Главная страница | Современная зарубежная литература | Abandon

Abandon
Carla Neggers


On what is supposed to be a quiet long weekend in New Hampshire, Deputy U.S. Marshal Mackenzie Stewart is viciously attacked at the lakefront cottage of her friend, federal judge Bernadette Peacham.Mackenzie fends off her attacker, but he manages to escape. Everything suggests he's a deranged drifter - until FBI special agent Andrew Rook arrives. With Rook, Mackenzie broke her own rule not to get involved with anyone in law enforcement, but she knows he isn't up from Washington, D.C., to set things straight between them. He's on a case.As the hunt for the mysterious attacker continues, the case takes an unexpected turn when Mackenzie follows Rook back to Washington and finds that Bernadette's former mentor, a once-powerful, now-disgraced judge who has been providing Rook with information, has gone missing. Mackenzie and Rook realize the stakes are higher than either had imagined, and a master criminal with nothing left to lose is prepared to gamble everything.








Carla Neggers


To Bettye-Kate Hall




Contents


Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Six

Chapter Thirty-Seven




One


Andrew Rook focused on a seed that had broken loose from a thin slice of lemon in his ice water, because if he didn’t distract himself, he was going to jump across the polished, black lacquered table and throttle J. Harris Mayer, the would-be informant who had set up this meeting.

If they switched drinks, Rook thought, maybe Harris would choke on the lemon seed.

They were sitting along the back wall of a quiet bar in an upscale hotel four blocks from the White House. In his day, Harris had served two presidents. But it wasn’t his day anymore. He was an outcast, caught five years ago in a gambling scandal that had cost him his job and his reputation, if not his trust fund or his freedom. Many people—including Rook—believed criminal charges should have been filed against him, but Harris, once a federal judge, had managed to skate.

“We’ve been here a half hour,” Rook said. “Get to the point.”

Harris ran a pinkish fingertip along the rim of his beer glass. He was sixty-nine but looked older. His hands were trembling and heavily veined, a wet cough sporadically rattling his thin frame. Brown spots and moles dotted his fair, finely wrinkled skin and showed through his thin white hair. He wore a starched shirt and a sport coat with one of his ubiquitous bow ties, and his wingtip shoes were polished but had just enough sign of wear to suggest he was a man, nonetheless, who still got around Washington—who still mattered.

Lifting his beer, Harris gave a paternalistic tut-tut. “You have a short fuse, Special Agent Rook.”

“You might want to keep that in mind.”

“I chose you because you’re a rising star with the Bureau. You’re familiar with fraud and corruption investigations.” Harris spoke with a nasal, affected patrician voice. “You need to learn patience.”

Rook grabbed his glass and took a long drink. He didn’t care if he swallowed the damn lemon seed. Patience. He’d been patient. For three weeks, he’d played Harris’s game, treating seriously his vague tale of Washington intrigue, blackmail and extortion. Financial shenanigans. Sordid secrets. Fraud. Possible conspiracy. Harris Mayer knew all the buttons to push to get and keep Rook’s attention.

Now it was time for results. So far, Harris had produced nothing of substance, and Rook couldn’t waste any more time indulging an old man’s fantasies of regaining lost prestige, being a player again.

He set down his glass, hard. Harris didn’t seem to notice. Rook wore a dark gray suit, not a cheap one, but not as expensive as most of the suits the other men in the bar had on, including his wannabe informant. Rook hadn’t worn a bow tie since first grade.

“Are we waiting for someone to show up?” he asked.

“Ah. There we are. The federal agent at work, applying his deductive reasoning to the situation at hand.” Harris licked his thin lips. “Of course we’re waiting for someone to show up.”

Rook considering shoving the lemon seed up Harris’s nose. “When?”

“Anytime now.”

“Here?”

Harris shook his head. “Observe the guests walking up the hall to the ballroom. Beautifully dressed, aren’t they? I still have my tuxedo. I haven’t worn it in a long time.”

Rook ignored the small play for sympathy. The table Harris had chosen provided a strategic view of everyone in the bar, as well as everyone who passed by in the gleaming, glittering hall. About two hundred guests were gathering in the ballroom for a cocktail reception to benefit a local literacy organization. Rook had recognized a number of high-powered guests, but no one involved—at least as far as he knew—in criminal activity.

Harris could call the shots tonight. He was the informant. It was his show.

“There’s Judge Peacham.” The old judge almost chortled as he gestured toward the hall, smiling as if he were in possession of a secret that confirmed his natural superiority. “I knew she’d be here.”

“Why do I care if Judge Peacham is at a charity function?”

“Just wait.”

“Mr. Mayer—”

“Judge,” he corrected with a sniff. “It’s still appropriate to refer to me as Judge Mayer.”

“Seeing Judge Peacham again doesn’t help me.”

“Shh. Patience. We might have to go into the hall. I hope not—I’d prefer Bernadette not see me.”

Bernadette Peacham paused in the hall just outside the bar, her attention focused on something—or someone—behind her. For the past ten years, she’d served as a judge on the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Before that, she’d been a federal prosecutor and a partner in a prestigious Washington law firm. But her roots were in New Hampshire, where she owned a lake house that had been in her family for more than a hundred years. She often told people she planned to die there, as her parents and her grandfather had.

Rook had done research on Judge Peacham, and he’d testified in her courtroom a half-dozen times in the three years since he’d worked out of the Washington Field Office. He didn’t know if she’d recognize him if she walked into the bar, but she’d sure as hell recognize J. Harris Mayer, the old friend who had lured her to Washington thirty years ago.

She’d never win any awards for best-dressed judge, Rook thought with amusement. Tonight’s outfit looked as if she’d pulled it out of a paper bag stuffed under her desk in her chambers. Apart from the obvious wrinkles, the black floor-length dress and brightly colored sequined shawl somehow didn’t go together. Not that Rook had an eye for clothes, but Bernadette Peacham was a train wreck when it came to style. No Botox and face-lifts for her. No hair dye, for that matter. Damn little makeup, either. People tended to notice her because of her presence and her obvious intelligence and grace. At fifty-seven, she was regarded as a firm, fair, articulate trial judge and, despite her generous nature, no one’s fool.

She was perhaps Harris Mayer’s last friend in the world, not that he would let friendship or anything else stop him from feeding her to the wolves.

Or, if it came to it, the FBI.

Harris would calculate the benefit to himself and act accordingly.

Rook drank more of his water, although he was only a notch less impatient than he’d been five minutes ago. “It looks like she might be expecting someone to join her. A date?”

“Oh, no.” Harris shook his head as if Rook couldn’t have come up with a dumber idea. “She hasn’t started dating again since her divorce was finalized earlier this month. Cal still lives with her, you know. Don’t you think that’s odd?”

“Maybe it was an amicable divorce.”

“No such thing.”

Her marriage to Cal Benton, a prominent Washington attorney, had surprised people far more than their divorce two years later. It was her second marriage; her first, to another lawyer, had lasted three years. No children.

“Supposedly he’s not getting a dime from her,” Harris continued, his voice more shrill now, as if he was growing impatient himself. “That can’t make him happy, but it doesn’t matter—Cal will never be satisfied. He’ll always want more of everything. Money, recognition, women. Whatever. For some people, there’s never enough. Cal is one of them. I’m one of them.”

“I can’t launch an investigation because you think Bernadette Peacham deserved better than Cal Benton—”

“I’m well aware of what you require to proceed.” Harris regarded the woman in the hall with a sudden, almost palpable sadness. She’d been a protégée, and she’d left him in the dust in terms of her career, her reputation, her ever-widening circle of friends. His expression softened and he said quietly, “We’re not here because of Bernadette’s love life or lack thereof.”

Rook didn’t respond. Harris had lived in social and professional exile for a long time, but, as prickly as he was, he was observant, experienced and very smart. He had a long career behind him, and even now, people owed him favors and came to him, quietly, for advice.

He gave Rook a supercilious smile. “Thinking you’d be smart not to underestimate me, aren’t you?”

“I’m thinking you need to get to the point.”

Harris leaned over the small table and said in a dramatic whisper, “Don’t forget. I know where a lot of the bodies in this town are buried.” He sat back abruptly and grinned, his teeth yellowed from age, cigarettes, drink and neglect. “Figuratively speaking, of course.”

Rook sucked in his impatience. “If you’re looking for action at my expense, Judge, you’re looking in the wrong place.”

“Understood.” Harris nodded wistfully at the middle-aged woman in the hall. “Bernadette used to stop by my office just to say hello, grab a cup of coffee. We don’t see each other that often nowadays.”

“It’s to her credit she didn’t drop you altogether.”

“I suppose it is. Ah. Here we are.” Harris seemed relieved. “Finally.”

Another woman came into their line of sight.

Rook took in her dark red hair, her big smile as she greeted Bernadette Peacham.

Hell.

Harris’s eyes lit up. “Mackenzie Stewart,” he said with relish.

She was barely thirty and slim, wearing a slip of a deep blue and carrying an evening purse just big enough for a .38 caliber pistol. Rook didn’t know women’s purses. But he knew guns.

“She’s a deputy U.S. marshal,” Harris added. “A fugitive hunter, a protector of the federal judiciary. A fellow federal agent. Doesn’t look like Wyatt Earp, does she?”

Rook kept his reaction under tight wraps. He wasn’t there to entertain Harris. “All right. You’ve had your fun. What’s going on?”

The old man’s eyes lost some of their spark. “Deputy Stewart isn’t here in a professional capacity. She’s not protecting Bernadette. In fact, she’s known Bernadette all her life.”

Well, hell, Rook thought. A half-dozen dates, and more or less all he’d learned about Mackenzie was that she was new in Washington, new to the Marshals Service and a native New Englander blessed with great legs, a kissable mouth and an unstoppable sense of humor.

They hadn’t gotten around to discussing which state she was from and what friends she might have in Washington.

The two women continued on down the hall toward the ballroom.

“Bernadette saved her,” Harris said.

“Saved her how?”

“When she was eleven, her father was maimed in a terrible accident while building a shed for Bernadette at her lake house. He was laid up for months, and Mackenzie was left on her own for much of the time. She got into trouble. Stole things. She blamed herself for what happened.”

“Why? She was eleven.”

“You know kids.”

Actually, Rook thought, he didn’t. He tried to picture Mackenzie at eleven. Freckles, he guessed. He bet she’d had a million freckles. She still did.

Harris lifted his glass, almost in a toast, and took a long drink, his eyes darker, more focused, ending any doubt in Rook’s mind whether the outcast judge should have faced charges for his gambling shenanigans five years ago. The man thrived on risk, playing it close to the edge. “You didn’t know your marshal grew up across the lake from Bernadette, did you, Special Agent Rook?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“They call Bernadette Beanie. Everyone in her hometown. Not here in Washington. Beanie Peacham. I never have.” Without waiting for a response, Harris belched and got to his feet, gesturing to his near empty glass. “Government will pay?”

“I’ll pay. Hang on, and I’ll walk out with you.”

The old man laughed, clapping a bony hand on Rook’s shoulder. “You’ve taken this news well, I have to say.” The affected lockjaw accent was back. He dropped his arm to his side and winked with amusement, a sense of drama. “Don’t worry. We’ll talk again.”

Rook let Harris go. Management of confidential informants was a tricky business under the best of circumstances. As a prosecutor, a judge and an advisor to two presidents, J. Harris Mayer had seen all kinds who’d come forward with tips, information, theories, evidence, although he’d probably never imagined himself in that role. But he would know how to play it.

Even now, after almost a month, Rook couldn’t say for certain if he was dealing with a man in the know, with secrets that troubled him, or a rambling, self-important has-been desperate to be part of something important again.

Or both, Rook thought, watching Harris turn briskly down the hall toward the hotel’s main entrance. Whether he was on the level or a phony, he clearly hadn’t made up the friendship between Mackenzie Stewart and Judge Peacham.

“Just your luck, pal.”

Rook had met Mackenzie three weeks ago, on the night Harris had sent him to a Georgetown restaurant to witness Bernadette Peacham having dinner with her ex-husband, the significance of which remained a mystery to Rook. As he’d left the restaurant, the oppressive heat had given way to a steamy, torrential downpour. He’d found himself ducking into a coffee shop to wait out the rain, at the same time as a slim, blue-eyed redhead.

Not entirely a coincidence, apparently.

They’d exchanged phone numbers and met for a movie a couple of nights later.

So much for his relationship with Mackenzie Stewart, Rook thought. He couldn’t date someone who was even peripherally involved in his investigation. He left a few bills to cover his and Harris’s tab. He and Mackenzie had a date for dinner at his place tomorrow night. His nineteen-year-old nephew, who was living with him, would be off to the beach with friends for the weekend. Perfect timing.

Not anymore. After Harris’s little bombshell, Rook had no choice. He couldn’t mix business with pleasure. He had to cancel dinner with Mackenzie. He had a job to do.




Two


Mackenzie Stewart shoved a flannel shirt into her backpack with more force than was necessary. She had the air-conditioning turned up, but she was hot—hot and agitated and in no mood to have Nate Winter, perhaps the most observant man on the planet, in her kitchen with her.

Although it wasn’t technically her kitchen.

She was a temporary resident in a corner of a historic 1850s house in Arlington. Nate’s archaeologist wife, Sarah, was in charge of getting it open to the public, a task apparently fraught with twists, turns and setbacks. Just when she thought everything was under control, the place sprang unexpected, unexplained massive leaks. Some people were convinced the leaks were the work of the ghosts of Abraham Lincoln and Robert E. Lee, long-rumored to haunt the house. Mackenzie didn’t believe in ghosts. She blamed worn-out plumbing.

Nate and Sarah, pregnant with their first child, had moved into a house of their own in the spring. Sarah had offered the caretaker’s quarters to Mackenzie when she arrived in Washington six weeks ago. While she looked for a place of her own, Mackenzie could be a presence at the historic house, discouraging ghosts and potential vandals, and staying alert for new leaks.

She zipped up her backpack. She was in shorts, but was still hot. “Nate, did you and Sarah ever encounter Abe and Bobby E. while you were living here?”

Sitting at the small kitchen table, Nate watched her with a level of scrutiny that got to most people. He was a feet-flat-on-the-floor senior deputy marshal, tall, lean and notoriously impatient. He, too, was from Cold Ridge, New Hampshire, and Mackenzie had known him all her life. He was like the big brother she’d never had, and he didn’t scare her.

“I never did,” he said.

“Meaning Sarah did?”

He shrugged. “You’d have to talk to her.”

Mackenzie suspected that if Nate had his way, her first assignment as a federal agent would have been in Alaska or Hawaii, not his backyard. He worked at the U.S. Marshals headquarters in Arlington, and she was assigned to the Washington district office—still too close for his comfort. If she flamed out on her first assignment, better she wasn’t right under his nose.

If he’d really had his way, she’d be writing her dissertation and teaching political science back in New Hampshire, uninterested in dipping a toe into his world.

Since he didn’t have his way, he was doing what he could to help her get acclimated to her new profession. Which, on most days, she appreciated.

“You’re taking a long weekend,” Nate said.

“That’s right. I worked it out with my chief.”

“You’ve only been in D.C. for six weeks.”

His tone was mild, without any detectable criticism, but Mackenzie knew he didn’t approve. She still had boxes stacked against a wall in the kitchen, and bags of paper cups and plates were on the counter, signs she hadn’t fully moved in yet—physically or emotionally. She could feel Nate wondering if she’d changed her mind about staying, about remaining in law enforcement at all.

He’d never believed she’d get through the weeks of rigorous training at the federal academy. He wasn’t alone. No one had believed it. Not one solitary person, including her own mother. They didn’t lack faith in her or want her to fail—they just didn’t believe she was meant to be a cop of any kind.

To be fair, Mackenzie wasn’t sure she’d believed it herself, but when she finally secured her spot at the academy, she went all-out. She didn’t let doubts—her own or anyone else’s—deter her. She refused to let anything derail her, not her size, her level of fitness, her temperament, her sense of humor. She figured she’d either discover she hated law enforcement and quit, or she’d shoot off her mouth and get the boot.

“Why take a personal day now?” Nate asked.

Because she needed to get her head screwed back on straight after making the classic new-in-town mistake of dating a guy she’d met in the rain. At first she thought Rook was a good-looking Washington bureaucrat. Instead, he turned out to be an FBI agent, violating one of the rules she’d established for herself at the academy—no getting involved with other law enforcement officers.

But she told Nate, “I’m still getting acclimated to the heat.”

“You didn’t have trouble with the heat in Georgia.”

The Federal Law Enforcement Training Center was located in Glynco, Georgia, a hot climate, but Mackenzie refused to let Nate throw her off. She wasn’t telling him about Rook. Period. “I didn’t say I was having trouble.”

“You were in town last night for a literacy fund-raiser.”

She glanced at him. “How do you know?”

He shrugged. “Someone mentioned it.”

“Who? Beanie?”

“No. I don’t see a lot of her.”

“She invited me. She wanted to introduce me to people. I only stayed a half hour. I think she’s just trying to be a friend now that I’m in Washington, but she’s not quite sure what to do with me.”

Nate stretched out his long legs. “Next time, tell her to invite you for pie and coffee.” He paused, watching as Mackenzie used her foot to push her backpack against the wall next to the door. “Who did you see at the party?”

She hadn’t expected that question. “What do you mean? I saw Beanie. She introduced me to a few people, but that’s about it.”

“Did you see Cal?”

“For about ten seconds. He showed up late and left early.”

Nate got to his feet. He seemed more settled since his move to USMS Headquarters and his marriage to Sarah Dunnemore, but he was hard-bitten, impatient, unrelenting. When he was seven—before Mackenzie was born—his parents had been caught up in the mountains, on notorious Cold Ridge, in unexpected, frigid, difficult conditions. They’d died of hypothermia and exposure before help could reach them, leaving behind Nate and his two younger sisters, Antonia, five, and Carine, just three. Their father’s twenty-year-old brother, Gus, just back from Vietnam, had stepped in to raise his orphaned nephew and nieces.

“I think it’d be smart for you to make new friends,” Nate said now.

“Cal’s not a friend. I’ve never had much use for him.” Mackenzie let out a breath, aware that she’d let Nate throw her off balance. “I don’t know if I’d call Beanie a friend in the sense you mean. I’ve known her all my life. She’s a good neighbor.”

“A neighbor in New Hampshire. Not here. Here, Mackenzie, she’s a member of the federal judiciary. You’re a deputy U.S. marshal. There’s a difference.”

“Thanks, Nate, I couldn’t have figured that out myself—”

“I’m trying to look out for you.”

She knew it was true, but her usual good nature had taken a thrashing when she got back last night and listened to the voice mail from Rook. He hadn’t even had the decency to ax her in person.

“Sorry, Mac, can’t do dinner. I’ll see you around. Maybe we’ll run into each other on the job. Good luck.”

Low. Very low.

The “good luck” had really ticked her off.

“Mackenzie?”

She jerked herself back to the present. Thinking about Rook wasn’t smart. If she even pictured him in her mind, she swore Nate would know. Somehow, he’d figure it out. She made herself smile at him. “Sorry. I let the heat get to me.”

“It’s about forty-seven in here with the way you have the air-conditioning cranked up.”

“It’s seventy-two. You’re just used to the Washington weather. If you had to go back to New Hampshire—”

“I’d get good gloves for the winter.”

She grinned at him. “Are you saying I can’t take the heat?”

He didn’t smile back. “Mackenzie, I know you’re new in town, but you have to trust me.”

Obviously, he knew something was up with her. He started to go on, but she raised a hand. “I appreciate your help and support, Nate. Don’t think I don’t. I just…Give me this weekend, okay?”

Even that didn’t satisfy him. “Your parents are house swapping with an Irish couple. You’re staying at Beanie’s place on the lake?”

“Do you know everything, Deputy Winter? Beanie offered—”

“When?”

“I stopped by her office after work.”

Mackenzie didn’t explain further. She hadn’t mentioned Rook’s voice mail, but Bernadette had obviously sensed something was wrong and immediately invited Mackenzie to stay at her place at the lake. “I’ll think of you while I’m sweating here in Washington and falling asleep at my desk.”

Sweating, Mackenzie believed. Washington was in the middle of a heat wave that was brutal even by its standards. But Bernadette Peacham’s work ethic—her ex-husband would say workaholism—would never permit her to fall asleep at her desk.

Nate ran the toe of his running shoe along the bottom edge of Mackenzie’s backpack, as if it might yield some of her secrets. “I’m not going to lecture you,” he said.

“I appreciate that.”

“You’ve been here only six weeks. Any sense that you’re distracted—”

“I’m not. I’ll be back at my desk first thing Monday morning, hunting fugitives.”

Her stab at humor didn’t seem to register with him. “Sarah wants to have you over to dinner.” He gave a half smile. “She has a new casserole recipe she wants to try.”

His wife, a native Tennessean, was famous for her southern casseroles. Mackenzie smiled in turn. “So long as she makes fried apricot pies for dessert, I’m game.”

Nate started to say something else, but broke off. “All right. I’ll keep my powder dry for now and see you back here next week.”

Mackenzie took a breath, debating whether to press him on what he wasn’t saying. Did he know about her involvement with Rook? Possible, but unlikely. She hadn’t told Nate she was seeing someone. Not that she was hiding it—the subject just hadn’t come up.

Still, Rook was a hotshot FBI agent, and Nate had been around a long time and knew everyone.

“Nate—” She stopped herself, deciding there was no point in dredging up a few dates with a guy who’d just dumped her. “Thanks for stopping by.”

“Anytime, Deputy.”

After he’d left, Mackenzie checked the air-conditioning. It was cool in the house. She turned the temperature up slightly, then listened for ghosts. “Abe? Bobby E.?” She whistled as if calling them. “I sure could use your advice right now.”

Yeah, she thought. About why I’m talking to ghosts.

Because it kept her from thinking about Rook.

At least she didn’t have to worry about him blabbing to a senior federal agent who treated her like a third sister. Rook was ambitious, as well as humorless, and a snake, and he’d keep mum about having given her the boot.

She’d be more careful next time some good-looking man got out of the rain with her, but she couldn’t bring herself to regret the movies and dinners with him—and the kisses, she thought. The brush of his fingertips on her breasts, her back…

What had prompted him to cancel—correction—to dump her altogether? Had he learned something about her that he thought would hurt his career? She hadn’t been on the job that long. She was closely supervised. She hadn’t had a chance to screw up or develop a bad reputation.

Bernadette? Did Rook not approve of her friendship with a federal judge? But that made no sense. Bernadette was a solid, fair judge with an excellent reputation.

A knock on the back porch door startled Mackenzie out of her obsessing.

Cal Benton, looking awkward, gave a curt wave through the glass panel.

She opened the door. “Hey, Cal. I’m glad you’re not a ghost. You had me worried there for a second.”

“A ghost?” He seemed to have no idea what she was talking about. “Mackenzie, are you all right?”

“Never mind. Please, come in.”

She stepped aside, and he strode past her into the small kitchen. He was in his late fifties, tanned, healthy, aging well—and not a man anyone who knew Bernadette would ever have expected her to marry. Before their relationship had soured, they’d said they admired each other’s intellect and experience. They could laugh together, and they enjoyed each other’s company. Apparently, something was missing, or something had gone wrong.

“I won’t keep you.” Cal was dressed in a pale gray suit, crisp-looking in spite of the heat. “Bernadette said you were going home for the weekend.”

“I’m flying into Manchester at the crack of dawn.”

“She said—” His cheeks reddened, and he sniffed awkwardly, then continued, “I understand you’re staying at her house on the lake.”

Mackenzie yanked a chair from the table and sat down, stretching out her legs and suddenly feeling tired, even more out of sorts. “I haven’t told her, if that’s what you’re wondering.”

He glared at her as if she hadn’t done him any favors. “Bernadette and I are divorced. Who I see is no longer any concern of hers.” He paused, obviously for effect. “Or yours.”

In the three years since Bernadette had met and married Calvin Benton, Mackenzie had tried to like him. Now, she didn’t bother. “Unless you and one of your ladies of the hour sneak onto Beanie’s property for a little skinny-dipping on the sly—”

“We didn’t skinny-dip.”

“Close enough.”

Earlier in the summer, before she’d left for Washington, she’d accidentally caught Cal and a woman at least thirty years his junior at Bernadette’s lake house. They weren’t officially divorced at the time, but it didn’t matter. Divorced or almost divorced, he still had betrayed Bernadette by using her home for an illicit romantic weekend.

“I’ve never liked the lake.” He spoke through half-clenched teeth, his tone acidic. “The water’s always cold. The house is run-down. Bernadette would never listen to me about improvements. It was a bad idea to take a friend there.”

“You don’t want her to find out, but you like knowing how hurt and angry she’d be if she did.”

“Maybe so, but don’t be too quick to judge me. You don’t have a clue what it’s like to be her husband. The sainted, brilliant Judge Peacham.”

“If you’re here to convince me to continue to keep my mouth shut, you don’t have to worry. I have no intention of telling her about your little liaisons at the lake. But they have to stop, Cal. No more.”

“They’ve stopped.” He inhaled through his nose, and for the first time, Mackenzie sensed he was embarrassed. “And that’s not why I’m here.” He seemed suddenly to notice the heat, still oppressive despite nightfall, and rubbed the back of his neck. “Have you seen Harris Mayer?”

Mackenzie tried to conceal her surprise. J. Harris Mayer was one of Bernadette’s longtime friends, but not someone Mackenzie knew well. “Recently?”

“Since last night.”

“I didn’t see him last night. Was he at the party?”

“No, but he was—” Cal stopped himself, straightening his spine, showing no hint now of his earlier discomfort. “Never mind. My mistake.”

“It’s okay, but what do you want with Harris?”

“We were supposed to get together tonight for dinner. I’m sure he just forgot. It’s not like I’ve never been stood up before.”

But he’d never knocked on Mackenzie’s door looking for his missing dinner mate. She’d met Harris Mayer when he and his wife would visit Bernadette at the lake, long before the gambling scandal that had forced him into early retirement and disgrace. He’d lost money he couldn’t afford to lose, he’d lied to his family and friends, he’d used everyone he could think of to get any kind of advantage—and while he hadn’t gone to jail, he’d paid for his compulsions. His wife had left him. Their two grown children had little to do with him. His friends had deserted him.

Except, of course, for Bernadette, who was loyal and forgiving to a fault.

“Why would you get together with Harris Mayer?” Mackenzie asked.

Cal looked uncomfortable. “Because he asked. I’m sure he just decided to get out of this heat for a few days and forgot about our dinner. The years haven’t been kind to him. Sorry to disturb you.”

“Did you try to call him?”

“Of course—and I stopped by his house. It was just a stab in the dark to stop by here and check if he’d said anything to you last night. But I gather I was mistaken, and you didn’t see him.”

Mackenzie frowned. “Cal, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

“If you’re worried about Harris, you should talk to the police—”

“I’m not worried. I also wanted to talk with you about the other matter. What you saw at the lake. I’m sorry, Mackenzie. I shouldn’t have put you in the position of keeping a secret from Bernadette.” He seemed surprised by his own words, but added quietly, “You’ve been a good friend to her.”

“And she to me. But, Cal—”

He glanced at his watch. “I have to go.”

Short of siccing her ghosts on him or finding a reason to arrest him, Mackenzie had no way to make him stay and tell her what was on his mind. But his car wasn’t out of her driveway before she dialed Nate Winter’s cell phone. “J. Harris Mayer?” she asked after he clicked on.

She was met by silence.

“Nate?”

“What about Mayer?”

Mackenzie related her encounter with Cal Benton, leaving out, as she’d promised, any mention of his liaisons at the lake.

When she finished, Nate said, “Strange that those two have hooked up at all. Mayer could want to retain Benton as his lawyer for some reason. It doesn’t matter. If I were you, I’d just forget about it.”

“If you heard I was at the literacy fund-raiser last night, did you hear Harris Mayer was?”

Nate was done with the conversation. “Have a good weekend,” he said, and hung up.

Mackenzie didn’t throw her phone at the wall, but was tempted. She debated calling Bernadette. If she did, Bernadette would ask questions, and Mackenzie knew she was too agitated, too irritated, to answer them without giving herself away. Then there’d be more questions, and just to keep from telling Bernadette about Cal and his cute brunette, she’d no doubt mention Rook, their three weeks together, how he’d dumped her.

It’d be a mess. Bernadette could always see through her. She would be able to tell—no matter how Mackenzie tried to hide it—that the one-time-hellion kid she’d saved had fallen fast and hard for an FBI agent.

Mackenzie locked the porch door and turned up the air-conditioning another notch. She hadn’t let firearms training and defense tactics and learning to drive a car like a bat out of hell derail her. She wouldn’t let Andrew Rook. She would get control of her emotions, just as she had during training when she’d faced fresh challenges, new fears.

She went into her little sitting room with its worn wood floors and simple, tasteful furnishings. Sarah Dunnemore Winter’s touch.

Aware of the silence of the historic house, Mackenzie sat on a cozy love seat and studied a pair of old prints hung side by side on the wall opposite her. One depicted Abraham Lincoln giving the Gettysburg Address months after that bloody battle. The other was of Robert E. Lee on his horse—she didn’t recognize when or where. She didn’t know the story of how the two well-known nineteenth-century Americans supposedly had ended up haunting the house. It was in the brochures Sarah had so meticulously researched and written for prospective tourists.

Mackenzie promised herself she’d read one.

“In the meantime,” she said aloud, sighing at the two adversaries, “if you boys are around, now would be the time to show yourselves.”

But there was no answer, only the creak of old floorboards, and she gave a mock shudder of relief at the silence. Thank heaven, she thought, jumping to her feet. Bad enough if she ever had to explain Rook to her marshal colleagues. If ghosts started talking to her, she’d be kicked back to her campus ivory tower in New Hampshire, and be writing her dissertation in no time flat.




Three


Harris staggered out of the hole-in-the-wall Georgetown bar, an old favorite where he could place a gentleman’s bet and not have to worry about anyone sniffing in disapproval. He was tired and he’d had too much to drink. After twenty-four hours, he could no longer drum up any energy for steering clear of friends or enemies. He had no attention span for going into hiding.

It was late on a dark, hot summer night. Who the hell would bother hunting him down now?

When he reached M Street, he recognized a Washington Post columnist and a prominent U.S. senator getting into a private car, and gave them a surreptitious middle finger, hating them for the life he’d squandered. Once, he’d had his own driver. Now he was reduced to cabs, buses and an ancient Honda that was a bother to keep on the road. It wasn’t a question of finance as much as of prestige.

People who had nowhere to go didn’t need drivers or fancy cars.

He smelled of stale cigarette smoke, sweat and alcohol. He walked past nice bars, nice restaurants, heard music and laughter and saw people who looked good, were good. He’d been like them once, filled with hope, ambition—and hubris. He’d known he was smarter than most people. He could not fail.

Now he had the FBI hunting him.

And worse.

The heat and stifling humidity started him sweating again. His shirt stuck to his back. His eyes stung. He wanted to vomit, but not on M Street. Not in front of people who used to respect him.

Then again, why the hell not? Who did they think they were? They had their own secrets and compulsions. Everyone did.

“Harris, for God’s sake.”

For a moment, Harris didn’t realize who was speaking to him, but he looked up and saw Cal Benton, as if he’d materialized out of nowhere. “Cal?”

Cal hooked a hand around Harris’s forearm just beneath the elbow. “You’re drunk.”

“Tipsy. I have higher standards for drunk.”

Cal smelled of antiperspirant, as if he’d given himself a fresh swipe before getting out of his car. He was sweating, too, but he’d have to be inhuman not to sweat on such a night. “In here,” he said, tugging Harris toward a nearly empty coffee shop.

“If we’re seen—”

“We won’t be.” Cal opened the glass door, pausing to glare at Harris. “Unless your new friend Special Agent Rook is on his way.”

Harris licked his lips. Even after three beers, he felt dehydrated, parched. “Who?”

“You slimy, corrupt son of a bitch, Harris.”

Cal’s reaction was a sign of panic. Incipient fear. “Here’s the pot calling the kettle black, isn’t it?”

“Damn you to hell.”

Harris didn’t respond. What was the point? Over the past five years, he’d grown accustomed to people damning him to hell. Cal shoved him onto a rickety chair and briskly went to the counter, soon returning with two coffees.

“Those paper cups burn my fingers,” Harris said, hearing the whininess in his own voice. He’d always hated whiners. “Don’t they have any of those little cardboard holders?”

“No. Start drinking. You need to sober up.”

“I am sober.” Harris leaned over slightly, so that he could inhale the steam from his coffee. “Too sober.”

“Damn it, Harris,” Cal said with a hiss. “I’ve been looking for you since last night. I saw you at the hotel with your FBI agent. What the hell were you doing? Anyone could have seen you.”

“Special Agent Rook and I were just having a quiet drink. I know a lot of FBI agents.”

“I checked him out. Rook’s a tough customer. He’s not talking to you out of the goodness of his heart.” Cal placed his elbows on the small table and clenched and unclenched his fists, staring at them. Finally, he regarded Harris not so much with hostility as disdain. “He’ll throw you under the bus, you stupid bastard.”

“I haven’t told him anything about you, Cal. I wouldn’t. You’re not the one—”

“Rook doesn’t care about you.” Cal didn’t raise his voice. “He cares about what information you can give him to help him advance his career. That’s it.”

“He’s ambitious, but he’s not dishonorable.”

“Dishonorable?” Cal snorted in disbelief. “Only you, Harris. People don’t care about honor anymore. They care about results.”

Harris wished he could think clearly, but thoughts floated by him, just out of his grasp. Nothing felt nailed down. It was as if he was on a current of air that was taking him wherever it wanted, and he had no control.

He leaned over his coffee, the steam rising into his eyes. “Rook can save Bernadette.”

“From what?”

“From you, Cal.” Harris raised his gaze to the man across from him. “And from Jesse.”

There. He’d said the name. Jesse Lambert. The devil.

Harris had known Cal even before he’d started seeing Bernadette, but only in the past three months had their fates become intertwined. Cal was hard-driving and ambitious, a womanizer who had seemed, at least in the early days of his marriage to Bernadette, ready to settle down.

Bottom-feeder that he was, Jesse Lambert had sensed Cal was ripe for the picking. With impeccable timing, he’d pounced at Cal’s weakest moment.

And Harris had helped.

“You should give him the money,” he said. “Trust me, Cal. I know of what I speak. Give him the damn money now. Then get out.”

Cal averted his eyes. “If I give Jesse the money, there’ll be no getting out. Ever.” He returned his gaze to Harris. “I’ll turn into you.”

“If you don’t pay him, he’ll kill us both.”

“He’s a dealmaker, Harris, not a killer. We’re offering him a deal. Don’t weaken now.”

Harris could hear the disdain for him in Cal’s voice. After all, Harris was the one who’d brought Jesse Lambert into Cal’s life.

Into Bernadette’s life.

That was what ate at his soul. In using Cal, Harris knew he was also using the one friend he had left in the world.

“Jesse is the devil, Cal,” Harris said quietly. “And we made a deal with him.”

Cal didn’t respond right away. He drank his coffee, eyeing Harris, his expression unreadable. Jesse Lambert had walked into Harris’s life five years ago, preying on his insecurities and compulsions—and Harris had let himself be victimized. The gambling scandal that had ended his career was the least of his transgressions. Because of Jesse, he had betrayed his friends and the public’s trust for financial gain.

You let the devil have his way with you.

Three months ago, Jesse had returned to Washington, wanting fresh meat in return for his silence about Harris’s wrongs.

Harris had thrown him Cal Benton.

Cal’s work and his marriage to Bernadette Peacham provided him with the kind of access and information that Jesse could use. He stayed in the background, maneuvering, manipulating. But when Jesse came to collect, Cal had refused to pay up.

“It’s time to give the devil his due, Cal.”

“We will, but on our terms. We’re not stealing his money. We’re delaying payment in return for Jesse getting out of our lives.”

“We?”

Cal leaned forward. “Don’t think Jesse doesn’t know you helped me.”

Harris could feel the blood drain from his face. A few weeks ago, he’d dropped one tidbit about Jesse Lambert to Cal, and Cal had run with it, uncovering Jesse’s true identity. Cal had a complete dossier on their devil. Names, addresses, bank accounts. His insurance policy, he called it. His game was straightforward but dangerous. Using information Cal provided, Jesse blackmailed people—among them a popular U.S. Congressman, a powerful Senate aide and a well-to-do, well-connected Washington widow. Jesse remained in the background, anonymous. Cal and Harris were the ones who arranged payments. In three months, they’d amassed $1.5 million. In cash. They were to split five hundred thousand, and Jesse was to get a million.

Only Cal was withholding the million until Jesse exited from their lives.

He’d keep the dossier. If Jesse ever breathed Washington air again, it would end up in the hands of federal investigators. They wouldn’t need to know a thing about Cal or Harris’s involvement with Jesse to nail him.

“Going to the FBI won’t save you,” Cal said.

“I haven’t given them anything. I just thought if they were looking…” Harris trailed off and blew on his coffee, wishing he could understand his own motives, his own thinking. When he’d first gotten in touch with Andrew Rook three weeks ago, his plan had seemed so logical and sensible. Now, he didn’t know. Finally, he shrugged at Cal. “I guess I hoped Jesse would think twice about killing us if I’d talked to the FBI.”

“Does he know?”

Harris shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

“You’re a sniveling weakling, Harris. You’re trying to save your own skin. That’s all.”

“If only you’d been faithful to Bernadette…” Harris pushed aside his coffee and sank into the cheap wooden chair. He felt crumpled, saggy and old. He’d broken so many promises over the years—to his ex-wife, his children, his friends. To himself. “I don’t want her to get caught in the cross fire.”

Cal’s jaw tightened visibly, and he spoke through half-clenched teeth. “She won’t.” There was no hesitation in his tone, no regret, no guilt.

Harris stared at his coffee, a film forming on it as he tried to get his head around his thought. “But it’s not fear of humiliation that sucked you into Jesse’s orbit, is it, Cal?” He looked up, giving Cal a knowing, bitter smile. “You wanted the action. The risk. The same impulses that prompted you to take your little tootsie to Bernadette’s house for the weekend got you into the pickle you’re in now.”

“Would you have preferred I’d capitulated and let Jesse put out the pictures for the world to see? How would that have helped your good friend Bernadette?”

They were graphic pictures. Harris had seen them. Cal Benton copulating with a very young, inexperienced, beautiful Congressional aide in the bedroom he and his wife had once shared. They were the kind of scenes that would not only ruin him, but the aide and Bernadette. Her authority in the courtroom would be diminished with those images in people’s heads.

But Cal hadn’t cooperated with Jesse Lambert for noble reasons—or even just to protect himself. He liked living on the edge. Jesse had seen that quality in him and used it to his advantage, luring Cal into his world of blackmail, extortion and fraud.

“I played Jesse’s game,” Cal said. “Now I’m pushing back, hard, because that’s all he’ll understand. You don’t fool me, Harris. You don’t give a damn about my sainted ex-wife.”

“What do you want from me?”

“I want you to stop talking to the FBI.”

“I haven’t told them anything of substance—”

“Good. Don’t.” Cal gave him a long look. “You can’t weaken. You can’t waver. Stick with me, Harris. I know what I’m doing.”

“No, you don’t.” Harris couldn’t remember when he’d felt so tired. “You don’t have a clue.”

Cal sniffed with impatience. “Go into hiding, then. Leave Jesse to me.”

“I already have gone into hiding. I just—tonight…” He broke off, not knowing how to explain his actions. “No one knows where I’m staying.”

“Rook?”

Harris shook his head. “No one.”

Cal slumped in his chair in relief. “That’s good, Harris. Excellent.”

“My advice, still, is to give Jesse his money and the dossier you have on him.”

“He won’t know if I’ve made copies of the information—if I have it all stored in my head. No, we’ve done what we’ve done, Harris. I have his money, and I have enough to put him away for decades. He’ll cooperate.”

Harris didn’t think so.

But Cal was on his feet. “Go, Harris. Leave Jesse to me.” He smiled, his arrogance and confidence back. “Hide.”

Harris didn’t respond, and Cal left, not so much as glancing into the coffee shop as he passed by the window on the street outside. Harris remembered himself in court, holding the attention and respect of everyone present. He’d squandered his reputation—that life—because of weakness, greed and the constant search for excitement. But he’d learned a few things during those years. He could recognize a violent man when he saw one.

And Jesse Lambert, he thought, was a violent man.



Twenty minutes later, Harris stepped out of a cab in front of the shabby rooming house on a bad street in southeast Washington. He’d fled here last night after his meeting with Andrew Rook, terrified of the consequences of his own actions. Harris had fought a sense of impending doom all day. It was what had driven him to the Georgetown bar. His fear had made him careless.

The odor of fresh dog excrement permeated the hot, humid night air. What the hell was wrong with people, not cleaning up after their pets? With a hiss of disapproval, Harris unlocked the separate entrance to his small studio apartment, in an ell off the run-down main building. He could hear someone vomiting down the street. Thanks to the smart management of a family trust by a financial advisor who loathed him, Harris remained in possession of a beautiful home on a prestigious street in Georgetown. But he couldn’t go back there, at least not for now.

He pushed open the door, then shut it tight behind him, blocking out the vomiting, the cars, the heat, the smell. He caught his breath, letting the cool air and his isolation soothe his taut nerves. He could ignore the seedy furnishings.

“Feeling sorry for yourself, Harris?”

Harris swung around as if he had heard a ghost. Or had he imagined the voice?

The devil’s voice.

“I’d feel sorry for myself if I were you,” the hidden intruder went on, his voice deadly calm and familiar.

Jesse Lambert.

Harris recognized the arrogance, the flat, bland accent.

At his worst, he would never match this man for pure evil.

“What are you doing here?” Even to his own ear, Harris’s voice sounded pinched and frightened. “Come out where I can see you.”

“By all means.” Jesse moved into the doorway of the tiny entry. Behind him, the studio apartment—rented by the day and sometimes by the hour—was dark, casting his face into shadows. “Don’t think the FBI will come save you. They’re not out there, Harris. They haven’t found you. You’re not important enough for them to have you under surveillance.”

“That’s because I haven’t told them anything. What do you want?”

Jesse was dressed entirely in black. His hair was black, with random flecks of gray. He’d let his beard grow. He was in his early forties and looked wild, as if he’d just come out of the mountains or off a pirate ship.

But his eyes, Harris noted, were virtually colorless, utterly soulless.

Jesse held a knife in one hand. Casually, as if it should cause no concern.

Harris was no expert on weapons, but he knew it wasn’t a kitchen knife. One side of the blade was serrated, the other side smooth. Both would cut. An assault knife of some kind, he thought.

“You don’t need that,” he said.

“I’m afraid I do.” Jesse ran a thumb along the smooth edge of the blade, as if he wanted to test its sharpness, see his own blood. “A knife is fast, quiet. In many situations, it’s more useful than a gun. You agree, don’t you, Harris?”

Harris tried to ignore the thudding of his heart, and summoned the last shreds of his dignity, his honor. He’d let himself be lured and manipulated by this man and by Cal Benton, by his own greed and compulsions, his own need for drama.

Stonily, he said, “It’s Judge Mayer.”

Jesse laughed, a hollow sound that conveyed neither pleasure nor fellow-feeling. “I like that. You’d go to the gallows with a stiff upper lip, wouldn’t you?”

“I would hope not to go to the gallows at all.”

“A little late, Judge Mayer.”

“I suppose so,” he said without flinching. “I made my deal with the devil.”

“Oh, yes.” The colorless, soulless eyes flashed, and the light seemed to dance on the knife blade. Jesse lowered his voice. “So you did.”

In the cheap entry mirror, Mayer recognized his own stark look of fear.

No, he thought. Not fear.

Dread.

He took in a shallow breath. “I don’t have your money, Jesse. I don’t know where it is. That’s the truth. Double-crossing you wasn’t my idea.”

Outside, car tires screeched, but it was silent in the small, rented room. Harris had stayed here before. It was his refuge—his hiding place. He’d been so sure no one would think to look for him here.

“How did you find me?” he asked.

“You’re a creature of habits.”

“The bar…you followed me. Did you see me having coffee with Cal? Why didn’t you follow him?”

“He’s not the one who went to the FBI. Don’t try to pretend you’re the innocent here. Cal couldn’t have betrayed me without your help.”

Harris thought of his foyer at home, with its antique mirror and half-moon table. Once it had been filled with the sounds of running children and his wife’s welcome when he came home. He’d lost them all.

One beat, two beats passed. Harris absorbed the reality of just how much trouble he was in.

Finally, Jesse went on. “How much do you and Cal know about me?”

Harris didn’t hesitate. “Everything.”

He should have laid it all out for the FBI from the start and let the chips fall where they may. Instead, he had tried to play Andrew Rook the same way he’d played everyone else in his life who’d wanted to help him, to trust and believe in him. Subterfuge and betrayal were his art. His entertainment. He’d thought, why not practice what he was good at on the FBI? Rook was investigating, but he had little to go on. Harris had seen to that. He’d kept his revelations vague, promising specifics in future visits—keeping Rook’s interest without giving him anything concrete. Rook was in fish-or-cut-bait mode now. At their next meeting, he’d want details.

But Cal was right, Harris thought. He didn’t care about helping the FBI. He cared about saving his own skin.

The devil had come for his due, indeed.

“If you knew everything about me, Harris, you and Cal wouldn’t dare try to double-cross me.”

As if to further drive home his point, Jesse pressed his thumb onto the tip of his knife, drawing a pearl of his own blood.

“You’re a violent man, Jesse.” Harris felt some of his former presence on the bench come back to him. He’d never flinched in the face of what he had to hear and see in the courtroom. “You don’t use violence as a tool to get what you want. Violence is what you want.”

“That’s my secret, is it?”

“It’s your secret and it’s your weakness. Your obsession.”

Jesse smirked as he licked the pea of blood off his thumb. “You Princeton types. You’ve read too many Greek tragedies. I want my money. I want everything you and Cal have on me. I want to know what you know.”

“I’d never use what I know against you, and Cal won’t, either. It’s his insurance policy—to keep you out of his life. Jesse…” Harris gulped in air. Did he dare hope he could negotiate a deal with this man? “Jesse, you can trust me not to talk.”

“Seeing how you’ve been meeting with an FBI agent, no, you lying son of a bitch, I can’t trust you not to talk.” Jesse sprang forward and placed the knife blade at the side of Mayer’s throat. “I want my money.”

“I can’t—”

“You can, Harris. You can get my money.” He lowered his knife and stepped back, the split second of explosive anger dissipated. “We’ll find a way. Together.”

Through violence, Harris thought.

Through death.

“In the meantime,” Jesse said calmly, with a smile so cold it could only be the devil’s, “tell me something. Just between us.”

“What?”

“Who was the redhead with Judge Peacham last night?”




Four


On Friday morning, Rook awoke early to catch a flight to New Hampshire. His head pounded, and he was in a foul mood. He’d anticipated a very different weekend for himself. He’d expected to show Mackenzie the small Cape Cod house he’d inherited when his grandmother died a year ago. After seven years working in south Florida, he’d been offered an assignment in Washington, his home turf. Leaving him the house was his grandmother’s way of getting him to stay.

It was on a quiet, tree-lined street in Arlington. His two older brothers lived within walking distance. His younger brother was a short drive away. Andrew was surrounded by Rooks, every one of them in law enforcement. He’d been infected by the Rook sense of responsibility, the hard-working, straightforward Rook values, the Rook propensity for home and hearth. He was thirty-five. The pressure was on. It was time for him to settle down. Time to start a family. All he had to do was look at the work to be done on his house, see the remnants of his boyhood tree house up in the big oak in the backyard, and he could feel it.

With a soft curse, he headed for the downstairs bathroom. It still had the Cupid wallpaper his grandmother had hung herself, with help from her grandsons. The house sorely needed renovating. A lot of de-old-lady-ing. He’d worked as a carpenter in high school and through college and could do most of the jobs himself. He’d gotten a good start, but he hadn’t had a chance to tackle the Cupid wallpaper.

He took a quick shower, threw on a suit and headed for the kitchen.

T. J. Kowalski was at the front door, right on time to take Rook to the airport. Also a special agent with the FBI, T.J. wasn’t impressed with Rook’s rationale for heading to New Hampshire. “Packed and ready to go?”

“Just about.” T.J. wandered into the kitchen. Except for the two-inch scar under his eye, he was the classic G-man stereotype with his dark, close-cropped hair, square jaw and neat suits. “Your J. Harris Mayer is a dead end.”

“Maybe.” Rook grabbed a notepad and jotted instructions for his nephew. “I have to know. You drop me off at the airport. I fly to New Hampshire. I look for my missing informant. I fly back tomorrow night. Easy.”

“Nothing’s easy with you, man. Not these days.”

Without responding, Rook folded the note, wrote “Brian” in big letters on the outside and propped it up against the pepper mill. His nephew would see it.

“Mackenzie Stewart’s from New Hampshire,” T.J. said.

“That’s how she knows Judge Peacham.”

“And Harris?”

“Presumably. He used to visit Judge Peacham there. He and his wife rented a cottage on the same lake a few times. He’s taken off—he left me a message yesterday saying he was off to cooler climes. What does that tell you?”

“It doesn’t tell me he’s in New Hampshire.”

Rook knew T.J. had a point, but he was restless and didn’t believe Harris had just suddenly decided to get out of the heat. “Checking out Judge Peacham’s lake house makes sense.”

“Can’t hurt, I guess,” T.J. said, still skeptical.

“It’s worth two days of my time.” Rook picked up his soft leather bag and nodded to the note. “Think my nephew will see it? He gets back later today from the beach.”

“Can’t miss it.” T. J. Kowalski wasn’t even pretending to be interested. “Brian’s a good kid. He’s not going to burn down the house. You’re only going to be gone overnight.”

Brian had surprised and pissed off his parents when he’d abruptly dropped out of college in the spring, then asked his uncle Andrew if he could move in with him for a few months. He’d work, put some cash together, figure out what was next in his life. Scott, his father, a federal prosecutor, had agreed. His mother had gone along with the decision, but she obviously didn’t like it. According to Scott, the eldest of the Brothers Rook, she tended to baby their two boys.

So far, Brian hadn’t lived up to his end of the deal.

That was a problem for later.

When Rook and T.J. headed out, the morning was already a scorcher, the heat wave locked in for another few days, at least. If he was nineteen and unemployed, Rook thought, he’d stay at the damn beach, too.

A black SUV pulled into the driveway behind T.J.’s car, and Rook recognized the grim-faced driver, Nate Winter. Winter was damn near a legend in the USMS. T.J. had run into him during an investigation in the spring, confirming Winter’s reputation as a serious-minded, impatient hard-ass—and ultraprofessional.

He got out of the car. “Good morning, gentlemen.”

“Nate,” T.J. said by way of greeting. “I’ll be in my car. You want Rook here, right?”

Winter gave a curt nod, and T.J. slid into the car, immediately starting up the engine, the windows shut tight for the air-conditioning. Rook didn’t blame him. Winter was from the same New Hampshire town as Bernadette Peacham and Mackenzie Stewart. In the past thirty-six hours, since learning Mackenzie was friends with Judge Peacham, Rook had done a little research on her. Never too late, he thought.

“Heading somewhere?” Winter asked casually.

“Airport.” Rook had no intention of playing games with this man. “I’m flying up to New Hampshire.”

“I’m from New Hampshire.” It wasn’t an idle statement. “My sister Carine lives there. She has an eight-month-old baby boy.” He kept his focus on Rook. “She and Mackenzie Stewart are friends. They’re planning a ‘girls’ night out’ at Judge Peacham’s lake house tonight—toasting marshmallows, catching up.”

Rook said nothing. He glanced back toward his house. He could bag his trip and wait for his nephew, work on his motorcycle, deal with the gold faucets and the Cupid wallpaper in the downstairs bathroom. He’d considered how to explain them to Mackenzie when she came for dinner.

He turned back to Winter. “I’m not seeing Mackenzie while I’m in New Hampshire.”

“Did you know she’s headed there?”

“I’ve heard.” But he hadn’t mentioned the fact to T.J., although he’d planned to get to it on the ride to the airport. “She’s not my reason for going.”

“You want to find Harris Mayer,” Winter said.

There was no reason for him to know the details of the preliminary investigation into J. Harris Mayer’s ramblings and whether they meant anything, but it wouldn’t surprise Rook if Winter did. He was one of the most trusted and capable federal agents in the country, and Rook had no real desire to go up against him. But he supposed he already had, given his behavior toward Mackenzie. The way he’d backed out of their relationship. Dating her in the first place.

“That’s the main reason,” he said. “I’m also trying to figure out if he’s on the level with me.”

“And going to New Hampshire will help?”

“I hope so.”

“Cal Benton stopped by to see Mackenzie last night. He asked her if she’d seen Mayer lately.”

Rook kept any reaction under wraps. “Had she?”

“No. Cal saw you and Harris at the hotel on Wednesday.”

“Is that what he told Mackenzie?”

“Not in as many words. She doesn’t know, but she’ll figure it out soon enough.” Winter paused a moment before going on. “My uncle is taking Carine’s baby overnight. Should I figure out a way to get Carine and Mackenzie to cancel their plans at Judge Peacham’s?”

“There’s no need for that. I don’t know what Harris is up to, but I can’t see how he’d be a threat to an evening on a New Hampshire lake.” Rook glanced at his watch. “If I make my flight, I can get out to the lake and be gone before Mackenzie and your sister arrive. They don’t need to know I’m even in town. I don’t expect to find anything. I’m just covering all my bases.”

“Where are you staying tonight?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“See my uncle if you get in a jam. Gus Winter. He’ll be discreet.”

“Thanks,” Rook said, then added in a more conciliatory tone, “I’ll be in touch.”

Winter didn’t soften. “If not, I’ll be in touch with you.”

He climbed back into his car without another word.

When Rook settled into T.J.’s car, his partner and friend shook his head. “Winter will bury you in his uncle’s backyard if you cross him.”

“Nah. Too much granite up there. He’ll toss me in the Potomac instead.”

“In pieces, Rook. Lots of little pieces.”




Five


Mackenzie set a new flashlight and a package of batteries on the old wooden counter at Smitty’s, a well-known outfitter in her hometown of Cold Ridge. Its owner, Gus Winter, had never had much patience with her, but she smiled at him. “I’m not taking any chances if we lose power up at the lake.”

Gus looked at the price tag on the flashlight. He was a tall, lean man in his late fifties, widely respected for his knowledge of the White Mountains, and for the duty and courage he’d shown first as a soldier in Vietnam, then as the young uncle who’d raised his nephew and two nieces after they were orphaned on Cold Ridge, which loomed over their town and gave it its name.

He pulled a gnarled ballpoint from a mug. “Doesn’t Beanie have flashlights?”

“From 1952.”

“She’s always been tight with a dollar.” He grabbed a pad of generic sales slips—no scanners and computers at Smitty’s—and jotted down the prices of her purchases. “You and Carine will have good weather for the weekend. Beanie’ll be up here at the end of the week and stay through Labor Day, like always.” He grunted. “At least this year she won’t have that greedy jackass husband of hers with her.”

Mackenzie smiled. “I guess you’re not neutral about Cal.”

“Doesn’t matter what I think. Matters what Beanie thinks.” He looked up from his sales pad. “Is this all you need? Anything else? You can pay me later.”

His gruffness was more pointed than usual, and Mackenzie stood back and frowned at him. “Gus, is something wrong?”

“Didn’t mean to bite your head off.” He tore off his copy of the sales slip and set it aside, then tucked hers into a bag with her batteries and flashlight. “We’ve got a missing hiker up in the hills above the lake.”

“Are search teams—”

“I’m meeting my team as soon as I finish ringing you up.” An expert in mountain rescue, Gus knew the peaks around Cold Ridge better than most. “With any luck, this woman will be back by the time we get our gear together. She’s in her midtwenties, in good condition. Her friends say they spent the night in a shelter, but she took off on her own early this morning. They can’t raise her on her cell phone or pick up her trail.”

“Anything I can do?”

He shook his head. “Not right now. Carine’s gone up to Beanie’s already. Maybe this woman worked her way down to the lake, who knows. Let me grab my stuff and I’ll give you a ride up there.”

The original plan was for Mackenzie to meet Carine, a nature photographer, at her studio, and hang out there until Gus finished work and could take the baby. They would then head up to the lake. But Mackenzie didn’t mind going early. She waited for Gus outside, where the bright afternoon sun was baking the quiet village street of Cold Ridge, which was tucked in a bowl-shaped valley among the White Mountains.

Compared to Washington, the weather was warm and pleasant, but by northern New England standards, it was a hot afternoon. Mackenzie felt strange not having a car, but she’d flown into Manchester and caught a ride to Cold Ridge with another deputy marshal out of the New Hampshire district office. Driving from Washington would have eaten up too much of her weekend, and renting a car when she was saving up for a place of her own was out of the question. But not having her own transportation underscored her new role as a nonresident—an outsider.

Gus joined her, and they climbed into his truck and headed out of town, turning off onto a dirt road and finally pulling into the sloping driveway that led to Bernadette Peacham’s classic New Hampshire lake house. It was built close to the water, amid tall pines, oaks and sugar maples. Across the small, isolated lake, Mackenzie could see her parents’ house. She checked in with them once a week at their Irish cottage and had met the couple they’d swapped with a few times. She had no idea if Bernadette had met them, or if they’d seen Cal with his young brunette girlfriend. There were few houses on the lake. Bernadette owned much of the wooded shoreline, with no plans to develop any of it.

“Need a hand with anything?” Gus asked, coming to a stop behind Carine’s truck.

“No, thanks. I packed light.”

“You’re missed around here.” He gave her a grudging smile and added, “Deputy.”

She grinned at him. Of all the people who hadn’t believed she’d get through the vigorous training to become a federal agent, Gus Winter was at the top of the list. “Never going to get used to saying that, are you?”

He laughed. “Not a chance. So long as you’re happy—”

“I am,” she said, quickly grabbing her backpack from behind her seat. “Good luck finding your hiker. Did you want to talk to Carine?”

“No—she’d call if she ran into the hiker. I plan to be back in time to pick up the baby. You two just relax and have a good time.” He scrutinized Mackenzie for a moment. “You look stressed. When you were a college professor, you never looked stressed.”

“I did. You just never noticed.”

“Maybe because you weren’t carrying a gun.”

As soon as she climbed out of his truck, Gus took off. Mackenzie carried her backpack along a stone walk to the front of the house, its cedar shingles in need of a fresh coat of dark brown stain. Its shutters, a deep evergreen, were so nicked and scarred they probably should be replaced altogether. As with almost everything else in Bernadette Peacham’s life, money wasn’t the issue. She had ample funds to do whatever she wanted. Time, inclination and a tendency to overcommit were another matter.

The lake sparkled in the bright afternoon sun, and Mackenzie welcomed the cooler air, the familiar sights and sounds. She headed to the screen porch. A drop-leaf table she knew Bernadette meant to paint was there, in the same condition as when she’d brought it home from a yard sale two years ago. She often said that her life was so filled with deadlines, she appreciated having a project with no firm end date. She’d get to the table when she got to it.

The door into the kitchen was unlocked. Feeling herself begin to relax, Mackenzie found a note from Carine indicating she was off for a quick walk with Harry, her eight-month-old.

Which meant, as Gus had predicted, she was looking for any sign of the missing hiker.

Carine had left paper bags stuffed with groceries on the table, enough to feed two women for a week, never mind twenty-four hours. Mackenzie ripped open a package of marshmallows and popped one into her mouth as she headed down a short hall to a linen closet. In her haste to get out of Washington, she hadn’t packed a swimsuit, but the closet, overflowing with a mishmash of towels, facecloths, sheets and extra blankets, yielded a fuchsia two-piece tankini and a beach towel—pink dolphins against a turquoise background—from her pre-law-enforcement days.

She ducked into the bathroom, which, like the rest of the house, had changed little over the years. Bernadette fixed things at the lake as needed. She didn’t renovate.

Once she’d changed into the swimsuit, Mackenzie locked her 9 mm Browning in a small safe in the pantry. Then she headed back out to the porch and down to the water. She passed the shed her father had built for Bernadette, where the bloody accident that had almost killed him had occurred, and walked out onto the wooden dock. He’d been cutting wood for the new dock that day.

But she pushed the images back and stood at the end of the dock. Even in August, the lake would be cold.

With an ease that surprised her, Mackenzie dived in without hesitation, trusting herself to remember that the water off the dock was deep enough. She wouldn’t risk smashing her head on a rock or scraping a knee on the rough bottom of the lake.

She surfaced almost immediately, squinting up at the clouds as she took in a breath and tried to stay focused on her surroundings, the feel of the breeze on her wet face and hair.

Don’t think about Washington.

About Rook.

In a few moments, she adjusted to the cold water and flipped onto her back. The nearly cloudless sky was all she could see as she floated, going still, tilting her head back the same way she had as a girl, when the lake had been her refuge, and her keenly intelligent, eccentric neighbor had been her salvation in the tense, frantic months of her father’s long and uncertain recovery. He couldn’t return to the carpentry work he knew and loved. She’d later learned that money was tight. Her mother, who’d worked part-time as a teacher’s aide, had turned to full-time work, every ounce of her energy going to keeping food on the table and helping her husband get back on his feet.

Mackenzie dived again, remembering telling her parents not to worry about her, that she’d be fine. She’d always loved roaming the woods, catching frogs on the lakeshore, watching the loons. With her father needing so much of her mother’s attention, Mackenzie had figured her propensity to wander could finally be a help instead of an annoyance and a cause for concern. She’d relished her time alone in the woods.

Eventually, though, she’d decided to hitchhike into town, and Nate Winter, then a teenager, had picked her up and taken her to his uncle at his store, where she’d promptly stolen a jackknife and a couple of packs of waterproof matches.

Almost twenty years later, she couldn’t remember the emotion that had driven her to pocket things that weren’t hers, only the deep shame and anger—at herself, at everyone—when Gus had caught her.

And Bernadette’s talk. Mackenzie remembered that. The law, Bernadette had explained, wasn’t about seeing what you could get away with. Red lights weren’t to be obeyed just when a police car was in sight. They were there for the welfare and safety of everyone.

She’d never mentioned Mackenzie’s parents and how preoccupied and overwhelmed they were. In retrospect, Mackenzie understood that was why Gus had taken her to Bernadette and not them.

Blunt and straightforward, their neighbor had offered Mackenzie use of her library of books at the lake. She could take them home with her, or she could sit out on the porch or the dock and read to her heart’s content. When Bernadette was in Washington, she allowed Mackenzie to let herself into the lake house for a fresh supply of books.

As she swam back to the dock now, Mackenzie felt the tension of the past two days fall away.

She climbed out of the water, shivering when the breeze hit her wet skin. She grabbed her towel, quickly drying her arms.

The door to the utility shed off to the right of the dock had blown open. Bernadette often didn’t bother with the padlock. There was nothing of great importance in the shed—canoes, kayaks, paddles, life jackets, swimming noodles, lawn mower and garden tools.

Even so, it wasn’t Mackenzie’s favorite place.

Its wide door, stained the same dark brown as the house, creaked in a gust of wind.

She draped the towel over her shoulders and stepped off the dock onto a path of gravel and sharp stones that she’d avoided on her run down from the house. As a kid, she wouldn’t have even noticed the stones under her bare feet.

She heard a rustling sound in the brush between the shed and the shoreline and stopped, peering into the tangle of small birches and pines, thigh-high ferns, blackberry vines and invasive Japanese barberry so thick with thorns, nothing could get through it.

Wild turkeys? A squirrel?

Behind the shed were woods laced with paths that led to favorite spots along the lake, connected with trails that eventually snaked up into the mountains.

Mackenzie listened for a few seconds, but when she heard nothing more she draped her towel over one shoulder and reached for the shed door.

A guttural sound—a low growl—came from the brush. She turned quickly, just as something leaped out of the bushes, coming at her.

A man. Dark hair, a beard.

Mackenzie jumped back, but he was diving for her, slashing at her.

A knife.

She reacted instantly, adrenaline flooding her senses, and hooked her beach towel around her right arm to block another slash of his knife. Quickly, she grabbed his wrist, pointing the knife to the dirt path, and simultaneously locked his elbow in place with her other hand. She gave his wrist a sharp, hard twist away from her.

He groaned in pain, but still gripped the knife.

With the side of her foot she delivered a quick, hard kick to the inside of his knee.

The knife dropped from his hand, and he screamed in pain, sinking to the dirt.

Maintaining her hold on his forearm, Mackenzie kicked the knife into the brush. Her attacker smelled of rancid sweat, and his beard was unkempt. His hair was wild, dirty, streaked with gray. He wore scarred hiking boots, lightweight khaki-green pants and a sweat-stained tan T-shirt.

White-flecked pale eyes stared up at her.

Those eyes…

She’d seen him before.

She felt something warm oozing down her left side but didn’t let herself look.

“You’re bleeding,” he said, grinning at her. “I cut you.”

He wasn’t lying. She could feel the pain now, searing, overtaking the adrenaline that had protected her in the first seconds of injury. But the wound couldn’t be deep. Her counterattack had prevented him from stabbing her in her kidney, killing her on the spot. Instead, he’d cut a five-inch gash in her side, just above her hip.

Spit formed at the corners of her attacker’s mouth and sparkled on his beard. “You’re going to pass out, Deputy Stewart. Think about what I’m going to do to you then.”

He knew her name—he knew he’d just assaulted a federal agent.

Pain pierced through her. She needed to disable him, make sure he didn’t get up even if she did pass out. Just one good chop to his neck. But she could feel the warm blood from the slice on her side mingling with the cool lake water on her skin. Her grip on him slackened, and her towel slid off her arm onto the ground.

He seized the advantage and surged up, pushing her backward. She blocked his move, and managed to stay on her feet as he grunted, spun around and ran, crashing through the brush, swearing like a madman.

Did he have another weapon hidden in the woods?

Mackenzie knew she couldn’t charge after him. She was barefoot and injured. She’d had one chance to nail him, and she’d failed. She needed to get to her gun, a telephone. Put on some dry clothes.

Her heart jumped. Carine.

Her friend was up on the road with her baby. What if she ran into this bastard?

What if she already had?

Mackenzie pressed her forearm against the wound on her side to provide compression. She didn’t want to pick up her towel and risk passing out.

The shed door was still open. Had her attacker come out of there? Or had he been on his way into it, but saw her emerging from the water and ducked into the brush?

She had to check the shed for any other victims. If her attacker had an accomplice, he’d have surfaced by now. In her pink tankini, she was an easy target for two men.

Nothing was out of place in the shed. There was nowhere for a person to hide—the old canoe was upright, the lightweight kayaks leaned against a wall. Mackenzie grabbed a crowbar from among the tools hanging on hooks and nails, planning to use it as a makeshift weapon. But its weight pulled on her cut side, the resulting pain dropping her to one knee. The crowbar clattered to the cement floor, landing inches from an old stain—her father’s blood, still there after twenty years.

Forcing herself to stand up, she chose a hammer—it wasn’t nearly as heavy as the crowbar—and stepped out of the shed, squinting in the bright sunlight. The breeze made her teeth chatter.

I can’t pass out.

“Mac.”

What?

She blinked, trying to focus, trying to keep her head from spinning. She had to be hallucinating. She just couldn’t be this unlucky. Attacked out of the blue, stabbed, humiliated…and now Andrew Rook, special agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, black-haired, black-eyed and humorless, had materialized in front of her?

His gaze narrowed on the blood dripping down her side. He was controlled, focused. “What’s happened?”

“I was attacked. Not by a shark, either.” She pointed behind the shed with her bloody hand. “The man who sliced me is in the woods. He doesn’t have a big head start. You can catch him.”

“You need a doctor.”

She shook her head. “My friend Carine is up on the road with her baby. I can’t go after her myself.” She coughed—a mistake; the pain was so intense, she saw white and almost dropped her hammer. “Go, okay?”

Rook reached into his jacket pocket. “I’ll call the police.”

“Your cell phone won’t work out here. There’s a phone in the house. I’ll call, you go.” Mackenzie raised her eyes as she held her bloodied side and tried to keep from shivering. “Why are you here, anyway?”

He sighed through clenched teeth. “Later.” He drew a pistol from his belt holster and held it out to her. “I’ll go after your friend. Take this.”

“It’s not necessary.” She raised her hammer. “I’m all set.”

“Take the damn gun, Mac.” He plucked the hammer from her and pressed the 9 mm into her hand. “I’ve got another.”

She didn’t argue and straightened, suddenly aware again that she was in pink, a bright pink tankini.

Hell.

She started toward the house, but after two steps her stomach lurched. She went still, feeling dizzy, her thoughts jumbled. How had this happened? She’d been swimming on a beautiful summer day, and now here she was, woozy, knifed and arguing with the man she’d come to New Hampshire to get out of her mind.

“He knew my name,” she said, letting the wave of nausea pass.

She thought she heard Rook swear under his breath. “Keep compression on your wound and get warm. Don’t risk hypothermia.”

She glanced back at him. “Are you trying to piss me off or are you just oblivious?”

Rook ignored her and took off into the woods.

Hanging on to his Browning, Mackenzie staggered to the porch and into Bernadette’s kitchen. She found the land line and dialed 911, pushing back her pain—her concern for Carine—as she told the dispatcher everything she knew.

“Notify the teams hunting for the missing hiker that the man who attacked me could have found her first.”

“Ma’am, you need to get off your feet and find a safe place—”

She’d forgotten to identify herself as a federal agent. She did so now and provided Gus’s name as a contact.

When she hung up, she found a clean dish towel and pressed it to her wound, which was still bleeding freely, as she pushed around bags of hamburger buns and chocolate bars in search of Carine’s car keys. She would drive up the road, go after Carine herself.

She was shaky and sweating, and her knees were unsteady beneath her. “I hate this,” she said under her breath, slipping into her flip-flops, the dish towel pressed against her wound.

With Rook’s gun in her free hand, she charged back to the porch. She wouldn’t pass out and drive into a tree. She refused.

But when she reached the gravel driveway, Mackenzie knew she wasn’t getting into Carine’s car. She wasn’t driving anywhere. Never mind the risk to herself—she’d end up running over someone. Rook, maybe.

She tensed to keep her teeth from chattering. Based on what she’d told the dispatcher, she had a fair idea of the array of cops that would be en route to the lake. She couldn’t have them show up while she was standing there with chattering teeth. No cop would get away with it, not with a relatively superficial wound like hers.

And no one with any sense—cop or not—would get behind a wheel, dripping blood and clad only in a cold, wet swimsuit.

She had to trust Rook to get Carine and her baby boy back safely.




Six


Jesse Lambert hocked a loogie onto the side of the quiet, narrow dirt road that encircled the picturesque lake. He wondered if the cops would swab it for their forensics lab, or if it’d be dry before they got out here. No matter—he’d be long gone.

Would Mackenzie Stewart pass out before she could call for help? He didn’t know how badly he’d cut her.

What if he’d just nicked her and she was after him now?

He liked that idea. Being back in the mountains exhilarated him. A few weeks of hiking would sharpen his mind, body and spirit, dulled somewhat by result of the lifestyle he led in Washington, D.C. He’d be back in top-notch shape in no time. But he didn’t have a few weeks, not right now.

His knee ached where the freckled girl deputy had kicked him.

Bitch.

But he’d been energized by the conflict between them, her fight, her spirit. He hadn’t expected her. It must have been fate, he thought, that had brought her there.

“New Hampshire…it’s the only place I can think of where Cal might have stashed your money…”

Poor Harris, trying to make good on one last gamble. But New Hampshire was a reasonable answer, and Jesse had flown in late last night, crafting a bold but well-structured plan. He’d considered Cal and Harris both associates—they’d profited from their relationship with him. How had they returned the favor? They’d double-crossed him.

First thing this morning, he’d set out into the mountains.

His mountains. They comforted him, soothed him. He was never more at peace than when he was in the White Mountains. He would never live here; to do so would diminish their power to restore him. But after a violent outburst, he would always return to them.

The gurgling cry of a baby snapped him out of his thoughts.

A woman came around a bend in the road, a baby in a little red hat bouncing in a pack on her back. She gave a start, then smiled. “Oh, hello. I didn’t realize anyone was out here.”

This, Jesse thought, was crap. Seeing how she held a fist-size rock in one hand. She had to have heard him or spotted him. These women up here. She must have heard him in the woods. Meeting her eyes, he felt recognition dawn.

“Nice afternoon for a walk,” he said conversationally.

She drew a shallow breath. “Definitely. I’m meeting a friend—”

“You’re Carine Winter, right? The photographer?”

Her hand tightened visibly on the rock. What was she going to do, bash him over the head with it? She had a baby with her, and she was thinking about beating a man to death. Him.

But she gestured vaguely up the road. “I’m running late.”

“Sure. No problem.” Jesse stepped into the shade of an oak on the edge of the road, letting her pass. “I ran into Mackenzie Stewart a few minutes ago. She scared the hell out of me. I was just hiking, and all of a sudden, she was there.”

Without saying a word, Carine picked up her pace. She had to have all sorts of questions about him, but wasn’t going to linger and ask any of them. Jesse watched the baby’s red hat bob up and down as his mother hurried on, moving as fast as she dared without hurting her son or drawing attention to her fear.

She was a Winter, and all Winters in the White Mountains were legendary hard-asses.

Mackenzie Stewart was the one who’d shocked him.

Jesse kept his tone mild as he called to Carine, “Tell your redheaded friend that I didn’t mean to hurt her. I was scared. Just scared.”

The marshals, the FBI, the state cops, the local cops—they would run everything he said and did past their experts, and they’d figure he was some kind of a head case.

That was all part of his plan, and suited him just fine.

He raised his voice a notch so Carine could still hear him. “I bought one of your calendars. Really like the picture of the loons.”

In fact, he had bought one of her calendars. It hung in his house in Mexico. She was an accomplished nature photographer who knew the White Mountains as well as he did—and had captured their soul in her pictures.

He thought he heard a car engine down the road, and quickly ducked under the oak, revived now, a fresh surge of adrenaline pumping through his bloodstream. He knew every inch of the maze of trails that snaked into the mountains. Within the hour, he would be a needle in a haystack. Even with search dogs, the police would never find him.

He pictured Mackenzie Stewart’s dark red curls, her compact, sexy shape and the crimson blood running down the smooth, creamy skin of her upper thigh.

She was so damn pretty.

Barefoot and soaking wet in her pink bathing suit, she’d still managed to disarm him and come damn close to kicking his ass. He’d had to use every bit of his willpower to get back on his feet and bolt into the woods.

His attraction to her was unexpected, as potent and as visceral as his urge to stab her. In that split second of decision followed by action, when he’d jumped out of the brush at her, he had fully meant to kill her, not just cut her. If she hadn’t stopped him, disarmed him, she’d be dead right now.

From the moment he’d spotted her at the Washington hotel with Judge Peacham the other night, Jesse had known he would have to hurt Mackenzie Stewart one day.

Today just happened to be the day.




Seven


The sound of a baby’s cry drew Rook out of the cover of a trio of white pines and onto the sun-washed dirt road above the lake. A fair-haired woman with a baby on her back gasped and jumped back a step, a rock in her raised hand.

“FBI,” he said quickly. “Andrew Rook. You’re Carine?”

She nodded, lowering her arm. He had his weapon drawn, a .38 caliber Smith & Wesson he sometimes wore on his ankle, but she seemed to relax slightly. “He ran up into the woods.” She motioned vaguely behind her. “The man—you’re looking for him, right? He said Mackenzie—” Out of breath and obviously shaken, the woman looked to Rook for answers.

“Mackenzie’s okay.” He didn’t need to go into detail about the attack now. “Are you or your baby hurt?”

“No.” Carine squeezed her eyes shut and inhaled through her nose, holding the breath a moment before exhaling through her mouth. She opened her eyes again. “I’m sorry.” Her voice quavered. “I’m a little upset.”

“The man you saw, is he on foot? Does he have a vehicle?”

“He’s on foot as far as I know. I didn’t see a car. The road dead-ends. If he had a car, he would have to double back this way, and no one has passed me yet.” She paused, calmer now. “He has enough of a head start that he could be on any of a number of trails. Maybe you can catch up with him. Feel free to go after him.”

Rook had no intention of leaving her. “Let’s get you back to your friend. I’ll walk with you. You can tell me what happened.”

Carine paled even more, but she seemed steadier. “Mackenzie isn’t all right, is she?”

“She’ll be fine. Mac’s tough.”

Unexpectedly, Carine smiled. “She lets you call her Mac?”

“No, but I do.”

“She’s told me about you.”

Carine left it at that, and Rook could imagine what her friend had related about him. All of it true, no doubt.

Incongruously, Carine’s baby grinned at him, showing two top teeth, two bottom teeth and a lot of drool. His dark eyelashes were clumped together with tears. Rook smiled back. “You’re safe now, fella.” He looked at his mother. “Boy, right?”

“Harry.” She sniffled, adjusting him on her back. “That man. Do you know who he is?”

“No.”

“I heard something scrambling in the woods. I thought it might be an animal. I picked up a rock.” She reached behind her and touched her son’s foot, tucked into a red sock that was half-off. “I’ve had encounters with rough types before, but it’s different—” She took in another breath, obviously fighting to control a fresh wave of emotion. “It’s different when you have a baby to protect.”

“I’m sure it is. You did fine, Carine. You’re safe now.”

In measured words, as they continued down the dirt road, she related every detail of what she’d experienced, finishing just as they arrived back at Bernadette Peacham’s house. Rook knew he had to tell Carine about Mackenzie’s injury, but as he started to speak, Carine shot out ahead of him.

“Mackenzie!”

She was sitting on the gravel driveway, shivering as she leaned against the sedan Rook had rented at the airport. Carine hurried down to her, quickly lifting off the pack with her baby and setting it upright on the grass. He sucked on his little fist.

“Harry’s getting big,” Mackenzie said, obviously biting back her pain.

“You’re bleeding—”

“It’s under control. My liver’s not going to fall out or anything.”

Rook stood over her. “You’re white as a sheet, Mac. Is an ambulance on the way?”

“I don’t need an ambulance.” She leaned her head against the car. Most of her red curls were matted to her skull, but a few sticking out, he noted. “I see you rented a black car. Very FBI of you.”

“Mac—”

“It’s just plain in-your-face cheekiness for you to turn up here, Rook. You’re in a suit. You’re armed to the teeth. You weren’t planning to climb Cold Ridge or join Carine and me toasting marshmallows, were you?”

He didn’t answer her. Her eyes had a glassy, pain-racked look to them, and her lips were purple as she struggled to keep herself from shivering. “You’re freezing,” he said instead. Rook pulled off his sport coat and draped it over her. She made a face, but didn’t object. “I’ll take you to the damn E.R. myself if I have to.”

“I told the dispatcher I’d been sliced. I know they’ll send an ambulance even if I don’t need one.” Pressing the bloody towel she held to her side, Mackenzie shifted position, then winced. “If I pass out, just leave me here in the dirt. I’ll come to in a few seconds.”

Carine seemed relieved at her friend’s stab at humor. “Is there anything I can do?”

“I’d love some dry clothes. My backpack’s in the kitchen. I’d rather not go to the hospital in a pink swimsuit and G-man sport coat.”

“I don’t blame you. Back in a sec.” Carine scooped her half-asleep baby out of the pack and headed off to the house, eager to help her friend.

Rook glanced down at Mackenzie. “I take it you don’t own a suit in marshal’s black.”

“Black washes me out.”

Her irrepressible humor had drawn him to her that night in Georgetown in the rain, even before her blue eyes, her quick smile, her intelligence. “Anything I can do?”

“Find this guy.” Beads of sweat had formed on her upper lip, in spite of the breeze. “If he gets enough of a head start, he could be anywhere. There are a lot of hikers this time of year. He could head in any one of a dozen directions. If he decides to blend in, we’ll be lucky if anyone remembers seeing him.”

“Just rest, Mac. The woods will be crawling with search teams soon enough.”

“I’ve been trying to remember where I’ve seen him. Nothing’s coming.” Her head fell back against the car with a thud. “I shouldn’t have let him get away.”

“You disarmed him and kept him from killing you. So you got a little scratched in the process—”

“Bastard. You, I’m talking about. ‘A little scratched.’ Easy for you to say.”

He smiled. “Brought some color back to your cheeks.”

And she would have to admit the slash in her side was nothing compared to what could have happened—even if she did let her attacker get away. An ambulance and town police cruiser arrived within seconds of each other. Rook moved to go and meet them, but Mackenzie reached up and touched his hand. “You know Bernadette Peacham owns this place, right?”

He didn’t answer her.

“If she’s in danger—”

“I’ll take care of it.”

Mackenzie studied him. “I’m guessing you’re not here because of me.”

“Mac—”

Her eyes cleared, and he could see the focus and intelligence that made her a good law enforcement officer. “Beanie’s turned up in one of your FBI investigations, hasn’t she?”

“Never speculate.”

“I’m not speculating,” Mackenzie said. “I’m asking a direct question.”

“I don’t know anything about the man who attacked you,” Rook replied.

She sighed. “I believe you, if only because you straight-arrow, G-men types make lousy liars.”

Carine returned with a pair of yoga pants and a flannel shirt for her friend, and Rook took the opportunity to ease out of Mackenzie’s line of vision and identify himself to a local cop. More police cars descended on the scene, lining the dirt road.

Mackenzie addressed all the cops and paramedics by their first name and tried to tell them what to do. “No stretcher,” she instructed two paramedics. “If you even try to put me on a stretcher, we’ll have words.”

One of them, a red-faced, burly man about her age, rolled his eyes. “We’re putting you on a stretcher, Mackenzie, so just shut up about it.”

“You never did like me, did you, Carl?”

He grinned. “Are you kidding? I was a freshman in high school when you were a senior. We all had a crush on you. Those cute freckles of yours—”

“Okay. Where’s my gun?”

He laughed, and a moment later he and his partner had her on a stretcher.

After the ambulance pulled out, Rook walked down to the lake. The shed door swayed in the breeze. Two local officers were already taping off the scene, carefully avoiding any contamination of forensics.

He spotted blood that had seeped into the rocky, sandy soil and splattered the grass and nearby ferns.

Mackenzie’s blood.

She’d lost more than she wanted to admit, and every drop clearly annoyed her. Rook didn’t recognize the description of her attacker. It wasn’t Harris—and Harris, his missing informant, Rook reminded himself, was the reason he was in New Hampshire. He wasn’t there because of his relationship with Mackenzie. Maybe he should be, he thought. But he wasn’t.

Rook averted his gaze from her blood. What if he’d just gone ahead and had dinner with her? Made love to her? Neither of them would be in New Hampshire right now.

Across the lake, which was choppy in the stiff breeze, he spotted a small house, presumably where her parents lived. Carine had given him the rundown of who was who on the lake, in case anyone else might be in danger. He pictured Mackenzie out here as a child and wondered what forces had taken her into the Marshals Service.

He was late learning about her background and her relationship with Judge Peacham.

Three weeks late.

The state troopers started to arrive. With a federal judge’s property involved and a federal agent attacked, the FBI and the U.S. Marshals would be on the heels of the troopers, joining the investigation.

Rook had his own job to do.




Eight


Bernadette Peacham hated that her ex-husband had caught her eating a frozen lasagna for dinner. She hadn’t even bothered to put it onto a plate or make a salad. She’d simply stuffed the single serving into the microwave, peeled off the film cover and dug in, and there was Cal, as handsome as ever, standing in her kitchen doorway.

And it was her kitchen. Not his. Despite their divorce, she’d hung on to both her house here in Washington, just off stately Massachusetts Avenue, and her lake house in New Hampshire. Her first marriage had smartened her up about protecting her financial interests, if not about improving her taste in men.

“I just heard about Mackenzie,” Cal said. “An FBI agent stopped in my office. I came straight here. Have you talked to anyone?”

“The FBI just left.”

He looked truly upset. “Bernadette—thank God you weren’t at the lake this weekend. The police say the man who attacked Mackenzie might have camped on your property.”

She shoved the lasagna container into the trash. Cal had always been disdainful of her benevolence. “For the record, I didn’t let him.”

“Do you have any idea who it was?”

“No.”

Cal ran a finger across the round, white-painted table, a habit of his when he was stressed and trying not to show it. He’d taken off the ten pounds he’d put on in the last six months of their marriage, and he looked good. His hair was a little thin on top, and what he had left was all gray now, with no hints of the dark blond it used to be. Bernadette had met him three years ago, and it was as if she’d waited her entire life for him. Now, she could hardly stand the sight of him.




Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.


Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию (https://www.litres.ru/raznoe-17258277/abandon/) на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.