Page 113 of Deadline

“I asked for forty-eight hours.”

“That’s not enough time to—”

“They gave me twenty-four.” Headly glanced at the wall clock. “Now twenty-three and thirteen minutes.”

Dawson swore under his breath.

Headly said, “The Bureau will pursue Bernie Clarkson, if only to rule out that he’s Carl.”

“Fine. Good. But that still leaves Amelia and the boys vulnerable.”

“Knutz made a suggestion.” Headly looked at Amelia. “But I doubt you’re going to like it.”

Speaking for the first time in several minutes, she asked, “What is it?”

“You could call a press conference and announce that you have good reason to believe that your ex-husband wasn’t murdered, that he’s still alive and stalking you, that possibly he killed your nanny mistakenly, and that he represents a threat to you and your children.”

No one said anything for a moment, then Dawson asked, “What purpose would that serve?”

“Public opinion would likely favor her. Press would be all over it. That could jostle the local authorities into taking some action.”

“I won’t do it,” she said, brooking no argument. She looked toward the living area where Hunter and Grant could be heard laughing. “Can you imagine the effect it’s going to have on our lives when it’s disclosed that Jeremy is alive?”

“That’s an inevitability,” Headly gently reminded her. “Whenever and however it comes about, it’s going to have a dramatic impact.”

“Of course I know that. But I don’t want to be the ringmaster of the media circus when it happens. Eventually my sons will be identified as the children of a murderer, grandchildren of domestic terrorists. I can’t protect them from the truth, or prevent it from becoming public knowledge. But I also can’t conceive of how we’ll cope with the backlash. How will they live with that stigma?”

She looked to both men for an answer, but, of course, none was forthcoming, because there wasn’t one. Dawson held her tortured gaze for several seconds, then turned away. Headly was the first to break the strained silence.

“Okay, we’ll sit on the disclosure for as long as we can. In the meantime let’s try to find the sons of bitches. Did you come up with anything overnight, something you’ve remembered that could be useful? Where Jeremy might be hiding, who could be sheltering him?”

“I made a list of his friends, ones whose names I could remember. But by the time he disappeared, Jeremy had alienated most of them.”

“Where’s the list?”

“Upstairs on my desk.”

“Would you get it, please? Let’s take a look. I know it’s a long shot, but our time is running out. I still believe that as long as Carl and Jeremy don’t know—” Headly broke off when Dawson’s cell phone rang.

He checked the LED. “Harriet.”

Amelia looked to Headly for clarification. “NewsFront’s managing editor. A harpy.”

Dawson answered, but his editor cut him off in midsentence. He listened, then asked tersely, “Did the call come through the switchboard? What time?” He looked at his wristwatch. “What exactly did he want to know?”

She and Headly could tell by the tension in his posture that Harriet was passing on unwelcome news. After a full minute of listening, Dawson said, “Okay, thanks for letting me know. Yeah, yeah, I’m still trying to woo her.” He glanced at Amelia. “Right. She’d be a plum interview for sure. Which is why I gotta run now. Bye.” He clicked off and, after a beat, said, “A man identifying himself as Bernie Clarkson called her to get the skinny on me.”

Headly hissed through his teeth. “Carl knows.”

“At the very least he smells a rat.”

Amelia sat down heavily in the nearest chair. “What did he say specifically?”

Dawson recounted the conversation that his editor had repeated to him. “She said he sounded like a dotty old man. Cautious and suspicious. The last thing he asked was what or who had brought the Jeremy Wesson story to my attention. She told him she didn’t know, and she doesn’t. She believes that my interest was sparked by the Willard, Darlene, Jeremy love triangle and its deadly consequences, partially the result of his PTSD.”

Headly said, “But ‘Bernie’ thought there might be more to your interest, and acted on that hunch.”

“Apparently. He lied about the business card. I didn’t give him one. Which means that he went to the trouble to find out whom to call to check me out.”