Deadline (Sandra Brown)

I’m sure is used to stitch saddles, into my thumb. Hurt like bloody hell.”
    Eva rolled her eyes. “It was a prick with a straight pin. He howled a profanity that could be heard back in DC. But he’s only trying to get off the subject until you two are alone, and I’m not going to let him. Continue, Gary.”
    He looked at her with exasperation. “Point is, Carl’s run out of admirers. Even Jeremy’s gone. Carl Wingert is passé, of another era, history that few even know about. He wanted to live in infamy like Bonnie and Clyde, Oswald, Jim Jones, David Koresh. He never achieved those heights. He knows he’s a has-been, and that’ll eat at him.”
    “What do you think he’ll do?” Dawson asked.
    “Stage a spectacular exit for himself. He’s got little to lose now except for his inflated self-esteem. He won’t care if he doesn’t survive, so long as he leaves the rest of us with a lasting impression.” He paused. “Knutz has already alerted Homeland Security.”
    *  *  *
     
    “Excuse me, sir. Can I help you?”
    The nurse was young and pretty and eager to be of assistance to such a decrepit older gentleman. Her scrubs were purple. A UGA bulldog snarled from the patch affixed to her breast pocket.
    Carl adjusted his baseball cap, as though conscious of his hairlessness, when actually he was tugging down the bill of the cap in order to conceal his face from Dawson Scott, who was at the end of the hallway, talking to an attractive middle-aged woman. Carl assumed she was Headly’s wife.
    He’d come to scout out the hospital, commit to memory how it was laid out, note where the fire alarms and emergency exits were, plan how he was going to get to Headly and finish their feud once and for all.
    Lo and behold, the moment he stepped off the elevator on this floor, the first person he spotted was Dawson Scott. He’d been about to duck back into the elevator and get the hell out of there, but in a millisecond he changed his mind.
    He was no longer Bernie. Unless Dawson looked very closely, it was doubtful he would recognize the man who, only a week ago, had been spry enough to fly a kite on the beach. His altered appearance was so realistic, he almost had himself convinced that he was a cancer patient whose prognosis wasn’t good.
    It was a perfect disguise. After one glance at someone so obviously terminally ill, people tended to look the other way, sometimes out of pity or respect for privacy, often because of an irrational fear of contagion, but always, always with avoidance. In a hospital environment, he would be practically invisible.
    He gave the nurse a sheepish smile. “I guess I do look lost. I just realized that I got off the elevator a floor too soon. My friend is on four.”
    “The elevator usually doesn’t take too long.” Smiling, she bent down to sniff at the flowers he was carrying. “These should cheer up your friend.”
    He’d bought the bouquet from a vendor in the first-floor lobby, then taken it into a stall in the men’s room. Now besides the flower stems inside the green tissue there was also a six-shot revolver, to be used in case the disguise wasn’t as deceiving as he thought. His index finger was on the trigger.
    “I like the color combination,” he said.
    “Very pretty.” She patted his shoulder. “Have a nice day.”
    She was about to move away, when he forestalled her. “Say, isn’t that the magazine writer who’s been in the news?”
    She followed the direction of his pointing chin. “Dawson Scott.” Leaning in, she whispered. “All us nurses think he’s hot.”
    Carl chuckled. “I probably would too if I was your age. And a girl, of course.”
    She laughed.
    “What’s he doing here?”
    “Did you hear about the FBI agent who got shot? Of course you did. Everybody has. Well, Dawson Scott is his godson.”
    Everything inside Carl went perfectly still for several seconds. Then his heart began to race with excitement. So, that was it. That was the fishiness that Carl had sensed but couldn’t put his finger on. Ever since Dawson Scott had moved in next door to Amelia, he’d thought there was more to him than simply being a writer on the trail of a good story. He and fucking Headly were practically related!
    In a stage whisper, he exclaimed, “You’d don’t say!”
    The naive nurse fell for the act and was all too glad to elaborate. “I’ve been told that Mr. Scott wasn’t too far behind the ambulance that rushed Mr. Headly to the ER. He