Deadline (Sandra Brown)

Carl. Outside the Headlys and Amelia, no one knew. Well, except for Carl himself.
    “They’ll be pulling off the guards on Saint Nelda’s if they haven’t already,” he said. “You and the boys will be safe.”
    “Tucker is going to leave several deputies out there to discourage the media. Just until the hubbub dies down. A few days.”
    “That’s good. Kids all right?”
    “I talked to both of them on the phone. They’re as happy as little clams. The deputy is spoiling them. She told me there was no need to come back tonight, since it would be such a short turnaround.”
    Knutz had asked that they meet with him at nine o’clock the following morning to “wrap up.”
    Dawson turned back into the room. He looked at her for a moment, then spread his arms out to his sides. “The secret’s out. Any questions?”
    She took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “How old were you when you found out?”
    “Thirty-seven.”
    She looked at him with stupefaction. “You haven’t known until now?”
    He returned to the chair and sat down. “To be precise, it was eight, no, nine days ago, that I learned the fate of my brother. I knew all about the standoff in Golden Branch and how I came to be. Carl, Flora, all that.
    “My parents—adoptive parents—never hid my origins from me. I grew up knowing how Headly had found me, nearly dead but miraculously still breathing. I spent a couple months in a neonatal ICU, then was released with a clean bill of health.
    “The authorities kept my existence a secret from the press, one of those things they hold in abeyance for crime-solving purposes. Headly and the agent in charge that day also kept a lid on it to protect me, my identity.
    “I, Flora’s newborn, was the only baby found inside the house. But it wasn’t my DNA on the baby blanket. For thirty-seven years, that remained a mystery. The DNA had been tested, and it was confirmed that Flora was the mother of whoever it belonged to, but where was the child? Who was the child? What had happened to it? Carl and Flora had never been spotted with a child, not even while under surveillance in Golden Branch. He remained the mystery baby.
    “Then,” he said after pausing for breath, “nine days ago, Headly sent me a text, told me to get over to his house ASAP. I went. He told me about a murder trial in Savannah. The shocker—the presumed victim’s DNA matched that anonymous sample. My brother, who, according to Carl, was eleven months older, had been found. Apparently when Carl and Flora ran for their lives, they took him. Left me.”
    He picked up his empty glass and swirled it, wishing for a drop in the bottom of it. When one didn’t appear, he replaced the glass on the coffee table and looked across at Amelia.
    “When you were growing up, did it bother you, knowing that you had been abandoned?”
    “There was no reason to be bothered by it. After all, my birth parents were despicable characters. I had got the best deal. Headly knew how badly his childless friends wanted a baby. He engineered the adoption as soon as I was released from the hospital. My parents loved me. I loved them. I couldn’t have asked for a more loving, stable home and family life.”
    “However?”
    “However,” he said slowly, “as I got older and realized the importance of bloodlines, I determined not to subject anyone else to mine. Especially not a woman who had the misfortune of falling in love with me.”
    “You made certain that didn’t happen. No long-term relationships that could lead to marriage. No children.”
    He left that alone. He didn’t tell her about the vials of semen the doctor had insisted on retrieving and freezing before he would perform the sterilization procedure on a patient so young. At this juncture, it was pointless for her to know they remained in a sperm bank…in case he ever changed his mind.
    She said, “This explains everything.”
    “Right. Which is why we don’t need to talk about it anymore. The situation won’t improve with discussion. There’s nothing to be worked out. It just is , and it won’t ever change. I was sired by Carl Wingert, criminal of renown. Jeremy, my brother, was your husband.”
    “Hunter and Grant are your nephews.”
    “Yeah.” Mention of them caused him to smile spontaneously, in spite of himself. “And they’re great. God, there were times when—” Realizing what he was about to say, he broke off.
    She tilted her head inquisitively. “When