Deadline (Sandra Brown)

grabbed the camera and banged it against the edge of the kitchen table over and over again till it broke apart.
Jeremy got scared on account of all the racket and started crying. Carl ripped up the picture I’d taken and told me never ever to take any pictures.
After the blow-up, Quirty said maybe we’d worn out our welcome.
It’s decided that we’ll pull out tomorrow. I won’t be sorry to leave this mousy house and that sneaky slut. But at least here in south FL the weather is warm. We spent all last winter in MN and I nearly froze. But I won’t complain no matter where we go, so long as Carl keeps us together.
I haven’t let myself wonder about what will happen when Jeremy is old enough to understand that we’re outlaws and don’t live like other people. I daydream about us having a normal life and being like other families. But it will never happen, so I had just as well stop daydreaming about it.
Carl’s been saying things that scare me, things like our lifestyle being hard on kids, like Jeremy will be needing to go to school in a few more years. When Carl starts talking about the future—and I know how he is once he gets an idea into his head—I get petrified that he’ll leave Jeremy behind somewhere.
I think back to Golden Branch. That horrible day. The worst day of my life so far. The labor was bad. I thought for sure I’d die of that. Then all that shooting! Lord, I was scared!
When Carl bent over me and told me that the others were dead and that he had to go right that second , I couldn’t believe he meant it. I was bleeding. Hurting something awful. But he was serious as serious can be. He said if he stayed, he’d be killed or caught. Did I want that?
The whole rest of my life was decided in that moment. Because, truth be told, I didn’t want to be killed or captured, either. Which I guess makes me the worst kind of coward, the worst kind of person.
It was cold and rainy. I remember running through those wet woods to where Carl had hid the car. I was holding Jeremy against me so tight, afraid I’d trip and fall with him, or that he’d cry and give us away. I was still sorta scared that Carl would go off and leave us if we didn’t keep up. I should count my lucky stars that he took us at all.
Even after we got away, I couldn’t stop crying over it. To this day, every time I think back on that morning, I cry buckets.
     

Chapter 4
    P lease, Mom?”
    “You can get back in after you’ve had some lunch.”
    “Five more minutes?”
    “After lunch.”
    “One more minute?”
    Placing her hands on her hips, Amelia gave six-year-old Hunter the look .
    She got a very downcast “Okay” as he waded out of the surf. “We were just starting to play.”
    She draped a beach towel over his shoulders and used a corner of it to dry the saltwater off his face. “Funny that I always seem to make you stop just when you’re starting to play. Race you to the umbrella?”
    She took off in the direction of their camp up the beach, where Grant was already rummaging in the picnic hamper. She slowed in order to let Hunter overtake her and smiled as she watched his strong young legs churning.
    The sand was warm against the soles of her feet. There was just enough breeze to counteract the sun’s heat. She deeply inhaled the salt air and smiled over the simple pleasure of being here, on the sea island, her favorite place on earth. The courtroom and the taxing testimony of yesterday seemed far removed. God bless the judge for granting her five whole days before having to return to court and face cross-examination. She’d determined not to think about the trial or the disturbing memories it evoked and, instead, to enjoy these last official days of summer with her sons.
    Who, at the moment, were squabbling over a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich.
    “I want this one.” Grant, who’d just turned four, clutched the plastic-wrapped sandwich to his chest in an effort to keep his brother from snatching it.
    Removing her wide-brimmed straw hat, she ducked beneath the beach umbrella and dropped down onto the quilt. “Hunter, leave Grant’s sandwich alone and choose another. They’re all alike.”
    “Exactly alike.” Stephanie DeMarco joined them, setting a small cooler between the boys to help defuse their spat. “Who wants a Capri Sun?”
    Amelia had hired the twenty-year-old to be the boys’ nanny for the summer, and it had proved to be an ideal arrangement for everyone. Stef, as she preferred to be