I wish I hadn't thought of Golden Branch. Now it's all I'm thinking about.

Stop crying, Flora! My crying always makes Daddy so mad. I mean Carl. He's like Daddy that way.

He's been gone for hours. I should use this time while he's gone to write as much in this diary as I can, and then hide it before he gets back. But it's dark and * * *

it's day again, I think. Carl isn't back yet, but he will be soon, I know. Maybe I'll sleep for a while and when I wake up

Chapter 25.

Amelia was in the beach-house kitchen when Dawson knocked once on the utility-room door, then walked in. She wanted to melt at the sight of him, but somehow maintained her dignity. Both of them seemed a bit shell-shocked, unsure of what to do or how to behave. Was there a rule of etiquette for this situation?

They stared at each other until it became awkward. Finally she spoke. "Hi."

"Hi."

He was wearing a white cotton shirt, tail out, sleeves rolled to his elbows, over a pair of jeans, all of which looked great. But he seemed immeasurably fatigued. "Are you all right?"

He raised one shoulder in a slight shrug, nodded once. "All things considered."

"They called from the ferry dock to tell me you were on your way."

"Had to run quite a gauntlet to get through. Island is crawling with cops of various sorts. But that's good."

"I feel safe. As long as I don't look toward Bernie's house. I can't look at it without shuddering. I hope I'll get over that in time."

He gave a nod. "Is the woman deputy still staying here in the house?"

"She is. She's on break at the moment. Several of the officers are staying in the house you rented. They take shifts sleeping, eating. Since you were coming, she figured it would be okay if she went next door for a while."

"Hmm." After that noncomment, his gaze moved aimlessly around the kitchen-more to avoid looking directly at her than to look at something else, she thought.

"Are you all right?"

He sharp-focused on her again. "You asked me that already."

"Oh, right, I did. I'm sorry."

"I'm fine. Are you?"

"Yes. Except, about Jeremy..." She took a deep breath, let it out through her lips. "I'm not sure what I should be feeling."

"Understandable."

"I don't grieve for him. But I do feel sad."

"I can relate. Believe me."

Dozens of questions about Jeremy's final minutes were on the tip of her tongue, but she couldn't bring herself to ask them. Not yet. She wasn't ready to hear the details, and Dawson seemed equally disinclined to provide them.

They were acting like strangers, not like two people who had shared a passionate farewell kiss the night before. Although she wanted to feel his arms around her, to be surrounded by him, warmed by him, she hadn't made an initiating move. Neither had he. It wasn't for lack of desire. That hadn't changed. His eyes burned with it.

But Jeremy's death had made a difference. Had he died remotely, distantly, it might not have had this divisive effect. But Dawson had been there when he drew his last breath, and that had created an indefinable chasm between them. They were trying to find a way to bridge it.

Unable to bear the teeming silence any longer, she said, "Eva called to tell me that you'd stopped by at the hospital."

"Briefly. Soon as I'd gone to the hotel and cleaned up. I knew Headly would want to hear everything firsthand. He was-"

"Oh, I know how he was," she said, laughing softly. "I wouldn't be surprised if the nursing staff has a picture of him they're using as a dartboard. He's not an ideal patient."

"His mood will improve soon as he starts getting feeling back." A few seconds elapsed, then, "Eva said you stayed with her all night. She appreciated it and so do I."

"I wouldn't have left her alone. Despite the surgeon's positive prognosis, she was terribly worried about him. And about you."

He shifted his weight from one foot to another, looking uncomfortable. "Tucker said he called you."

"I'd made him promise to the moment they located you."

"I would have called you myself, but they wouldn't let me speak to anyone until I'd been questioned."

"Headly told me that."

"Then when I was free to call, I didn't have my phone. They took it as evidence because Jeremy was recorded on it. Besides-"

"You didn't feel like talking."

He gave her a weak smile. "Right. After going over it repeatedly with the authorities, no, for a while there, I didn't feel like talking anymore."

"I needed some down time to let my mind settle around it, too. I wanted only to be with my children."

"Do they know?"

"What would be the point of telling them?"

"None."

"I didn't think so, either."

"How are they?"

"Want to see them?"

He grinned. "I could do with some innocence."

They climbed the stairs and moved down the hallway, past the closed door to the guest room that Stef had used. "I spoke with Mrs. DeMarco a short while ago. They'd been notified of Jeremy's confession. Stef's body will be released to them tomorrow."

"Good," he said. "And terrible."

"Yes."

When they entered the boys' bedroom, they heard them quarreling in the connecting bathroom. "Hey, what's going on?"

At the sound of her voice, their silence was abrupt. Amelia shot a suspicious look over her shoulder at Dawson as she pushed open the bathroom door. When the boys saw him, they shoved their way past her and launched themselves at him.

He hooked his hands under Grant's arms and used him as a weight to do a biceps curl, clenching his teeth and groaning with the effort, which caused Grant to giggle. When he set him down, he socked Hunter's shoulder. They fired questions at him, but, talking over them, he asked what all the noise had been about.

Hunter quickly gave the classic reply. "Nothing."

"Hunter said we shouldn't tell Mom, but I think we should."

"Shut up, Grant!"

"Hunter, I've asked you not to tell your brother to-"

"It's about our-"

"Grant, shut up!"

"-penises."

Hunter looked like he wanted the floor to open up and swallow him. Bright spots of color appeared in his cheeks.

Amelia cleared her throat and, with as much composure as she could muster, asked, "What about them?"

"Noth-thing," Hunter said, shooting his younger brother a threatening glare.

Dawson turned to Amelia. "I'd like an iced tea, please."

"What?" Confused, she looked from him to the boys, then back at him. Then, "Oh! Of course. Tea. Good. I'll just go and..." She left them and closed the bedroom door behind herself.

Ten minutes later, Dawson rejoined her in the kitchen. He went straight to the glass of tea she had dutifully poured and drained it without taking a breath.

"Well?"

"Well," he said, stretching out the word, "they've both experienced what I assured them was a perfectly normal biological phenomenon."

"Ah. I thought that might be it. I've noticed that phenomenon on occasion, but always pretended not to, as any lady would."

"Hunter experienced a rather, uh, stubborn one today. He was afraid it signified something terribly wrong with him, which he wanted to keep from you so you wouldn't worry or get upset."

"That sweetheart."

"Grant was just as considerate of your feelings. He felt you should be told about the affliction in case they both died of it and you found them dead in their beds without knowing what had killed them."

She covered her mouth to smother a laugh.

"I gave them my solemn promise that you couldn't die from it, although," he added in an undertone, "it might sometimes feel like you can. Hunter asked if it would ever stop doing that, and I told him no. If he's lucky."

The two of them started laughing at once and they laughed for a full minute. "So much for their innocence." Wiping tears of mirth from her eyes, she said, "Lord, it feels good to laugh. Since I've known you, we haven't really laughed together, have we?"

"There's a lot we haven't done together that I've wanted to do."

The mood shifted from lighthearted to serious in the span of a single second. They continued to look at each other, but neither moved to close the short distance between them. Amelia decided to address the issue. "For reasons I can't explain, it seems inappropriate for us to pick up where we left off last night."

Looking pained, he said, "Yeah."

They could hear Hunter and Grant tramping down the staircase. Grant called out, "Dawson, will you play cars with us?"

Amelia said, "But I don't see any harm in you staying for dinner."

He glanced toward the oven. "Something smells good."

"Roast chicken with lemon and rosemary."

"Sold."

The boys came into the kitchen, claiming his attention and ending any chance for a grown-up conversation. But over their heads, he said to her, "After dinner, we have to talk. There's something you need to know, and I want you to hear it from me."

Carl was never without a fallback position. Only a fool would leave himself with just one option, and he hadn't escaped capture this long by being a fool. He'd taken extraordinary measures to keep the cabin from being detected, but if anyone got wise to it, he had the Airstream. It was his personal escape hatch, kept secret from Flora and even from Jeremy. He could retreat to it should the situation ever go to shit.

Which is exactly what had happened.

He'd taken one look at Jeremy's bullet wound and had known immediately that his son wasn't going to make it. It might have been a slow, internal leak, but without surgical repair, he would have eventually been drained dry.

There was no sense in crying over it. It was what it was, and Jeremy knew that as well as he did.

"This place was great so long as nobody was looking for us," Carl had told him. "But now, the heat's on. They're gonna be combing the countryside for us. I've got to get out of here. You know that, don't you?"

Of course Jeremy had recognized the necessity of his retreat. If the head of the snake was chopped off, the snake died. Carl couldn't be captured or killed. If he was, everything he'd stood for, everything he'd done, would have been for naught.

Jeremy didn't argue with his decision or plead with him to stay. He didn't ask to be taken to a hospital where his life might have been saved. No, Jeremy had accepted his fate like a true crusader.

Carl could have done without seeing the tears in his eyes when he'd handed him the revolver loaded with only one bullet. Jeremy had inherited that sentimental streak from his mother. It manifested itself at the worst times, when it was damned inconvenient or impossible to deal with.

Like at Golden Branch. He'd thought Flora would never stop bawling, even after they were safely away. Like that time when he'd cut short their Canadian vacation. Both she and Jeremy had cried then. The last time Jeremy had visited the cabin before she died, the two of them got weepy.