Abandon (23 page)

T
he cool breeze off the water made Mackenzie shiver, but it felt good. A year ago on a beautiful Saturday in August, she’d have been kayaking by now, contemplating what life would be like if the Marshals Service accepted her for training.

Now, she knew.

She started onto the bottom step of Bernadette’s screen porch, but saw the shed door propped open and headed down the slowing lawn. If Bernadette was preoccupied with Harris’s death and in a prickly mood after Gus’s revelation about Cal, she would turn to activity—to doing something useful. She’d mow, dig weeds, finally paint her flea-market table.

“Hey, Beanie,” Mackenzie called, in case Bernadette hadn’t heard her car in the driveway. “Gorgeous day, isn’t it?”

As she approached the shed, she resisted an outright shudder and pushed back the overpowering sense of dread she’d felt so often as a child when she’d get near it. She’d envision monsters in there in the dark, as if somehow the prospect of monsters would mitigate the blur of real memories she had—of her father’s blood and moans, of her own terror and guilt. Ever since that awful day when she’d found her father, her memories of what had happened were jumbled up with nightmares, trauma, fear and confusion over which of the images stuck in her head were real and which weren’t.

She heard a sound—a groan—and immediately drew her gun.

“Beanie—what’s going on?”

But there was no answer. Careful not to expose herself more than was necessary, Mackenzie moved toward the shed, the door swung open. She squinted against the bright sun and angled a look inside.

“Beanie?”

“I’m okay.” Bernadette’s voice was high-pitched, laced with fear. “He’s gone…”

She staggered into the doorway, her face ashen as she gripped her left shoulder with her right hand. Blood oozed through her fingers and down her wrist.

With her free arm, Mackenzie caught Bernadette around the waist and held on, taking her friend’s weight. “I’ve got you. It’s okay. Is anyone—”

“No one’s in the shed. He heard your car and ran.”

They edged out of the shed. Bernadette looked on the verge of passing out, but she rallied as she sat on the grass, her hand still clutching her shoulder.

“Who ran, Beanie?” Mackenzie asked.

“Jesse—Jesse Lambert.” Bernadette grimaced, sinking slightly. “Damn, this thing hurts. At least it’s not deep.”

“Let me see.”

Bernadette shook her head, with the authority of a woman accustomed to commanding a courtroom. But her eyes, normally a light green, were dark and glassy with pain and fear. “He says Cal will die if I—” She broke off, wincing in pain, then continued. “He wants something Cal stole from him. I don’t know. I couldn’t make sense of half of what he said.”

Mackenzie noticed something—a paper of some kind—stuck in Bernadette’s bloodstained hand. “Beanie, what’s that?”

She seemed confused. “What?” But she drew her hand from the wound in her shoulder. A photograph, smeared with blood, stuck to her palm. “Oh.” She stared at it, then pried it loose. “Here, see for yourself.”

Mackenzie made out the bloodstained image.

Cal’s blonde
. She felt a pang of sympathy for her friend. “This Jesse showed the picture to you?”

“As if it were a trophy.”

“I’m sorry you had to see such a thing.” But Mackenzie shifted her attention to Bernadette’s wound, a slash across the meat of the shoulder and down to the collarbone. “Here.” She pulled off her jacket. “Use this for compression. Hold it as tight as you can against the cut. Okay?”

“He didn’t want to kill me. He could have, but he—” Bernadette stopped herself, taking the jacket, pressing it against her bleeding shoulder. “I can call the police.” She gave Mackenzie a weak smile. “As backup for you. I know—you
are
the police.”

“I can’t leave you. If he doubles back—”

“You won’t let him.” Bernadette staggered to her feet, pushing away Mackenzie’s hand and looking back at the shed. “This man…Jesse…I should have recognized him….”

Mackenzie stiffened. “Why, Beanie?”

But when Bernadette turned back to her, Mackenzie could hear her father arguing with a man twenty years ago.

“Find another place to camp, Jesse. You’re trespassing. Time to move on.”

She’d been hiding in the trees, playing spy. Her father and the younger man didn’t know she was there.

“You remember him now, don’t you?” Bernadette asked quietly, but she didn’t wait for an answer. “Your father kicked him off the property.”

“I know. I remember.” Mackenzie’s voice was just above a whisper. “He was worried about my safety—and yours.”

“It wasn’t your fault,” Bernadette said.

Mackenzie forced herself out of the past. “It doesn’t matter right now. Andrew Rook is on the way. He shouldn’t be too far behind me.” She saw that Bernadette’s color had improved, and she seemed focused, able to handle a call to 911. “If he gets here before I’m back, tell him to meet me at the clearing we went to last Saturday.”

“Mackenzie—”

“I can’t take the time to explain now. Beanie, are you sure you can do this?”

“Yes.” She gave a faltering smile. “I know you marshals don’t like federal judges to get slashed, but please don’t worry about me. Just go, Mackenzie. Do what you have to do. Be safe.”

Mackenzie waited just long enough to make sure Bernadette wasn’t going to pass out on the porch steps before, gun in hand, she ducked through the brush, a barberry scratching her arm as she fought her way out to the trail along the lake.

A red squirrel scurried in front of her.

“Be out of here by noon or I call the police.”

Not a nightmare, she thought. A memory. But she felt the pull of her own healing knife wound and focused on the present. On finding Jesse Lambert, the man who’d attacked her, the hiker and Bernadette—and who’d tried to kill her father all those years ago, and just last week had succeeded in killing Harris Mayer.

Mackenzie knew she had to find Cal, because if he’d stolen from this man—this Jesse Lambert—then Bernadette was right.

Jesse would kill him.

R
ook 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.