Abandon

Thirty-Four

Rook pulled in behind what he assumed was Mackenzie’s car in Bernadette Peacham’s lake house driveway. The judge, he noticed, drove a basic sedan that wasn’t fancy, expensive or new. But she had this place, he thought as he got out of his car. He stood in the shade of a tall maple, its leaves rustling in a steady breeze, the air cooler than it had been last week. T.J. was en route. He’d made a joke about all roads leading to New Hampshire, but it fell flat, neither he nor Rook in any mood for humor. The search of Jesse Lambert’s condominium had yielded information on a small plane that was now parked at an airstrip about an hour’s drive from Cold Ridge.

Rook appreciated the clear air and the view of the sparkling lake, but he felt a ripple of uneasiness. Why wasn’t Mackenzie out here already, pressing him for details on what he and T.J. had found in Washington?

He walked around to the front of the house, hearing the door to the screen porch bang shut.

Clinging to the rail with one hand, Bernadette Peacham staggered down the steps. “Agent -” She clutched a bloody hand to her shoulder. “Agent Rook…we have a situation here.”

He leaped to her side, grabbing her around the waist. Her hands and the front of her shirt were smeared with blood, but Rook saw it was from a cut in her shoulder. “Here, sit down.” He lowered her onto a step. “Where’s Mackenzie?”

“You have to go after her. I’ve called 911. The cavalry’s on the way.”

He heard a vehicle in the driveway behind the house.

“Gus,” Bernadette Peacham said, then tried to smile. “I recognize the rattle.”

“Tell me what happened,” Rook said.

“Mackenzie’s gone after Jesse Lambert. He’s -”

“I know who he is. He stabbed you?”

She nodded. “To give himself a head start. He – he has Cal stashed somewhere. I think Mackenzie knows where.”

Gus Winter rounded the house. “Beanie -” His gaze took in the bloodstains, her pale face. “Ah, hell.”

“Don’t get hysterical, Gus, for heaven’s sake,” she said sharply. “I’m fine. You and Agent Rook need to go after Mackenzie.”

Gus sat next to her on the steps. “Rook’ll go. He’s armed to the teeth. I’ll sit here with you.”

Bernadette gripped his hand, her eyes shining with tears, but she rallied, looking up a Rook. “She said to find her at a clearing -”

“I know the spot.”

“The local police must be right behind you,” she said, but Rook was already on his way across the lawn and into the woods.

Mackenzie crossed the rock-strewn stream in a single leap and cleared the mud on the opposite side with inches to spare. A small victory after last Saturday’s miss. With her weapon in hand, she headed up the trail, listening for anything out of the ordinary – the crack of a fallen branch, excited birds, chattering squirrels. Anything that suggested that Jesse Lambert had taken cover nearby.

She wasn’t worried about him shooting her sniper-style. He liked knives.

And he liked getting under her skin. No fun in just shooting her.

She moved steadily, familiar with every exposed root and rock on the trail, focused on what she needed to do now – not on what had happened twenty years ago.

That could wait.

She heard a distinct rustling sound in the undergrowth to her left. It stopped abruptly.

Not a squirrel or a bird, Mackenzie thought, ducking behind an old sugar maple on the right side of the trail. “Come out, Jesse,” she said. “Put your hands in the air and show yourself.”

The man from last week – Jesse Lambert – jumped lightly from the cover of trees and brush, landing in the middle of the trail a few feet from her. He opened his hands for her. “See? Not armed.” He grinned, cocky, unconcerned. “I knew you’d come.”

Staying close to the tree, Mackenzie pointed her gun at him. “Get your hands up, Jesse. Now. Hands up!”

“Mackenzie, Mackenzie.” Still grinning, he kept his hands open and took a half step closer to her. “Here we are again after all these years. It’s fate, don’t you see?”

She ignored him. “I’m a federal agent, and I’m ordering you to get your hands up. Now!”

“You know who I am, don’t you, Deputy?” The soulless, colorless eyes gleamed, and he lowered his voice. “I’m the man in your little-girl nightmares.” He waved his fingers at her, as if to taunt her, tell her that, even without a gun in hand, he was in control. “If you shoot me, you won’t find Cal in time. He’ll die. You’re just a rookie agent, Mackenzie. You’re small. You’ve never shot anyone for real. You know you can’t handle me by yourself.”

“Last time, Jesse -”

“You’re just as helpless as you were at eleven, when your daddy was trying to protect you.”

She knew he was trying to get to her, but she wasn’t going to let him. “I’m not saying it again. Hands up.”

“You can’t shoot an unarmed man.”

“How do I know you’re unarmed? I wouldn’t know until I’ve cuffed you and searched you.” She could feel the weight of the gun, the pull of pain in her knife wound, but she kept her voice steady, her focus on him. “So, are you going to cooperate or not?”

“Mackenzie, you’re the reason your father kicked me out of here all those years ago. You know that now, don’t you? He didn’t trust me near you.”

Her father had always been a good judge of character, but Mackenzie refused to indulge Jesse by commenting. She’d practiced this scenario dozens of times – the uncooperative, unarmed suspect. The appropriate use of deadly force. With her injured side, she wasn’t in the best shape to tackle him.

“I wasn’t trying to kill your father. I just wanted him to suffer for not trusting me.”

She spotted Rook moving into position in the trees behind Jesse and decided to play him for more time. Push him. Let him make his move.

“Yeah, well, Jesse,” she said, “just give me an excuse to kill you, and I will. What about that poor woman you carved up last week in the mountains? That was to throw us off, wasn’t it? Make us think you were a deranged hiker picking his victims at random.”

He shrugged, obviously pleased with himself. “It worked.”

Bastard. “And Harris – you left him to rot like a dead rat in that rooming house.” Her arms were tired from holding up her Browning and keeping Jesse in her sight, but she didn’t waver. “Since you aren’t putting your hands up, as I’ve instructed you several times -”

“I want to go to Mexico and live out my life.” His voice took on a pleading note that she assumed was entirely phony, intended to manipulate her. “Why don’t you come with me? I have money, more than you’ll ever make as a marshal. I haven’t done anything someone similarly provoked wouldn’t have done. It was self-defense with Harris. Whatever happens to Cal is his own doing.”

“Shut up already. This conversation is over. I’ve had enough.”

That was her cue to Rook.

He leaped, tackling Jesse, both of them crashing to the ground. Mackenzie jumped forward, keeping her gun on Jesse.

A knife appeared in his hand. She reacted instantly, stepping on his wrist. He yelped in pain and released the knife. She quickly kicked it away from his reach and helped Rook cuff him and search him.

“Butcher,” she said, standing back from the man who’d maimed her father twenty years ago, who’d slashed her and another woman a week ago and had murdered Harris Mayer. “How many people have you carved up?”

Jesse leered at her. “More than you’ll ever know.”

Rook glanced at her. “Mac – you okay?”

She noticed the blood on her left side. “Just watching you two fight opened up my knife wound.” Actually, more likely jumping over the stream had, but she figured he knew that. “You were stealthy for a city guy, Rook. I’m impressed. I expected an elephant tramping through the woods.”

Jesse spat into the grass. “Cal’s dead because of you.”

“If he dies,” Rook said, “it’ll be because of you.”

Mackenzie stared into Jesse’s eyes, remembering herself crouched in the woods and her father – so handsome, so strong – arguing with this intransigent, arrogant man. She’d sensed his violence. But she was only eleven, and if her father hadn’t known what Jesse would do, how could she?

She looked at Rook. “I know where Cal is.”

“The clearing?”

She nodded. “I’ll go. It’s just up the hill -”

“We’ll go together.” He grabbed Jesse by the shoulder. “On your feet, pal.”

Mackenzie scooped up Jesse’s knife and led the way to the clearing. It had been one of her favorite escapes when she’d first started wandering off on her own as a child, never imagining that anything out here could hurt her – or her family. Jesse had camped there, without permission, all those years ago. And her father had discovered him and worried that the young trespasser posed a danger to his daughter.

When they arrived at the clearing, no one was there. Sunlight shone on the field grass and ferns, and the shade shifted with the wind.

“You had your chance,” Jesse said. “You lose.”

Mackenzie didn’t even glance back at him. “You wouldn’t leave Cal out in the open,” she said, inspecting the trees along the edge of the clearing.

Behind her, Jesse kept talking. “The crooked bastard double-crossed me. Harris helped him.” Anger and entitlement crept into his voice. “I only want what’s mine.”

“There he is.”

Mackenzie crouched under the low, dead branches of a hemlock. Cal was shoved up against the trunk, bound and gagged and in clear physical distress. “Don’t try to move,” she said gently, strands of her hair catching in branches, the acidic smell of pitch and brown needles filling her nostrils. “Hang on, Cal, okay? Help is here.” His gag was yanked so tight, it cut into the sides of his mouth, and she had to use Jesse’s knife to cut it from him. Gingerly, she pulled the bandana from his mouth. “More help’s on the way. We’ll get you to a hospital.”

He blinked at her, tried to speak, then tried again. “Beanie?”

“She’s fine.” Mackenzie couldn’t remember him ever referring to the woman he’d married by her nickname. “Gus is with her.”

“Gus…those two…” Cal’s shoulders sagged, his head lolling to one side, but his eyes focused on Mackenzie. “Jesse – I wanted to get him out of my life. All our lives.”

“Save your strength, okay? We can talk later.”

She cut his hands free. He was dehydrated, his arms and face bruised and beaten. He licked his parched lips, his tongue swollen. “He killed Lynn. She wasn’t…I helped Jesse extort money from her boss. But Lynn and I…” He caught Mackenzie’s fingers in his. “I loved her.”

Mackenzie thought of the photograph in Bernadette’s bloody hand. Lynn must have been the name of the blond woman with Cal.

“Jesse was right about the shed,” Cal whispered.

“What about the shed?”

But he drifted into unconsciousness. She felt for a pulse, but it was thready. She broke off dried branches above them, trying to give him more room, more air, and get a better look at him.

And she saw the blood on his lower left side.

She and Rook had gotten to Cal in time to save him from dehydration, exposure and a beating, but not from a stab wound – not, she realized now, from Jesse Lambert. Jesse had lied. There was no hope for Cal, no chance to save him regardless of what she or Bernadette or anyone did.

Cal was another of Jesse’s victims.