Abandon

by Carla Neggers

  “Time for you to call it a night.”

  She opened her eyes, realized that she’d zoned out. It was Rook who’d spoken. He was sitting in the Adirondack chair next to hers.

  “Where’s Gus?”

  “He left ten minutes ago. You’re done in, Mac.”

  He was right. The adrenaline and meds had drained her, more than any loss of blood or the brief, futile fight with her attacker had. “Yep, bedtime.” But she smiled at Rook. “I’ll toast one last marshmallow and head in.”

  She thought he would argue with her, but he took Gus’s abandoned stick and stabbed a marshmallow. “I’ve never been much on marshmallows.”

  “What? How’s that possible? Everyone likes marshmallows.”

  “Too sweet.”

  “Ah. Now that makes sense. Nothing too sweet for our Special Agent Rook.” She handed him her stick, and he skewered another marshmallow and returned the stick to her. “You want to tell me what you’re doing up here?”

  “Mac, you know I can’t.”

  “Anything to do with J. Harris Mayer?”

  He looked at her. “Cal Benton stopped by your place last night and asked if you’d seen him.”

  She sat up straight. “How the hell do you know—” She broke off, shoving her stick straight into the fire Gus style. “Nate Winter told you. So that cinches it. You’re looking for Harris, too.”

  “You know him well enough to call him Harris?”

  “Not necessarily. I just do.”

  “Have you had any contact with him since you came to Washington?”

  She shook her head. “No.” She yanked her marshmallow out of the flames just as it was about to catch fire, and turned to him, trying to summon the strength and focus to figure him out. “Rook, are you interrogating me?”

  “I’m toasting a marshmallow.” He let it puff up with blackened blisters, then winked at her, pulled it out of the fire and ate it in one bite. “Perfect.”

  “Bet the inside was still hard.”

  Her marshmallow fell off the end of her stick into the fire.

  Rook got to his feet. “I’d say that’s a sign.”

  She looked up at him from her chair. He was so damn good-looking. And his eyes…In the dark, with the stars sparkling overhead, they seemed to see right into her soul.

  He was probably just trying to decide if she was holding back on him.

  The man was in Cold Ridge because of his work. Not because of her. She had to remember that, regardless of how attracted she was to him.

  “You don’t have to stay with me, you know,” she said.

  “It’s me or the local cops, or one of your fellow marshals. You’re not in any shape to defend yourself if this guy comes back. You’d be lucky to wake up.”

  “And if you’re investigating Beanie’s connection to J. Harris Mayer—if Harris is up to no good—then you can sneak around in the middle of the night and search her house.”

  “Not without a warrant.”

  Without a warrant, anything he found while deliberately searching Bernadette’s lake house would be subject to suppression in a court of law.

  Although he didn’t exactly deny that he wouldn’t like to take a look around.

  The police had checked the house for any sign of an intruder, but that was as far as they could go, too, without any evidence to justify a wider search.

  Of course, Mackenzie was Bernadette’s houseguest and friend. She could poke around in the house without a warrant. But Rook would never ask her to, and she wouldn’t know what to look for without his help.

  What are you thinking? She gave herself a mental shake. Bernadette was a respected federal judge who happened to have known J. Harris Mayer for decades, long before his downfall.

  “Need a hand getting up out of that chair?” Rook asked.

  “Nope. Thanks. I can manage.” But Mackenzie reeled slightly as she stood up. Rook had the grace—or the good judgment—to let her steady herself, and she blew out a breath. “Not one of my finer days.”

  “See how you feel about that tomorrow.”

  She started to argue with him, but saw he was serious and wasn’t patronizing her because she was less experienced in law enforcement. “I’ll do that.”

  He waited for her to take the lead back to the house, but she turned to him, the darkness and the dim light from the screen porch casting his angular face in shadows. Sexy shadows. “Thanks, Andrew. For helping out today. For staying tonight.”

  “Not a problem.”

  “All in a day’s work?”

  “Mac—”

  “You could have just told me that our relationship was interfering with your work. At least you could have thought up a good lie. Told me there was someone else.”

  “There isn’t.” His gaze on her was unwavering. “I shouldn’t have left that voice mail. I should have at least stopped by to explain things.”

  “Then you might have caught Cal Benton knocking on my door, and could have asked him why he was looking for Harris Mayer. He thought I’d seen him at a fund-raiser I attended with Beanie—Judge Peacham—on Wednesday.” Mackenzie frowned at Rook. “Ah-hah. Now it makes sense. Cal saw you and Harris together at the hotel, didn’t he?”

  Rook stepped up onto the porch with her. “None of that matters. I cut things off with you because I didn’t want to put either of us into a situation we’d regret.”

  She surprised herself with a laugh. “Hard for me to think I’d regret sleeping with you, even if you dumped me ten minutes later. I might kick myself on a certain level, but another, no way.”

  He smiled. “Still feel that way?”

  “I rarely change my mind.”

  “Mac.” He brushed a few stray curls off her forehead and let a knuckle drift across her mouth. “I’m glad you weren’t hurt any worse today. I’m sorry I didn’t get here sooner to back you up.”

  She tried to smile. “You’re not making it any easier for me to think you’re a snake in the grass.”

  He kissed her softly. “Good. I’m not big on snakes.”

  He didn’t wait for her to respond, and moved past her, opening the door to the lake house. Mackenzie walked in, grateful that she didn’t fall flat on her face, and he didn’t end up carrying her, after all.

  Eleven

  Jesse washed the dried blood off his hands in the brown-stained sink of a gas station bathroom more than an hour’s drive from the lake where he’d slashed Mackenzie Stewart. He’d taken a little-used trail out to a side road before the cavalry could hunt him down. An organic farmer who supplied area restaurants with fresh produce picked him up. Jesse got the spiel about eating organic.

  The blood mixed with the hot water and the crud in the sink.

  “Hey, at least blood’s organic.”

  His voice sounded hollow, and his reflection in the dirty mirror made him look like a cadaver. Violence wore him out, drained him in a way nothing else did. The level of brutality he could summon at will shocked him every time. He didn’t know where it came from. His well-to-do, respectable family in Oregon had seen the propensity for violence in him early, how a violent outburst would settle him down, calm him. He hadn’t had anything to do with them—or they with him—since he’d dropped out of high school and headed east.

  Until today, he’d never hurt anyone in the mountains. But the conniving Harris and Cal had left him with no other choice. Jesse was so pent up with anger, he needed to blow off some steam. He wanted his money, along with their little insurance policy to get him out of their lives and never to return—whatever it contained. Pictures, DNA, fingerprints, bank accounts, addresses of properties he owned, names. His life.

  If he was caught searching Judge Peacham’s property for the money and materials, he had to be sure no one linked him with her, her ex-husband or her no-account friend Harris.

  There were easier ways, perhaps, to accomplish that mission than by attacking the female hiker that morning, but he’d succeeded in throwing off the police. They were
hell-bent on finding a scary, unhinged lowlife who struck women at random.

  He hadn’t gotten any of his first victim’s blood on his hands. But she hadn’t kicked him, either.

  He dried his hands with a stiff brown paper towel, crumpled it up and tossed it into an overflowing, filthy trash can. Too late to worry about leaving behind DNA. One speck of blood in the sink, and the cops would trace it back to Miss Mackenzie, figure out he’d been there washing up.

  But he’d planned for that in the hours after confronting Harris Mayer.

  J. Harris Mayer.

  J for Jackass, J for Jerk…

  Actually, the J stood for John. How anticlimactic was that?

  Jesse pushed back the uncomfortable reality of just how close he had come to messing up today with the redheaded marshal, and focused instead on the task at hand.

  It was past ten, dark and chilly. He unzipped the backpack he’d hidden in a cluster of rocks off one of the trails above the lake, after he’d attacked the hiker. She’d come damn close to tripping over it—as good a reason as any to pick her to stab. He could have killed her on the spot, but alive, she’d be able to confirm any description of him if he had to attack again.

  A shrink might call that a rationalization to commit violence, but whatever. It had worked.

  The backpack was filled with supplies, although there was nothing the police could trace back to him should they have managed to get to it before he had. His decision to head down from the hills to the lake carrying only his assault knife had paid off. Agile, not weighed down by gear, he’d made a quick getaway.

  He pulled out clean hiking pants, a clean shirt and clean socks. Horn-rimmed glasses with plain lenses. A Red Sox cap. He was in Red Sox country—when people saw his cap, they wouldn’t think, Oh, that must be the man who stabbed those two women today.

  The beard was a problem, but he figured dealing with it now would only draw more attention to him. Go into a gas station bathroom with a beard and come out with one, no one would notice. Come out without one, everyone would notice.

  Once transformed into a respectable-looking, inexperienced hiker—not the fit, half-mad hiker police were looking for—Jesse slung his backpack over one shoulder, exited the bathroom and bought a Coke and a bag of Frito’s, with silent apologies to his organic farmer, and left the gas station.

  He noticed splattered blood on his right hiking boot.

  Deal with it later. Stay focused.

  He walked down the pitch-black road, the scattered houses near the gas station giving way to impenetrable woods. He heard animals rustling in the brush. Bats swooped across the starlit sky. The air was cool now, but the wind had died down and the mosquitoes hadn’t yet found him.

  After a half mile, he came to a trailhead and indulged in a moment’s relief when he saw that his rented BMW was still there. An expensive car parked at a trailhead this far from the crime scene shouldn’t be suspicious, but even if police checked out the BMW, they would discover it was rented to a small, law-abiding Virginia consulting firm.

  Fifteen minutes later, a chubby couple in their late forties welcomed him into their bed-and-breakfast, a Victorian gingerbread house just off a tiny village green.

  Not exactly where police would expect a deranged slasher to spend the night.

  Jesse was in no mood for good cheer, but when the couple smiled at him, he smiled back. “Great day to be out in the mountains. I hope I’m not too late?”

  “Not at all.”

  Nothing in their manner indicated they’d heard about the knife attacks and the search for the man responsible.

  The husband, who sported a beard of his own, led Jesse upstairs to a cottage-style room with its own bath. “Breakfast starts at eight,” he said, “but if you want it earlier—”

  “Eight’s perfect. Thank you.”

  “Are you hiking tomorrow?”

  “I’m climbing Mount Washington.”

  The man nodded with approval. “Good for you. I used to climb it once a year, but I have a bad knee. Got to keep going while you can, I always say. Your first time up Mount Washington?”

  No. He’d climbed it at least a dozen times. But Jesse smiled and tried to look humble, even a little nervous. “It’s my first visit to the White Mountains.”

  “Mount Washington’s a challenging climb. People often underestimate it. Tomorrow’s supposed to be decent weather, although you never know. You can start out in sunny, seventy degree weather, and by the time you’re on the summit, the fog’s rolled in and you’re fighting seventy-mile-an-hour wind gusts.”

  “I hope that doesn’t happen to me.”

  When he was finally alone, his door shut and locked behind him, Jesse poured a bath, making the water as hot as he could stand. He dumped in half a bottle of a fancy bath and shower gel. It didn’t smell too girlie, and it foamed up nicely.

  While the tub filled, he trimmed his beard. He’d shave in the morning. If his hosts asked, he’d just say it was for good luck climbing big, bad Mount Washington.

  He rinsed out the sink and turned off the tub faucet, then lowered himself into the hot water. He sat in the bath until his skin was fiery-red and wrinkled and his mind was clear. He returned his focus to where it belonged, on betrayal, on men who would cut deals with him and then try to double-cross him.

  J. Harris Mayer.

  Calvin Benton.

  Jesse conjured up their faces and recognized how much he had come to hate both men, and he didn’t back off from that surge of raw emotion, the sheer violence that churned inside him.

  “Bastards,” he whispered. “Who do they think they are?”

  When he climbed out of the tub, he used two thick, white towels to dry himself off, then slathered on the entire contents of the little bottle of body lotion that came with the room. His skin was soft and pampered looking—not that of a man who’d just stabbed two women and made a mad dash over hill and dale to avoid the police.

  He wiped the steam off the mirror with a corner of his towel and gazed at his reflection, less cadaverous now. He could acknowledge what he hadn’t been able to for the past hours.

  “You failed, ace.” He leaned in close. “You didn’t complete your mission. Whatever ol’ Harris and Cal have on you, they still have.”

  That and his money.

  They still had the million dollars he was owed.

  Jesse stood back from the mirror and dropped the towels onto the floor. For forty-two, he looked good. Hard. Fit. Mackenzie Stewart was fit and knew a few moves, but luck and luck alone had spared her today.

  Don’t think about her.

  But he pictured the shape of her breasts in her pink swimsuit, and he had to exhale to release some of the tension mounting inside him again.

  “Stay on task.”

  Something had happened to his voice. It wasn’t as strong, because he was thinking about the girl marshal, the water dripping from her hair, the vibrant blue of her eyes.

  Jesse tightened both hands into fists, kept his gaze on his own reflection.

  A nice, cool, even million wasn’t chump change. It was real money. Damned if he was going to let those two bastards blackmail him. It was his money, and he wanted it now. On his terms.

  His identity, his money.

  He needed to center himself, regroup, figure out what to do. If he didn’t cooperate with Cal Benton, would the cagey SOB keep the money and his insurance policy? Or would he go to the FBI? Would he try to use the information he had on Jesse to get more money?

  Anything was possible. Jesse knew he had to press forward, and so he would.

  In the meantime, he thought, turning from the mirror, he would give himself tonight to indulge in his fantasies about his redheaded girl marshal.

  Twelve

  Rook produced a dented aluminum percolator from a lower cabinet in Bernadette Peacham’s simple kitchen and set it on the gas stove. He needed coffee, and soon. He’d passed a bad night in a small upstairs bedroom just big enough for a double bed
and chest of drawers. It adjoined the room where Mackenzie had slept. He’d heard every move she made, every soft moan of pain—and a loon. The bird’s plaintive cry had woken him after he’d finally dozed off. It was a long time before he’d gone back to sleep.

  Mackenzie yawned in her seat at the rectangular table alongside a shaded window. Behind her was a picture window with a view of the lake, where the rising mist was slowly burning off in the morning sun.

  She pointed at the coffeepot. She’d pulled on shorts and a sweatshirt, but looked as if she could crawl back to bed. “Beanie’s had that pot for as long as I can remember.”

  “It must be a hundred years old.”

  “Fifty, anyway.”

  The percolator required dismantling. Rook pulled it apart and set the pieces on the scarred Formica counter. Sunlight streamed through the windows. It was a beautiful summer morning—a good day for canoeing and a long walk on a lakeshore trail.

  He added water to the stained line, then set the pot on the stove and found a can of inexpensive coffee in the refrigerator. Using the scoop inside, he dumped some of the contents to another stained line, inside the filter basket.

  Mackenzie yawned again. “You forgot to put the cover on the filter. Once the coffee starts to perk, you’re going to end up with a mess.” She stretched out her legs, wincing, but not, he noticed, going as pale as she would have just twelve hours ago. She gave him a cheerful smile. “I don’t like grounds in my coffee.”

  Rook pulled off the pot lid, put on the basket cover, replaced the top and turned on the gas stove. The burner came on with a poof, and he adjusted the flame. “It’d be a lot easier to run to a doughnut shop.”

  “There are no doughnut shops around here. Closest one is…I don’t know. Fifteen, twenty miles, anyway.” She pushed back her hair, the curls more pronounced this morning. “You’d never make a good caretaker. Just as well you’re a mean SOB FBI agent.”

  “I’m not mean.”

  “I meant to say professional. A professional federal law enforcement officer.”

  “How long do I let the coffee perk?”