Deadline (Sandra Brown)

mistake and trip himself up. He did with the fingerprint. Same as Carl.” He chuckled. “The slippery bastard had never been fingerprinted, which was a major frustration to those of us trying to catch him.
    “That is, not until the late eighties when he used a homemade bomb to blow up a mail truck. First and last time he ever used explosives, because apparently he wasn’t very good with them. The thing went off as soon as Carl set it into place. It’s a wonder it didn’t kill him, but all he lost was his thumb and index finger. He also left the print of his middle finger on one of the bomb fragments. We didn’t—”
    He must have realized that both she and Dawson were gaping at him. Dawson hissed, “Son of a bitch.” Then he came out of his chair so suddenly it toppled backward. “Son of a bitch!”
    “What?” Headly demanded.
    She wheezed, “Which hand? Which hand is missing fingers?”
    “The left.”
    She covered her gasp with her hand. Dawson spoke for her. “He’s Bernie.”

Chapter 18
    J esus, I can’t tell you how glad I am to be ditching this old geezer.”
    Carl pulled the loud pink shirt over his head, balled it up, and tossed it into the trash can. He popped a pair of contacts out of his eyes and sighed with relief. “Hate those damn things.” The contacts went the way of the shirt. They wouldn’t be needed again. Bernie wouldn’t be needed again.
    Jeremy took two beers from the rusty refrigerator, twisted off the caps, and passed one to his father. “I didn’t expect you until tomorrow.”
    “I didn’t expect to leave the island until tomorrow, but things were getting too hot over there.” As he exchanged plaid Bermuda shorts for a pair of khaki pants, he told Jeremy about the deputies who’d been at Amelia’s house earlier that day.
    “Why so nervous? They weren’t looking for you.”
    His son’s amusement annoyed him. “I haven’t escaped capture this long by being careless. Cops get close, I get as far away as possible as soon as possible.”
    “You went to the writer’s house on Monday morning while the cops were there.”
    “Ordinarily I wouldn’t have gone anywhere near the place. But then you had gone and killed the wrong woman. Here you had crowed in my ear—by the way, you weren’t supposed to call me.”
    “I’ve explained about burner phones, Daddy. They can’t be traced.”
    “I don’t trust them. None of that technology shit. Don’t use the phone again. Anyway, you boasted that you’d killed Amelia. Next thing I know, Dawson Scott is at my back door and Amelia is cozied up in the passenger seat of his car! The following morning, I had to go over there to see what was what. For all I knew, they were telling her that her supposedly late ex-husband had killed her nanny.”
    “A dead man can’t be suspected of murder.”
    “You could have been identified by the guy who runs the filling station.”
    “Not a chance. We shouted at each other through a downpour for ten, fifteen seconds tops, then he ran back into his shop. He was at least twenty yards away from me. I couldn’t tell you what he looked like. I’ll be a blur to him, too.”
    “You’d better hope.”
    “I don’t exactly look like a spit-and-polish Marine anymore,” he said, patting his expanded belly.
    “What about the boat?”
    “Taken care of.”
    “You sure?”
    “Positive.”
    “Weapon?”
    “At the bottom of the sound.”
    “Because we’ve come too far with this to start making mistakes.”
    “Nobody is after me. Okay?” Hitching his thumb over his shoulder, he said, “I picked up groceries, if you’re hungry.”
    “In a while. I need to think.”
    They sat in mismatched chairs and drank their beers. Jeremy was the first to speak. “How are my boys?”
    “Good, last I saw them, which was Monday morning when I drove Amelia and them to the ferry. When I talked to her this afternoon, they were still at the curator’s house.”
    Jeremy thoughtfully picked at a loose corner on the label of his beer bottle. “Do they ever talk about me?”
    “Not that I’ve heard.” Noticing Jeremy’s pained expression, he said, “You haven’t been around for a long time. They’ll have to get to know you again.”
    “When can we get them?”
    “We’ve got to take care of Amelia first.”
    Jeremy shifted in his seat. “About that, why don’t we just snatch the boys and disappear? Why does she have to die?”
    “Because she would never give up looking for them, that’s