Deadline (Sandra Brown)

stayed late into the night, until Mr. Headly was out of surgery. I assumed he’d hung around as a courtesy, on account of he was with Mr. Headly when he was shot.
    “But then he showed up last evening and visited for over an hour. After he left, I mentioned to Mrs. Headly—that’s her he’s talking to—how nice it was of him to follow up. That’s when she explained their relationship. They’ve known him since he was born.”
    “Huh.” It appeared to Carl that the two were disagreeing. She was talking; Scott was shaking his head no. Then she reached out and touched his cheek. He pulled her hand away from his face and kissed the back of it.
    The nurse said dreamily, “You can see how close they are.”
    “Yes, I can. I certainly can. It must be a big comfort to her to have him here.”
    “She told me as much, but don’t let her appearance fool you. She’s got a steel backbone. Keeps us all on our toes,” she told him around a giggle. “She sticks to Mr. Headly like glue and only leaves the hospital to shower and change clothes. When she leaves, two bodyguards go with her. Like she’s J. Lo or somebody.”
    “Bodyguards?”
    “In case the men who tried to kill her husband go after her. Well, man , now. It was a father and son, and the son died yesterday. Oh, there’s the elevator. Let me grab it for you.”
    As he hobbled into it, Carl placed his hand at his crotch and winced. She asked if he was all right.
    “They cut out my prostate a couple of weeks ago. Still get twinges down there.”
    Her lips formed a pucker of sympathy. “It gets better.”
    As the door slid closed, he winked at her. “It already has. And you’ve been a huge help.”
    *  *  *
     
    While Dawson was out, the hotel housekeeper had serviced his room. She always turned up the AC thermostat when she left. Every time he came in, he cranked it down again as far as it would go.
    He took a four-dollar bottle of water from the minibar and ordered a room-service sandwich. He’d been elevated from Harriet’s shit list to star status. The hotel desk had informed him that all his expenses were being covered by NewsFront . When he came in last night, a bottle of chilled champagne was waiting for him in his room. The unopened bubbly was turning warm in its bucket of melted ice.
    CNN and all the major networks had covered the dramatic story that had unfolded in the ramshackle cabin on the edge of the salt marsh. Dawson had successfully eluded reporters. He’d disconnected his hotel-room phone this morning when the switchboard operator ignored his request and continued to put through calls from correspondents asking for just one sound bite.
    Harriet had heard the story about the time he was on the ferry going over to Saint Nelda’s. That was when his replacement cell phone—which he’d bought at a supermarket—had begun lighting up with text messages. He regretted having sent her his new number and hadn’t bothered to read her texts until after he got back to Savannah. The first few had been gleeful. Overnight, they’d graduated to giddy.
    He looked over at his neglected laptop where it sat on the dresser. Last night, after leaving Amelia and returning to this solitary room, he’d planned to write. His best writing always came from scouring emotional wounds that were already raw, which was why he had a love-hate relationship with his craft.
    Never had his emotions been as ulcerated as they were last night. Ideally, his impressions and feelings about Jeremy Wesson should be committed to hard disk while they were still fresh. He’d even booted up and placed his fingers on the keyboard, hoping the familiar preparation would jumpstart him.
    But he hadn’t been able to type a single word. He couldn’t think of a turn of phrase that didn’t trivialize the thoughts and feelings that went bone-deep, soul-deep. And he realized he never would.
    Now he sat down on the edge of the bed and placed the necessary call to Harriet. Before she got completely carried away, she needed to be told.
    She answered on the first ring. “Oh my God, Dawson !” She practically squealed his name.
    “Hello, Harriet.”
    “I’m having multiple orgasms.”
    “Congratulations. That has to be a first.”
    “Go ahead, be your usual insulting self. You’re forgiven. You’re forgiven every hateful thing you’ve ever said to me. Tell me, how in the hell did you track them when the FBI had failed? Was it Glenda? Did she help put you there in that