Deadline (Sandra Brown)

sarcastically, if the deputy wanted to handcuff him.
    “That won’t be necessary, Mr. Scott. This isn’t an arrest. We just want to talk to you.”
    “Right.” He’d then turned to look at Amelia, but she had difficulty holding his gaze. She heard him mutter something she didn’t catch, then he pulled open the front door and went out ahead of the two deputies.
    Now as Bernie, his hands at ten and two on the steering wheel, dodged flooded areas of the road, she contradicted herself about not wanting to talk about it. “For the past week or so Stef had been seeing someone.”
    “Dirk.”
    “She told you about him?”
    “Not much. He works on boats.”
    “I know little more than that. I urged her to invite him to the house, but she seemed reluctant to introduce us. I wish now that I’d pressed her for more information about him, but she was a grown woman. I didn’t feel it was my place to interfere.”
    “I know exactly what you mean.”
    His tone suggested an unspoken footnote. So did the discomfiture in his expression. “Bernie, do you know something that you’re not telling? Whatever it is, you should share it with the authorities.”
    He shifted in his seat, glanced into the rearview mirror to make certain the boys weren’t listening, then gave her an uneasy glance. “I saw them together.”
    “Her and Dirk?”
    Looking miserable, he shook his head.
    Her heart began a dull, hard thudding. “Dawson?”
    He nodded.
    “When?”
    He screwed up his face in thought. “Thursday?”
    “You must have the day wrong.” She’d caught Dawson spying on Friday, and Stef hadn’t met him until that evening at Mickey’s.
    “No, I’m certain it was Thursday, because that was the day I was packing up and my hip started giving me fits.”
    Without interrupting him, she listened carefully as he described to her the encounter he’d seen.
    When he finished, he paused, and added awkwardly, “It wasn’t anything. Not really. But when I teased her about it later, warning her that he looked too old for her, she just laughed and asked me not to say anything to you about seeing them together.”
    “Why did she care if I knew?”
    “ She didn’t. He did. He’d told her not to tell you that they’d met.”
    Amelia was too heartsick to respond.
    Bernie pulled up to one of the village’s few stop signs and looked across at her. “I hate now that I told you.”
    “I needed to know.”
    “It’s not my place to butt in.”
    “You didn’t butt in. I pried it out of you.”
    “Who you spend time with is your business.”
    “It was only circumstances that brought Dawson and me together.”
    “That may be,” Bernie said, “but I think you like him.”
    She turned her head aside so he couldn’t see her face. “We’d better hurry or we’ll miss the ferry.”

Chapter 13
    D awson left the interior of the sheriff’s administrative offices through a doorway that opened into a small lobby. He was shocked to see Amelia there alone. She was sitting in one of a row of preformed plastic chairs lined up against the wall. She seemed just as surprised to see him. Her eyes widened fractionally, then she looked away.
    He walked over and sat down in the chair next to hers. “Are you all right?”
    She turned her head and gave him a droll look. “I can’t remember a Labor Day I’ve enjoyed more.”
    For asking such a stupid question, he figured he deserved the putdown. “Hunter and Grant?”
    “They’re with George Metcalf and his wife. I talked to them on the phone a few minutes ago. They’ve had fun, but they’re ready for me to come get them.” She glanced toward the door through which he’d emerged. “I don’t know when I’ll be free to do that. And maybe it would be better if I left them there overnight. I have to be in court early tomorrow morning.”
    “I’m sure Lem Jackson would speak to the judge on your behalf.”
    “When he heard about Stef on the news, he called and offered to ask for a postponement, but I told him not to.”
    “Can you bear up to a cross-examination?”
    “I’m tired of dreading it, and want to get it over with as soon as possible.”
    He understood her wanting to have the court appearance behind her, but he questioned the wisdom of her decision. She looked completely wrung out. “Have you told Hunter and Grant about Stef?”
    “I don’t know how to tell them when I can’t believe it myself.”
    He waited for a moment. Then, “You know her death wasn’t caused by