Deadline (Sandra Brown)

cars were in front of and behind her car when they drove off the ferry and made their way through Savannah. To Amelia, the caravan looked obvious, but she supposed the law officers knew what they were doing. Headly was wearing a shoulder holster beneath his jacket, which was both comforting and disconcerting.
    The plan was for them to drop Dawson off at the jail visitation center and come back for him after their errand to her apartment.
    “I could grease the skids for you,” Headly offered. “Make it more official.”
    “Thanks,” Dawson said, “but I want to avoid being ‘official.’ A private citizen is more confidence inspiring.”
    “You hope.”
    “I hope.” As he got out of the car, he gave Amelia a meaningful look. “Later.”
    “Good luck.”
    After pausing to make certain that the unmarked cars were still serving as unobtrusive escorts as she drove away, Dawson entered the building where Willard Strong’s lawyer, Mike Gleason, was waiting for him in the lobby, as arranged by Glenda, who had passed herself off as a top-ranking executive at NewsFront . The attorney had fallen for her schmooze, which was as good as any when she set her mind to it.
    “I appealed to his vanity, and he fell for it,” she’d told Dawson when she called him back to confirm the appointment.
    He’d forgiven her for being unable to obtain more information about Carl Wingert’s telephone call to Harriet. As Dawson had expected, it had come in on a number that was blocked. “Sorry, I couldn’t help you there,” the researcher had said.
    “You’re still a sweetheart. You got me this meeting, and that’s a coup.”
    Now, puffed up with self-importance, the lawyer approached him. “Mr. Scott?”
    They shook hands. “Thank you for agreeing to talk to me.”
    “With no guarantee of granting you an interview with my client.”
    “I hope to convince you that it would be in his best interest.”
    “Then you’ve got your work cut out for you.”
    Gleason accompanied the snarky comment with a gesture toward a sitting area where they could chat.
    He was about the same age as Dawson, nice-looking, and well dressed. But he wasn’t an effective trial lawyer. His cross-examination of Amelia had been disastrous, and he hadn’t recovered much ground by putting his client on the witness stand.
    He talked tough, but Dawson guessed that the chest thumping was to compensate for basic insecurity. He was in over his head and he knew it, but he would go down kicking.
    “I thought NewsFront had folded.”
    It was a mild but intentional gibe. Dawson responded with a bland smile. “We’re hanging in there. One of the few.”
    “I was told that you’re covering the trial for the magazine.”
    “I’m covering the trial for myself. It’s a compelling story, start to finish.” He didn’t have time to pussyfoot around or spare Gleason’s inflated ego. He laid it out there. “The way things stand now, the story will end with Willard Strong going to death row.”
    Gleason took exception, which Dawson had anticipated. He talked over the attorney’s sputtered protests. “Which will be a tragic miscarriage of justice, because your client is innocent.”
    That stopped the spate of objections. Dawson raised his eyebrows as though asking permission to continue. Curtly, Gleason bobbed his head.
    “Willard was framed for his wife’s murder.”
    “What makes you think so, Mr. Scott?”
    “I’m not prepared to divulge that.”
    Gleason looked disappointed, then put out. “You’re trying to pull a fast one, aren’t you?”
    “No.”
    “Did you try to get an interview with Lem Jackson, too? Did you tell him you think we wasted the state’s money on a trial, that Willard is as guilty as sin and should have gone straight to prison?”
    “No.”
    “But you’ll admit that an interview with my client would embellish the story you intend to write.”
    “Damn straight it will. But by letting me talk to him, you’d be doing him a favor as well as me.”
    He crossed his arms over his chest. “Tell me how it could benefit him.”
    “You mean in addition to setting him free instead of condemning him to death?” Dawson didn’t expect a reply, and Gleason didn’t bother to make one. “Your client has a major PR problem. Even if he isn’t a killer, he looks like one. He carried a massive chip on his shoulder into the courtroom each day. Then you put him in the witness box and suddenly he’s earnest, woebegone, pathetic. A man