Deadline (Sandra Brown)

you.”
    “Just for shits and giggles, what makes you think so?”
    “Headly knows you inside and out, Carl.”
    “I doubt it.”
    “Close enough. He’s made studying you his life’s work. But to nail your character he actually needed only one day. The day before Thanksgiving 1976.”
    Carl glared at him.
    “Yeah, I thought that would ring a bell. Headly’s been on to you since Golden Branch. On that day, you revealed the caliber of man you are, and Headly’s opinion of you hasn’t wavered.”
    “Like I care about his, or anyone’s, opinion of me.”
    “How many bullets did that man take for you while you were running for your damn life?”
    “He was going to die anyway.”
    “We’ll never know.”
    “ He knew. He had a hole in his head, for chrissake. He volunteered to hold them off.”
    “While you ran. How hard did Flora have to beg for you not to leave her and Jeremy behind?”
    “I didn’t leave them though, did I?”
    “But you wanted to.”
    “She could barely walk. Blood all over the damn place. I had to bind her up in a sheet, and even then she left a trail.”
    Like a potent narcotic, a slow rage was seeping through Dawson. He embraced it. He wanted it to saturate every cell. “During the standoff, and while you were escaping through the woods, how did you keep Jeremy from crying?”
    “Doped him. Only way to shut him up.”
    “You doped your son. How old was he?”
    “Eleven months.”
    Amelia started with surprise. Her lips parted in a silent exclamation.
    Dawson registered her stunned reaction, but his gaze never flickered off Carl. “The newborn never made a sound.”
    Carl snorted with contempt. “So they found it?”
    “Headly did.”
    “Figures.”
    “When did Flora go into labor?”
    “Around midnight. She was still at it when the cops showed up. It was a nasty business. Thought I was never going to get the thing out of her.”
    “But you finally did.”
    “Had to cram a towel in her mouth to keep her from screaming.”
    “As soon as the baby was born, you stuffed it down through a hole in the floor.”
    “First time I’ve thought about it since.”
    His blasé dismissal of what he’d done was as shocking as the barbarous act itself.
    Dawson swallowed bile and had to force himself to continue. “As they were searching the house—”
    “They didn’t find me,” he said in singsong.
    “But Headly found the baby in the crawl space.”
    “What a frigging Boy Scout.”
    “Barely alive. Still attached to the placenta.”
    “You’re breaking my heart.”
    “That’s when he knew you are an irredeemable sack of shit.”
    “Who’s gonna kill you now.”
    Carl pulled the trigger, but Dawson had anticipated it and dropped. The bullet missed him. Carl roared in outrage and flung Amelia out of his way as though she were a rag doll.
    That was his undoing. She was the only reason the SWAT-team snipers on the neighboring roof hadn’t fired before then. Now they had a clear target. As the gunfire erupted, shattering window glass, Dawson lunged forward to cover her and keep her down. SWAT officers barged through the door.
    It happened within seconds.
    “Are you hit?” Dawson asked Amelia.
    Dumbly she shook her head.
    As the room filled with SWAT officers, he crab-walked over to Carl, who lay on his back staring at the ceiling, his eyes open, his slack features forming an incredulous expression. Dawson grabbed the front of his bloody shirt and yanked him into a sitting position. The man’s bald head wobbled on his neck.
    Dawson shook him until his unfocused eyes found him. Teeth clenched, he said, “Look at me, old man. While you’re burning in hell, remember my face. I’m the other son you left to die.”

 
    Diary of Flora Stimel—November 27, 1977
     
     
He would be a year old today. I woke up remembering what the date was, and it’s kept me sobbing all day.
Carl asked me what the hell was the matter, and when I reminded him that this was the anniversary of Golden Branch, I thought he was going take my head off. He got so mad, he stormed out of the room. (We’re in some crappy motel in Colorado that has a dusty cow head on the wall.)
It’s okay with me that Carl left. Jeremy’s been acting up. I guess what they say about the twos is right. They can be terrible. Jeremy was being noisy and restless, jumping on the bed, and getting on Carl’s nerves. My crying was aggravating him. So it’s just as well that he went somewhere to cool off. While he’s