Deadline (Sandra Brown)

cabin? She won’t tell me dick, but I suspect it was her. Was it?”
    “I’m not writing the story.”
    When a star collapsed, it didn’t create that kind of vacuum. For an interminable amount of time, nothing was said. Then, “This isn’t fucking April Fool’s Day, Dawson.”
    “This isn’t a joke, either. I can’t write the story.”
    “What are you talking about? You lived the story. You are the story.”
    “Which is why I don’t want to write it. Why I can’t.”
    “Okay, okay, I’ll play along. Why can’t you?”
    “I’m too close to it.”
    “You’re close to every story. You drive us all nuts with your close-getting. Ordinarily you won’t write a story unless you’re grafted to it.”
    “This is different.”
    “How?”
    “It just is.”
    “Not good enough. How is it different?”
    “The man died in my arms, Harriet.”
    That subdued her, but not for long. However, her voice turned softer. “I know that must’ve been awful.” He imagined her stroking a cat after yelling at it for coughing up a hair ball. “But you’ve written about soldiers who died of their injuries. Some of them you interviewed hours before they died.”
    “I wasn’t looking into their eyes when the lights went out.” He experienced a flashback to working his shirt collar free of Jeremy’s grasping hand, and squeezed his eyes shut in an attempt to block it. He propped his elbow on his knee and rested his forehead in his palm. “Look, I don’t expect you to understand how this is different. It just is.”
    “So consider it a unique opportunity. A chance to stretch. It was an awful experience, but you came away from it with a new perspective on life. Share what you learned with your reader.” She was going for maternal now. I know it was a hard knock, but pony up, get on with it. I have every confidence in your ability to overcome this hiccup.
    “It’s not an experience I wish to share.”
    “Maybe not right now. It’s still too fresh. Give yourself a few days to mellow. Chill. Take all the time you need.” A second or two ticked past. “But if I could have the finished piece by, say, the end of October, I could slip it into—”
    “There won’t be a story about this, Harriet. Not in October. Not ever. Not from me anyway. If you want to send someone else—”
    “No one else can write it.”
    “Well, then you’re shit out of luck.”
    He heard her jeweled reading glasses hit her leather desk pad. She was hacked. “Dawson, why are you doing this to me?”
    “To you ?”
    “Is this your sick payback for me being promoted over you?”
    He laughed. “Don’t flatter yourself, Harriet. This has nothing whatsoever to do with you.”
    “Ohhh, okay. I get it. Duh! You’re holding out for perks. Fair enough. I think I can talk management into giving you a bonus for the piece. I can’t guarantee it, but I’ll try. I can positively guarantee that it’ll be the cover story.”
    “No story.”
    “From now on, I won’t give you assignments.”
    “You mean I don’t have to cover blind balloonists?”
    “You can write about whatever your heart desires, and that’s a huge concession for me. In exchange, give me thirty-five hundred to four thousand words.”
    “I’ll give you six.”
    “Six thousand?”
    “Six words. Do. You. Want. The. Champagne. Back?”
    She hung up on him, which was just as well, because his room-service sandwich had arrived. But when he opened the door, it wasn’t the expected roast beef on rye that greeted him.

Chapter 27
    I ’ve already made a fool of myself in front of you,” Amelia said. “But I’d rather not look like one in front of them.” She tipped her head to one side.
    Dawson stepped into the hallway. Midway down, two uniformed officers were watching them from the open door of the elevator. He looked back at Amelia. “What’s wrong?”
    “Nothing, if you invite me in.”
    He stood aside. She called a thank-you to the deputies, who had insisted on accompanying her when she’d stated her intention of going to Savannah. She pulled the door closed and flipped the bolt, then turned to face Dawson.
    He said, “I thought you were room service.”
    “Disappointed?”
    “Surprised. Where are Hunter and Grant?”
    “I left them at the beach house in good hands. They and the deputy have bonded.”
    The conversation died there. She went farther into the room and took a look around. When she saw the ice bucket and champagne, she asked, “What’s the