Abandon (20 page)

M
ackenzie 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.

M
ackenzie drove around the block twice before the last of the unfamiliar cars in Rook’s driveway had departed. He stood at the screen door in the front of the house. He was dressed in jeans and looked more relaxed than she’d expected. Certainly more than she felt herself.

“I had to talk my brothers out of running your plates,” he said. “Suspicious vehicle circling the block.”

“Unknown, not suspicious. There’s a difference.”

“Not to them.” He pushed open the door. “They’ll be sorry they missed you.”

“Just what I need. More Rooks.”

But as she entered the foyer, her humor deserted her, and her injured side ached. He swept a look over her that, in spite of her fatigue, or perhaps because of it, set her senses on fire.

“Lousy day today,” he said.

“That sums it up.” She headed down the short hall to the kitchen. “I called Beanie before I left to come here. She’s talked to the FBI. She never thought of the rooming house, either.”

“You did think of it.”

“Not soon enough. And Cal—she hasn’t heard from him. He still hasn’t shown up, has he?”

“Not yet,” Rook said. “It’s an August weekend in Washington. No one’s here who doesn’t have to be.”

“He’s supposed to move—”

“He can afford to pay someone while he heads to the beach.” But when she didn’t respond, Rook added, “Cal Benton’s not a stupid man.”

She stared out the window above the sink, distracting herself by wondering what Rook would say if she asked him if he needed a roommate to help with expenses. She felt rootless, in a way she never had in New Hampshire or even during her weeks in Georgia. During the weeks of intense training, she’d been too busy, too focused on not failing to notice. Now, failure was a more deadly proposition. It wasn’t just about herself anymore. When she screwed up, people could get hurt.

She glanced back at Rook, leaning against the hall doorjamb. “I saw two of your brothers. They look a lot like you. How many siblings do you have?”

“Three brothers. Scott, Jim and Steven. A prosecutor, an Arlington detective and a Secret Service agent. My father is retired from the Secret Service.”

“I guess I should be glad they only wanted to run my plates instead of shoot out my tires. Your nephew’s father is the prosecutor?”

“Scott. He’s the eldest. I’m number three.”

“They all live around here?”

“They do. They’re all married with kids.”

“Ah. That makes you the black sheep, doesn’t it? Do you get along with their wives?”

“For the most part.”

“They’re not cops,” Mackenzie said, making an educated guess.

“One’s an E.R. nurse, one works at the Smithsonian and one’s a homemaker.”

“What about your mother?”

“She and a friend opened up a gift shop a couple of years ago. Drives my father nuts. They finally put him to work to shut him up—he’s in charge of the homemade soaps.”

“You have quite a clan. It’s always been just my folks and me. We get along with the rest of the family, but my relatives are a small group and we don’t see that much of them. Of my grandparents, I only knew my mother’s mother, but she died when I was in high school. But I always had the Winters.” Mackenzie sank back against the sink. “And Beanie.”

Rook said nothing.

She angled a look at him. “I didn’t see Brian’s car.”

“He’s gone home for the weekend. Lives right around the corner.”

So Nate was right, she thought with a smile. “Oh. Well. Then it’s just you and me? Your brothers aren’t going to turn up in the middle of the night, are they? They’re not keeping an eye on you, checking for strange cars in the driveway—”

“No.”

“Good, because they look like humorless hard-asses.” She smiled. “I can’t wait to meet them.”

Rook moved toward her and slipped his arms around her, just above her healing knife wound. She sank against his chest, and he kissed the top of her head. “If you don’t mind, I’d rather not talk about my family right now.”

“No, huh?” She lifted her head and draped her arms over his shoulders, locking her fingers behind his neck. “Imagine that.”

“Forget the guest room. Stay with me tonight.”

She felt a ripple of awareness and remembered their lovemaking two nights ago in her kitchen. “And if
you
don’t mind, I’d rather not make love to you here in the kitchen. This floor looks hard.”

His mouth was tantalizingly close to hers. “We didn’t make it to the floor last time, as I recall.”

“My stitches are out.”

“Yes, I know.”

“The wound’s healing nicely.”

He kissed her ever so briefly, and she took it as just a taste of what was to come. “I’ll be careful.”

“Not that careful, I hope.”

He lifted her up onto his hips. “Rook—”

“Give up a little control, Mac,” he said, grinning.

She sank into his arms, letting him take her weight. “Fine by me.”

He carried her back to his bedroom, its rich colors and dark woods as thoroughly masculine as he was. With one hand, he drew back the covers of his bed, then set her down. She lay against two soft pillows and watched him crack open a window, the air almost cool, the less humid breeze another tease on her already overheated skin.

She started to undress, but he sat next to her and took her hands. “Allow me.”

She smiled. “Who am I to argue?”

He raised her arms above her head and skimmed his palms down them, until he reached her breasts. At a maddening, deliberate pace, he found buttons, hooks, a zipper, tugged at fabric, every touch of his fingers drawing a response from her. Her skin heated, her pulse quickened.

She started to bring her hands down to speed up the process, but he gently shoved them back. “Uh-uh. My job.”

He continued until he had removed every last stitch of clothing from her. And still he kept her hands in place as his explored her. He kissed her so deeply, so erotically, it was as if their mouths had fused together.

Mackenzie wriggled under him, fought for air. “Andrew…I don’t think I can stand it anymore….”

“Do you want me to stop?”

She shook her head. “Not ever. I just…”

But he’d already lowered his mouth to her neck, trailed kisses down to her breasts, lingered there, stealing all thought of what she’d intended to say, all thought of anything except the exquisite wet heat of his tongue. The fact that he was still fully clothed only made her ache more.

He moved lower still, circling, flicking, nipping, and she gave herself up to the sensations roaring through her, opened herself up to the movement of his tongue and the scrape of his teeth, the probing of his fingers. She spun closer and closer to the edge, to abandoning all control.

Then he pulled back suddenly, and raised up, a flash of amusement in his dark eyes. “My turn to get undressed.”

She tried to sit up and at least help, but her body wouldn’t cooperate. She was quivering, aching. He had no trouble managing on his own, tossing his clothes onto the floor with hers, then coming to her, letting her cup his firm bottom and smooth her hands up his hips and along his back, every inch of him warm and hard. She reached between them, but he lifted himself up, then filled her with such suddenness and ferocity she cried out.

But he didn’t stop, and she didn’t want him to. He plunged impossibly deep into her, stretching her, filling her with a kind of sweet agony she’d never known, and when he thrust again, he went deeper yet. All his confidence and drive made her want him even more. She grabbed his hips, felt her fingers dig in, and held him still, just for a moment. Their eyes locked, and he gazed down at their joined bodies, then looked back at her again, mouthed her name as he drove into her, faster and faster, taking her breath away.

She came in waves, feeling her release down to her toes, but he wasn’t finished. She threw her arms over her head and let herself feel nothing but each quick, hard thrust, until he moaned, grunting as he exploded into her.

Finally spent, he rolled onto his back next to her. A stiff breeze blew over them, and she could feel her pulse racing, although her body was relaxed and loose from their lovemaking.

“I hope we didn’t disturb the neighbors,” she said, still a little breathless.

He eased onto his side and smiled at her. “We?”

“I don’t know, Rook. You break all my rules. You’re in law enforcement, you’re a total hard-ass, you’re a city guy—”

“My brothers and I hike all the time.” He traced a finger along her upper arm. “What kind of man do you want?”

She grinned at him. “One who’s handy.”

“After the past hour I’d say I’m pretty damn handy.”

“Touché.”

“Not as humorless as you thought, am I?”

“You’re full of surprises, I’ll say that.” Mackenzie felt a rush of heat, remembering the feel of him inside her. “I meant, do you know how to use a hammer? Can you build things?”

“I’ve done most of the work so far on this place.”

“It’s nice,” she said, her energy suddenly starting to fade. “You’ve done a good job. I like the skylights.”

“There’s more work to do.”

“I’ve never owned my own house. I’ve always rented.” She caught his hand in hers, looked him in the eye. “We were doing fine. A couple of nice dates, enjoying each other’s company. Then you dump me.”

“And you flew to New Hampshire to lick your wounds and got into a knife fight.” He locked his fingers with hers and drew closer to her. “I don’t claim to know what the hell’s going on, but if you’d stayed here last weekend things would have been different.”

She rose up slightly, feeling a tug of pain in her side, a reminder that she wasn’t fully healed. “If I’d stayed, we wouldn’t have a description of Harris’s killer.”

“His likely killer.”

“I know. ‘Be led by facts, not speculation.’” She dropped back onto the pillow. “My brain’s not working anymore. It’s fried.”

He kissed her on the mouth, the nose, the forehead. “Sleep,” he whispered. But she touched his side, ran her fingertips along the muscles of his abdomen, and, impossibly, felt a renewed spark.

“Mac…”

She climbed onto him, felt the heat and hardness of him. It was dark now, and the breeze felt cool on her skin. “I don’t need to think,” she said as he reached for her breasts, cupping them as she rose up, then lowered herself onto him.

They made love slowly, thoroughly, pushing off any doubts and questions for another time.