Abandon

by Carla Neggers

  “Exactly eight minutes, according to Beanie. If it boils, we’ll end up with rotgut. I can’t drink rotgut. I’m injured.”

  He cast her a skeptical look. “You’re not that injured.”

  She grinned at him, unrepentant. “What have I been saying?”

  But she was injured, and Rook could see that fact had her more off balance than she wanted to acknowledge. She’d had an encounter with her own mortality yesterday. Her training as a marshal had helped her survive the attack, but it would only help so much in dealing with the emotional aftermath.

  And she was new to law enforcement, he remembered.

  He hoped her relative inexperience would help her deal with yesterday’s trauma rather than make it more difficult, but he realized he didn’t know her well enough to gauge her reactions. Maybe Gus Winter did. Or Carine. Or, back in Washington, Nate.

  Rook was well aware he was the outsider among the people of Cold Ridge.

  Mackenzie rose stiffly and pulled open the refrigerator. “Have you ever been in a knife fight?” she asked without looking at him.

  “No. Not a knife fight.”

  She glanced back at him. “Other kinds of fights?”

  “None I didn’t walk away from.”

  “And not all on the job, I’ll bet.” She reached into the refrigerator and pulled out a glass bottle of milk from a local dairy, setting it on the table. “I don’t like knives. The idea of stabbing someone—anyone—bothers me. But this guy yesterday? He likes knives. He likes being up close and personal.” She returned to the refrigerator for orange juice. “He liked seeing me cut.”

  The coffee bubbled and Rook turned down the heat even more. “He stabbed the hiker and ran. He didn’t stick around to make sure she was dead or to savor the moment. With you, he had no choice but to run.”

  “I don’t know, I got wobbly after I kicked him,” Mackenzie said. “He could have found his knife or grabbed a hammer from the shed—I’m not sure I could have stopped him.”

  “You’d have found a way. He probably realized that.”

  “I just don’t think I looked all that scary.”

  Rook wasn’t fooled by her matter-of-fact tone. Now that she was safe, the stark reality of what had happened was starting to hit her. “Maybe you should talk to someone,” he suggested.

  “Maybe we should find this guy.”

  “No argument from me, but you’re hurt, Mac. At least give yourself today to rest.”

  “I do better when I stay busy.”

  He didn’t respond. She poured orange juice into a small glass and drank half in a single gulp. He remembered how he’d noticed her red curls on that rainy night in Georgetown. Then her blue eyes. Her freckles. And her shape, he recalled. She worked at her conditioning—running, weights, martial arts—and was at a high level of fitness, but she’d never carry a lot of muscle.

  Not for half a second had he pegged her as a marshal. On that warm summer night, chatting while the rain pelted on the sidewalk outside the coffee shop, he’d just thought the pretty redhead across from him had been destined to cartwheel into his life. In some ways, he still did.

  “I have a tentative doctor’s appointment this afternoon.” She sounded barely resigned to the idea. “When’s your flight back to D.C.?”

  “Tonight.” He could easily reschedule, but she’d know that. “It was supposed to be an uneventful, quick trip up here.”

  “Feel free to go about your business.”

  He checked the clock above the stove. Another two minutes before the coffee was done. “Trying to get rid of me, Mac?”

  “There’s no point in wasting more of your weekend up here, and if you still want to find Harris—well, he’s obviously not hiding out here at Beanie’s.”

  “What about the man who attacked you?”

  “If he’s mentally unbalanced, he could have forgotten he stabbed me by now.” She looked out the side window, the shade shifting in the light morning breeze. “I’m not as woozy as I was yesterday. If he has anything else in mind for me, I can defend myself.”

  When the coffee was ready, Rook filled two mugs, handing one to her. She thanked him, then headed out to the screened porch, hesitating a moment before making her way down to the dock.

  He debated his options. Give her space? Follow her?

  It was a beautiful morning, and she needed a few days to rest and get back on her feet. But she wouldn’t want to take them. She’d want to get out into the woods and find the man who’d attacked her and the hiker, and who’d scared the hell out of her friend.

  Carrying his coffee with him, Rook walked out onto the porch and down through the cool, dew-soaked grass to the dock. He hadn’t slept well, and he needed a shower, not to mention at least a half a pot of coffee.

  “Nasty stuff, this brew,” he said as he joined Mackenzie at the end of the dock.

  She squinted at him and smiled. “It is pretty bad.”

  “Any snakes in this lake?”

  “Not poisonous ones.” She drank more of her coffee, shifting her gaze back to the water. “Rook, am I part of some FBI investigation?”

  “Mac…”

  She looked at him again. “I’m serious. Am I?”

  He shook his head. “No.”

  “Bernadette?”

  He took another sip, wondering how old the can of coffee was.

  Mackenzie sighed audibly. “Not answering. Okay, fine. I understand. Thanks for sticking around last night, but you can go on back to D.C. Take an earlier flight.” Her tone wasn’t harsh. “There’s nothing for you to do here.”

  “I have a few people I should see while I’m here.”

  “FBI buddies?” She dumped the last of her coffee into the lake. “Maybe it should only have perked for six minutes. I forget.”

  Taking her mug with her, she walked back to the porch, stumbling on the steps. If he pointed out her unsteadiness, Rook figured she’d just tell him she needed a second cup of coffee. Or breakfast. Or more marshmallows. Anything to keep him at bay.

  But she’d be like this anyway, he realized. He had nothing to do with it. She was independent, determined, impatient with her own vulnerability and her reduced capacity to get out there and hunt their fugitive—a frustration he could well understand.

  When he returned to the kitchen, she was cracking eggs into a cast-iron frying pan on the stove. “Carine brought enough food for a week, never mind a weekend. If there’s one positive about yesterday, it’s that I was here, not her.” She grabbed another egg, cracked it, tossed the shell back into the carton. “And Harry. Nothing happened to him.”

  “I can finish up breakfast.”

  “My turn to wait on you.”

  She rinsed her hands at the sink and dried them on a dish towel hung on a drawer handle. Rook eased in behind her and grasped her right wrist, avoiding her injured left side. “Mac.” He didn’t know what else to say. “I’m sorry. I was a damn heel.”

  She sucked in a breath, which made her wince in pain. “Apology accepted.” She angled a look up at him and grinned suddenly, a flash of pure mischief in her very blue eyes. “Bastard. So, where were you and Harris on Wednesday? I figure you were in the hotel bar, and you saw Bernadette and me together, realized we were friends and decided then and there you had to dump me.”

  Rook kissed the top of her head. “You’re going to burn the eggs.”

  “I’m going to burn you,” she replied. “Am I close to describing what happened? If I hadn’t gone to that damn party, we’d have had dinner together. I probably wouldn’t even have been here yesterday to get sliced.”

  “You’re speculating.”

  “So? I’m on pain medication. I’m entitled. And you’re not going to confirm or deny that you canceled dinner because you found out that Beanie and I are friends.” She flipped the eggs, which were fast turning to rubber. “So, are you going to reschedule your flight and leave early?”

  “Not going to let up, are you?”

  She just smil
ed at him.

  Rook made toast to go with the eggs, which were at least as bad as his coffee. He wasn’t leaving early. He’d check with the investigators for any new lead on their fugitive slasher. He’d told them yesterday to let him know if J. Harris Mayer turned up anywhere. But it was a long shot, and they had to look at the evidence. Harris wasn’t their priority.

  Rook wasn’t even sure if his missing judge was his priority. But Harris had left many loose ends, and the timing of his disappearance was, if nothing else, provocative. Rook’s job wasn’t to investigate the attacks yesterday; it was to locate Harris.

  Time to get back to Washington and step up the search for his AWOL judge.

  Mackenzie ignored the pull of pain in her side as she pushed through ferns to a narrow trail her attacker must have followed yesterday. The police had already been here with search dogs. But she wanted to satisfy herself; she couldn’t just sit on the porch and swat mosquitoes.

  Rook, of course, was right behind her. He hadn’t left for Washington yet. And he still hadn’t explained his reasons for being in New Hampshire. “I knew you were tight-lipped even before I realized what you did for a living,” she said without looking back at him. “A straight-arrow type. Not a rule breaker.”

  “Are you a rule breaker, Mac?”

  “I haven’t been in law enforcement long enough to know.”

  “I’m talking about personality.”

  She glanced back at him at last. If there was a sexier man on the planet, she didn’t want to meet him. But if Rook wasn’t on her heels, Gus Winter would be. He would pester her nonstop about overdoing—and he wasn’t as good-looking. “I’m creative and results-oriented. How’s that?”

  Rook smiled at her. “Sounds like an academic’s spin.”

  Was that why he’d dumped her? Because he’d heard she wasn’t a by-the-book type? But she hadn’t gotten into hot water in her six weeks in Washington…Nate. Had he suggested to Rook that she might not be his type? Which would mean her connection to Bernadette wasn’t the reason for the breakup by voice mail?

  If only Rook was just some sexy guy she’d dated a few times who’d decided it wasn’t going to work out. But it was worse than that. She liked him. She enjoyed his company.

  Over and done with.

  What she wanted now were answers. Why was he in New Hampshire, why was he looking for Harris Mayer and who was the man who had attacked her yesterday?

  Would he attack someone else because she’d failed to take him down?

  Mackenzie pushed her way through another patch of knee-high ferns growing in the light shade of the birches and beech trees along the lake. Her side ached, but she was doing much better than when she’d rolled out of bed, thinking she’d have to face Rook with dark circles under her eyes and her hair sticking out. Breakfast had helped. She wasn’t going to collapse in front of an FBI agent, especially not one she’d almost slept with.

  The trail became soft and damp as they came to a trickling stream that emptied into the lake. She paused as Rook came up beside her, then pointed across the rock-strewn creek. “There’s a clearing on the other side of that hill. Thought we could check it out.”

  “Need a hand crossing?”

  “No.”

  She jumped over the narrow stream as she answered, but one sneaker landed in a squishy, near-black stew of dirt and rotted plant matter. Normally she’d have cleared the mud by a good eighteen inches. She jerked her foot out of the muck, prompting a jolt of pain from her cut, and bent forward, hands on her knees, teeth gritted as she bit back a curse and waited for the pain to subside.

  “There.” Mackenzie straightened slowly and smiled at Rook, who’d cleared the mud easily. “Stitches are all intact. I’m rusty on crossing streams.”

  “You didn’t take any pain medication this morning, did you?”

  “None of the stuff with the codeine. I took a couple Tylenol.”

  “You don’t have to be out here. It’s not your job to find the man who attacked you.”

  “Not yours, either.”

  She continued through a patch of invasive Japanese honeysuckle and barberry that Bernadette had been battling for years. Walking helped clear her head. She’d looked at dozens of mug shots yesterday at the police station after her trip to the E.R. She’d done dozens of different computer searches for her fugitive, using different sets of criteria. Beard, no beard. Blue eyes, no eye color. Restricted geographic location, virtually unrestricted geographic location.

  Looking at too many faces wasn’t a wise idea. She needed to stick to shots of real possibilities. She didn’t want the faces on the computer screen to start to blur with the one in her mind of the actual perpetrator. She was trained to recognize features that could be plugged into a database or help with a sketch, but eyewitness accounts, including hers, were notoriously unreliable.

  But she’d seen this man before, somewhere. She was sure of it.

  Last night, she’d found a pad of paper and a pencil in her nightstand, and had jotted down everything she could think of about the attack. She didn’t censor herself. Whatever came into her mind went on paper. Colors. Thoughts. Smells. Tastes. Where she’d felt the breeze. How she’d thought it was wild turkeys she’d heard in the birches.

  The exact moment she’d realized she’d been cut.

  When she’d felt the blood. The pain.

  The lapping of the lake water on rocks and sand, and the chirping of birds in the distance—and nearby, too. Something else. Not birds—a red squirrel, chattering in one of the hemlocks.

  She wrote down a description of the spit on her attacker’s beard. The touches of gray in his dark hair.

  His eyes.

  Had he guessed he seemed familiar to her?

  Did he know where they’d seen each other before?

  Mackenzie had a good memory, but nothing she did helped place the man who’d jumped her with an assault knife. She understood that the investigators suspected her attacker had seemed familiar to her because of some kind of life-and-death defense mechanism.

  In other words, that she’d unconsciously made up any recognition.

  But she hadn’t.

  As Mackenzie reached the clearing, the lake sparkled through the trees, a view she’d always loved. “I used to camp out here.”

  Rook stood next to her. “On your own?”

  “Sometimes. I was never afraid. I don’t know why, because I’d hear animals out here at night.” She smiled. “Of course, my parents and Beanie weren’t far away.”

  “Did you always want to go into law enforcement?”

  “Never, actually. That came later, when I was working on my dissertation and realized I yearned for something different for myself. You?”

  “Always.”

  “I can go back to academia if the Marshals Service kicks me out.” She started to pick up a small stone and flip it into the water, but her bandaged side reminded her that probably wasn’t a smart idea. She sighed. “There’s nothing here. He’s probably hiking in Wyoming by now.”

  She turned back. When they reached the stream, she didn’t try to cross it in a single leap, but jumped to a rock in the middle, then to the bank. Rook again made it across in one long stride.

  Gus and Carine were waiting for them on Bernadette’s porch. Carine had Harry, who was cooing to himself, tucked on her hip. She seemed more herself after their recent scare. Rook quickly excused himself and ducked inside.

  “Just checking on you,” Gus said. “There’s nothing new. Beanie called last night. She didn’t want to disturb you. She said to use the house as long as you need to.”

  “I appreciate that, but I’ll be getting back to work as soon as I get the okay from the doctor.”

  He didn’t argue with her. “Rook’s leaving?”

  “He has a flight tonight. Mine’s not until tomorrow—”

  “You won’t be ready to fly tomorrow,” Gus said.

  Carine grinned suddenly. “You two. I swear you’ve been arguing since
Mackenzie could talk. We can’t stay, but if there’s anything you need, just let me know.”

  “There isn’t right now, but thanks.”

  After they left, Mackenzie sat in a comfortable wicker chair on the porch, closing her eyes and smelling the clean air, enjoying the relatively low humidity. She could have had this life: a house on a quiet lake, a job that would allow time there. But she’d walked away from it, and now she wondered if the attack yesterday meant that her new life had intersected, somehow, with her old one.

  That was a problem for another time, she thought, unable to stop herself from drifting off.

  Thirteen

  On his way to the airport in his rented car, Rook took a detour to the small private college where Mackenzie had taught before she’d headed to FLETC, the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Georgia. Its secluded campus was typical New England, with ivy-covered brick buildings and lush lawns that were relatively quiet in these weeks before the start of classes. A huge handmade sign welcomed incoming freshmen for orientation.

  Of all the people in Cold Ridge, New Hampshire, who could have followed Nate Winter into federal law enforcement, Rook suspected Mackenzie Stewart hadn’t been on anyone’s short list of candidates.

  He lingered in the shade of a giant oak. Why give up this life? What had compelled her? He pictured her on one of the pretty walkways, rushing to class, smiling at students who weren’t that much younger than she was.

  “You’re crazy,” Rook muttered to himself. “Go home.”

  Less than four hours later, Rook was back in Washington. T.J. met him at the airport, and Rook filled him in. But T.J. already knew all about the events in New Hampshire.

  “Other than walking into the middle of a knife attack on a federal agent, how was it up in the woods?” T.J. asked. “Any sign of our missing informant?”

  “Harris can’t even qualify as an informant. He’s been playing games for three weeks. I’ve got nothing.” Rook stared out the window. Even from the air-conditioned car, he could tell the Washington heat wave hadn’t let up. The city looked hot and steamy. “New Hampshire’s one of the safest states in the country, and a knife-wielding lunatic just happens to turn up at Bernadette Peacham’s lake house the day I show up looking for Harris. Never mind Mac and why she was there.”