Abandon

Twenty-Seven

Mackenzie walked across the sprawling lawn of the historic house that she’d called home for almost two months, the smell of hydrangeas and wet grass mingling on the breeze, the sunset glowing through the trees. After hours of answering questions and writing up her report on the events of the day, she’d ventured back there for a shower and a change of clothes.

But when she’d arrived, Nate’s car was in the driveway. They took a walk on the grounds, and she’d told him everything.

“I finally called my parents in Ireland and told them what’s been going on,” she said as she and Nate approached the back end of the property. “I hated to do it – they’re having such a good time.”

“Your mother’s getting into her Irish roots?”

“She says there’s nothing like Irish butter.” And if anyone deserved simple pleasures, it was Molly Stewart. Her hard work, frugality and dedication to her husband, regardless of his disability, hadn’t dampened her good nature. “I don’t know if I have any business worrying her this way. If I’d stayed in academia -”

“You’d have been killed last week, and Harris would still be dead.”

At Nate’s blunt words, Mackenzie shoved her fists into the pockets of her lightweight jacket. “I asked my folks to find an Internet café and take a look at the sketch. Maybe they saw this guy at the lake or around town before they left for Ireland.”

“The couple who swapped houses with them didn’t recognize him.”

“Maybe he was there before they arrived.”

She and Nate had walked to the house’s century-old dump, where Nate’s wife, a historical archaeologist, had conducted a dig, unearthing artifacts – mostly ordinary household items that would go on display when the house finally opened to the public.

“Harris Mayer might have been killed before you were attacked,” Nate said. “If his killer is the same man -”

“Then I’m not responsible because I let him go?” Mackenzie could hear the self-recrimination in her tone. “That’s not I how I look at it.”

“You didn’t let him go.” A note of mild exasperation had crept into Nate’s voice. “If you’re going to do this job, you have to get some perspective on what’s a real mistake and what isn’t.”

Mackenzie looked away from him. “I don’t know if I can do this work. I look at you -”

“I’ve been at it longer.”

“I look at Juliet Longstreet, T.J., Rook.”

“All more experienced than you. Just about every federal agent in Washington is. You’re new. We all know that. So does Joe Delvecchio.”

“He told me today I’m so smart, I’m stupid.”

Nate grinned. “He didn’t get to be chief by mincing words. It was your sneaking into Beanie’s house that got him.”

“I didn’t ‘sneak’in. I have a key. And it’s not like I took anything.”

“She’s a federal judge in his district. What if you had found something relevant to Rook’s investigation? It’d be subject to suppression.”

“Delvecchio doesn’t understand my relationship with her.”

“Nobody does. After your father’s accident…” Nate hesitated, then continued, “Beanie blamed herself as much as you blamed yourself. She was an adult, and you were just a kid, but that day was tough on both of you.”

“I hardly remember any of it. I just remember this overwhelming feeling that I’d done something wrong.”

“Like today.”

Yeah, she thought. Like today. She took his hand and squeezed it. “Thanks for your friendship, Nate.”

He slung an arm over her shoulder as they started back toward the house. “Harris should have been straight with Rook. He wasn’t.”

“Maybe because he was more afraid of whoever killed him.”

“Possibly.”

“Or,” she said, “knowing Harris, he tried to have it both ways. Cut a deal with the FBI and with his killer.”

“The rooming house isn’t in the best neighborhood. For all we know, Harris walked into the middle of a drug deal, or someone tried to rob him. We have to let the facts lead us.”

“There was no forced entry. The doors were locked. Either Harris let his killer in or gave him a key, or the killer talked the building’s superintendent into opening up the door. There are a lot of possibilities.” Mackenzie forced herself to smile. “Or it was a ghost.”

“No wonder you and Sarah get along so well.”

But his amusement came across as forced, and hers faded almost immediately. “The FBI wants to talk to Cal,” she said. “He was supposed to meet Rook and T.J. this morning, and now they can’t find him.”

“He could be a lot of places,” Nate said.

“I know. It doesn’t mean he’s dead on a bathroom floor.”

“Or that he killed Harris or had anything to do with his death, except perhaps a premonition. Who knows. Where are you staying tonight?”

“Rook’s, I guess.” Mackenzie kept her voice matter of fact. “I stayed there last night after the little incident with the hydrangea and the knife. He has a decent guest room. One wall’s full of pictures of Rooks.”

Nate dropped his arm from her shoulders but said nothing.

“His nineteen-year-old nephew is there,” Mackenzie added.

“Think so?” Nate opened up his car door and grinned at her, showing a spark of real amusement for the first time since she’d found him in her driveway. “Bet the nephew’s not there tonight.”

Rook found his nephew out on the bent and rusted swing set in the backyard, another area that needed work. Shrubs his grandparents had planted when they’d moved into the house were in need of serious pruning or outright replacement, and, stuck in a tangle of weeds and ground cover in the far corner of the yard, was a faded, chubby gnome that just had to go.

So did the swing set. “I need to take this thing to the dump,” Rook said. “Your great-grandmother got it when you were on the way. She was so excited to have a baby around again. Knew you’d be a boy.”

Brian hooked his elbows on the chains of the swing, barely fitting onto the seat. “Her sons and grandsons all turned out great.” He squinted up at his uncle. “I guess odds were there’d be a screwup in the next generation, huh?”

“That kind of negative talk doesn’t help, but I understand it.” Rook ran a palm up the dented metal support. It’d been an old set when his grandmother had taken it off the hands of a friend whose grandchildren had outgrown it. Just a teenager himself, Rook had helped his father, a retired Secret Service agent, set it up. “I lost an informant today. A man I should have protected. I didn’t know he was in danger.”

“That sucks. What happened to him?”

“He was stabbed to death.”

“Ouch.” Brian grimaced. “I don’t like real violence.”

“Me, either.”

“But you’re an FBI agent.”

“I didn’t go into law enforcement because I like violence, Brian. I went in because it interested me and I thought I could do some good.”

“And because all Rooks are cops.”

He shrugged. “Maybe so, but at the time I thought that was more of a negative than a positive. When I started out in college, I didn’t have a clue what I’d be doing in six months, never mind ten years.”

“You didn’t know you’d go into law enforcement?”

“It was an option, but there were a lot of options.”

Brian shifted, the old swing set creaking under his weight. “I don’t even know what you majored in.”

“Political science.” Rook smiled. “Don’t tell Mackenzie. She’s a dissertation short of a Ph.D. in political science.”

His nephew grinned. “Imagine if you’d been her student.”

Probably not a good idea, Rook thought.

Brian pushed back in the swing, straightening his legs as his dark eyes focused on the wet grass. “Do you feel like a screwup because of what happened to your informant?”

“It doesn’t really matter, does it? I still have a job to do.”

“A job you’re good at.” Brian swung forward, the swing set sagging dangerously. “I’m good at video games.”

“When your father was nineteen, he was good at anything having to do with a motorcycle.”

“He never flunked out of college.” Brian pried himself out of the swing. “I’ll help you get rid of this when you’re ready. I’m heading home. You don’t need to worry about me, Uncle Andrew. My mom and dad don’t, either. I’ll figure things out.”

“Fair enough.”

“Hey, I got a job today – washing dishes at a restaurant near the International Spy Museum.” He grinned suddenly. “Maybe that’s what I’ll be.”

Rook raised an eyebrow. “A dishwasher?”

“Uh-uh. A spy.”

Plans afoot, Brian trotted off across the yard. Knowing his nephew, Rook wouldn’t be surprised if he did end up as a spy. The kid would be all right. His battles with his parents were normal fare. He’d never had to find his father bloodied by a malfunctioning table saw, out in the middle of nowhere.

As he headed into the house, two cars pulled into the driveway. They belonged to his brother Jim, a Secret Service agent like their father, and his brother Steven, an Arlington detective. Behind them came his brother Scott, Brian’s father and a prosecutor.

“Has something happened?” Rook asked when they got out of their cars en masse.

“Yeah,” Steven, the youngest, said. “To you.”

“I’m not bleeding.”

Finally, their father pulled in behind Scott’s car, and as he got out, Rook realized that Sean Rook was the spitting image of his eldest grandson, Brian, in another fifty years.

Scott clapped his younger brother on the shoulder. “You might not be bleeding, Andrew, but you’ve had a hell of a day. A murdered informant. No leads. That’s a tough one. We’re here for moral support.”

“Plus,” Jim said, “we want to know about the redheaded marshal with the freckles.”

He was outnumbered, one of the hazards of being back in Washington – and, he acknowledged, one of its benefits. His brothers and father would want to know everything he could legitimately tell them. They’d offer their opinions and advice, and they’d ask questions, take him through how J. Harris Mayer had started out with vague tales of blackmail and conspiracy and ended up knifed to death in a seedy rooming house studio.

But as he welcomed his family into his house, Rook decided his father and brothers would have an easier time understanding the circumstances surrounding his dead informant than his redheaded marshal with the freckles.