? What could Glenda have uncovered that sent him flying out of here?”

Earlier they had discussed the possibility of calling the researcher and asking her what she had revealed. But neither knew how to reach her or even what her last name was. They had decided to wait until morning and call her at the magazine office. Eva had cautioned Amelia against becoming too optimistic. “He’s relied on her for years. She’s like a secret weapon. I doubt his Glenda will betray his trust.”

If the researcher was as protective of her sources as Dawson was, Amelia doubted they’d learn much from her, either. But she didn’t know where else to turn for answers.

“For him to have left Headly tonight, it must have been something vitally important.”

“He knew Gary was out of immediate danger.”

“Yes. But still. He’d been agonizing over him for hours. What could possibly have prompted him to leave and not even to call to check on him?”

“I’ll admit, that doesn’t seem like Dawson. Tell me again everything he said.”

Amelia reiterated the conversation in the stairwell. “Could it relate to what Willard Strong told him?”

“About a shack that Jeremy owned?”

“You don’t suppose…Oh, Lord. You don’t suppose that Glenda located it. Surely Dawson wouldn’t go there alone.”