Page 83 of Deadline

“No.”

“The shootout there in ’76?”

“Shootout?”

“Between several law enforcement agencies and members of a radical group called Rangers of Righteousness.”

“I think I’ve heard of them. Domestic terrorists?”

“Precisely. We went to Golden Branch to serve several arrest warrants. It resulted in disaster. Seven people died. Two lawmen, five members of the group. The first one to die was a deputy US marshal. He was standing no more than a yard away from me when he took a bullet in the throat.”

He gave her his account, which, for nearly forty years, he’d related officially and unofficially at different times to various people. Throughout the telling, Dawson watched Amelia’s face, looking for hints as to what she was thinking.

When Headly paused to take a drink of tea, she looked at Dawson as though to ask, Why is he telling me about this? But when Headly continued, she returned her attention to him and didn’t interrupt.

When he finished, she didn’t say anything for several seconds. Finally, she cleared her throat. “The two…the couple who escaped…?”

“Carl Wingert and Floral Stimel. The leaders. The worst of them. They were never apprehended.”

“Even after all this time?”

“To my great disappointment and embarrassment,” Headly said. “They’re officially still wanted by the FBI, but…” He gave a rueful chuckle, “I’m not.”

“What do you think happened to them?”

“God only knows. No crimes have been attributed to them for seventeen years, so they’re presumed dead.”

“What about the baby?”

Headly glanced at Dawson, who suddenly realized that his heart was beating as though he had never heard the story before and couldn’t wait to learn the fate of the characters involved.

Headly reached over and placed his hand over Amelia’s, which had begun to nervously fold and unfold the corners of the cocktail napkin beneath her sweating glass of tea. “During the investigation of your ex-husband’s murder, his DNA was retrieved.”

Her chest rose and fell with a shallow breath. Apprehension filled her eyes. She pulled her hand from beneath Headly’s and clasped her two hands together. “I’m aware of that.”

“What you don’t know is that Jeremy’s DNA sample was matched to one already in our data system,” Headly said quietly. “It came from that house in Golden Branch.”

She stared at him for several seconds and, after making a few unsuccessful attempts to speak, asked, “How is that possible?”

“We’re still trying to piece together the ‘how’ of it. What we know is that the Wessons weren’t his birth parents. We retrieved Flora Stimel’s DNA in Golden Branch. She was Jeremy’s mother.”

“You can’t be positive.”

“DNA doesn’t lie.”

“Jeremy’s samples were taken almost forty years apart, from different areas of the country.”

Dawson knew the futility of arguing that the biology was in error. Amelia realized it, too.

Not quite as emphatically as before, she said, “Even if the outlaw couple were his parents, which I’m not accepting, Jeremy couldn’t have known.”

“I think the probability is high that he did,” Headly said. “Did you ever see his birth certificate?”

“The original was destroyed in the house fire.”

“That’s right. He used a copied birth certificate to enlist in the Marines. Easily fudged. Did he ever mention to you that he’d been adopted?”

“No.”