He was no longer Bernie. Unless Dawson looked very closely, it was doubtful he would recognize the man who, only a week ago, had been spry enough to fly a kite on the beach. His altered appearance was so realistic, he almost had himself convinced that he was a cancer patient whose prognosis wasn't good.

It was a perfect disguise. After one glance at someone so obviously terminally ill, people tended to look the other way, sometimes out of pity or respect for privacy, often because of an irrational fear of contagion, but always, always with avoidance. In a hospital environment, he would be practically invisible.

He gave the nurse a sheepish smile. "I guess I do look lost. I just realized that I got off the elevator a floor too soon. My friend is on four."

"The elevator usually doesn't take too long." Smiling, she bent down to sniff at the flowers he was carrying. "These should cheer up your friend."

He'd bought the bouquet from a vendor in the first-floor lobby, then taken it into a stall in the men's room. Now besides the flower stems inside the green tissue there was also a six-shot revolver, to be used in case the disguise wasn't as deceiving as he thought. His index finger was on the trigger.

"I like the color combination," he said.

"Very pretty." She patted his shoulder. "Have a nice day."

She was about to move away, when he forestalled her. "Say, isn't that the magazine writer who's been in the news?"

She followed the direction of his pointing chin. "Dawson Scott." Leaning in, she whispered. "All us nurses think he's hot."

Carl chuckled. "I probably would too if I was your age. And a girl, of course."

She laughed.

"What's he doing here?"

"Did you hear about the FBI agent who got shot? Of course you did. Everybody has. Well, Dawson Scott is his godson."

Everything inside Carl went perfectly still for several seconds. Then his heart began to race with excitement. So, that was it. That was the fishiness that Carl had sensed but couldn't put his finger on. Ever since Dawson Scott had moved in next door to Amelia, he'd thought there was more to him than simply being a writer on the trail of a good story. He and fucking Headly were practically related!

In a stage whisper, he exclaimed, "You'd don't say!"

The naive nurse fell for the act and was all too glad to elaborate. "I've been told that Mr. Scott wasn't too far behind the ambulance that rushed Mr. Headly to the ER. He stayed late into the night, until Mr. Headly was out of surgery. I assumed he'd hung around as a courtesy, on account of he was with Mr. Headly when he was shot.

"But then he showed up last evening and visited for over an hour. After he left, I mentioned to Mrs. Headly-that's her he's talking to-how nice it was of him to follow up. That's when she explained their relationship. They've known him since he was born."

"Huh." It appeared to Carl that the two were disagreeing. She was talking; Scott was shaking his head no. Then she reached out and touched his cheek. He pulled her hand away from his face and kissed the back of it.

The nurse said dreamily, "You can see how close they are."

"Yes, I can. I certainly can. It must be a big comfort to her to have him here."

"She told me as much, but don't let her appearance fool you. She's got a steel backbone. Keeps us all on our toes," she told him around a giggle. "She sticks to Mr. Headly like glue and only leaves the hospital to shower and change clothes. When she leaves, two bodyguards go with her. Like she's J. Lo or somebody."

"Bodyguards?"

"In case the men who tried to kill her husband go after her. Well, man, now. It was a father and son, and the son died yesterday. Oh, there's the elevator. Let me grab it for you."

As he hobbled into it, Carl placed his hand at his crotch and winced. She asked if he was all right.

"They cut out my prostate a couple of weeks ago. Still get twinges down there."

Her lips formed a pucker of sympathy. "It gets better."

As the door slid closed, he winked at her. "It already has. And you've been a huge help."

While Dawson was out, the hotel housekeeper had serviced his room. She always turned up the AC thermostat when she left. Every time he came in, he cranked it down again as far as it would go.

He took a four-dollar bottle of water from the minibar and ordered a room-service sandwich. He'd been elevated from Harriet's shit list to star status. The hotel desk had informed him that all his expenses were being covered by NewsFront. When he came in last night, a bottle of chilled champagne was waiting for him in his room. The unopened bubbly was turning warm in its bucket of melted ice.

CNN and all the major networks had covered the dramatic story that had unfolded in the ramshackle cabin on the edge of the salt marsh. Dawson had successfully eluded reporters. He'd disconnected his hotel-room phone this morning when the switchboard operator ignored his request and continued to put through calls from correspondents asking for just one sound bite.

Harriet had heard the story about the time he was on the ferry going over to Saint Nelda's. That was when his replacement cell phone-which he'd bought at a supermarket-had begun lighting up with text messages. He regretted having sent her his new number and hadn't bothered to read her texts until after he got back to Savannah. The first few had been gleeful. Overnight, they'd graduated to giddy.

He looked over at his neglected laptop where it sat on the dresser. Last night, after leaving Amelia and returning to this solitary room, he'd planned to write. His best writing always came from scouring emotional wounds that were already raw, which was why he had a love-hate relationship with his craft.

Never had his emotions been as ulcerated as they were last night. Ideally, his impressions and feelings about Jeremy Wesson should be committed to hard disk while they were still fresh. He'd even booted up and placed his fingers on the keyboard, hoping the familiar preparation would jumpstart him.

But he hadn't been able to type a single word. He couldn't think of a turn of phrase that didn't trivialize the thoughts and feelings that went bone-deep, soul-deep. And he realized he never would.

Now he sat down on the edge of the bed and placed the necessary call to Harriet. Before she got completely carried away, she needed to be told.

She answered on the first ring. "Oh my God, Dawson!" She practically squealed his name.

"Hello, Harriet."

"I'm having multiple orgasms."

"Congratulations. That has to be a first."

"Go ahead, be your usual insulting self. You're forgiven. You're forgiven every hateful thing you've ever said to me. Tell me, how in the hell did you track them when the FBI had failed? Was it Glenda? Did she help put you there in that cabin? She won't tell me dick, but I suspect it was her. Was it?"

"I'm not writing the story."

When a star collapsed, it didn't create that kind of vacuum. For an interminable amount of time, nothing was said. Then, "This isn't fucking April Fool's Day, Dawson."

"This isn't a joke, either. I can't write the story."

"What are you talking about? You lived the story. You are the story."

"Which is why I don't want to write it. Why I can't."

"Okay, okay, I'll play along. Why can't you?"

"I'm too close to it."

"You're close to every story. You drive us all nuts with your close-getting. Ordinarily you won't write a story unless you're grafted to it."

"This is different."

"How?"

"It just is."

"Not good enough. How is it different?"

"The man died in my arms, Harriet."

That subdued her, but not for long. However, her voice turned softer. "I know that must've been awful." He imagined her stroking a cat after yelling at it for coughing up a hair ball. "But you've written about soldiers who died of their injuries. Some of them you interviewed hours before they died."

"I wasn't looking into their eyes when the lights went out." He experienced a flashback to working his shirt collar free of Jeremy's grasping hand, and squeezed his eyes shut in an attempt to block it. He propped his elbow on his knee and rested his forehead in his palm. "Look, I don't expect you to understand how this is different. It just is."

"So consider it a unique opportunity. A chance to stretch. It was an awful experience, but you came away from it with a new perspective on life. Share what you learned with your reader." She was going for maternal now. I know it was a hard knock, but pony up, get on with it. I have every confidence in your ability to overcome this hiccup.

"It's not an experience I wish to share."

"Maybe not right now. It's still too fresh. Give yourself a few days to mellow. Chill. Take all the time you need." A second or two ticked past. "But if I could have the finished piece by, say, the end of October, I could slip it into-"

"There won't be a story about this, Harriet. Not in October. Not ever. Not from me anyway. If you want to send someone else-"

"No one else can write it."

"Well, then you're shit out of luck."

He heard her jeweled reading glasses hit her leather desk pad. She was hacked. "Dawson, why are you doing this to me?"

"To you?"

"Is this your sick payback for me being promoted over you?"

He laughed. "Don't flatter yourself, Harriet. This has nothing whatsoever to do with you."

"Ohhh, okay. I get it. Duh! You're holding out for perks. Fair enough. I think I can talk management into giving you a bonus for the piece. I can't guarantee it, but I'll try. I can positively guarantee that it'll be the cover story."

"No story."

"From now on, I won't give you assignments."

"You mean I don't have to cover blind balloonists?"

"You can write about whatever your heart desires, and that's a huge concession for me. In exchange, give me thirty-five hundred to four thousand words."

"I'll give you six."

"Six thousand?"

"Six words. Do. You. Want. The. Champagne. Back?"

She hung up on him, which was just as well, because his room-service sandwich had arrived. But when he opened the door, it wasn't the expected roast beef on rye that greeted him.

Chapter 27.

I've already made a fool of myself in front of you," Amelia said. "But I'd rather not look like one in front of them." She tipped her head to one side.

Dawson stepped into the hallway. Midway down, two uniformed officers were watching them from the open door of the elevator. He looked back at Amelia. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing, if you invite me in."

He stood aside. She called a thank-you to the deputies, who had insisted on accompanying her when she'd stated her intention of going to Savannah. She pulled the door closed and flipped the bolt, then turned to face Dawson.

He said, "I thought you were room service."

"Disappointed?"

"Surprised. Where are Hunter and Grant?"

"I left them at the beach house in good hands. They and the deputy have bonded."

The conversation died there. She went farther into the room and took a look around. When she saw the ice bucket and champagne, she asked, "What's the occasion?"

Completely baffled, he said, "Amelia, what are you doing here?"

"I suppose it was rude of me not to call first, but-"

"Screw manners," he said impatiently. "Why would you come at all? I thought I would be the last person on earth you'd want to see after last night."

As they stood there looking at each other, the aftershocks of that explosive encounter were still being felt. The demand, the frantic groping, her hands, his mouth, the insistent coupling, the ecstasy of the synchronized climax.

Suddenly he frowned with concern. "I didn't hurt you, did I?"

"No."

"Well, that's good. I didn't exercise much-"

"Control. No, neither did I."

"I was going to say finesse."

"A better word. You're the writer."

Again, the conversation died.