Abandon (24 page)

T
he loons circled in the water in front of the dock, closer to Bernadette’s house than usual, and Mackenzie wondered if they knew, on some instinctive level, that their presence was a comfort. As a child, she’d hide among the rocks and trees along the shore and watch them, always careful not to disturb them.

She stood on the threshold of the shed, smelling the lawn mower grease and the dust and the half-opened bag of composted cow manure. Bernadette was at the hospital, getting stitched up. Gus had accompanied her.

Cal had died before paramedics could get to him under the hemlock.

As she stepped into the shed, Mackenzie was aware of Rook behind her. “Before my father was hurt, it never occurred to me I could be in any danger out here at the lake. In town, maybe. But not here.”

“Sounds like a normal kid to me.”

“I suppose.”

She glanced back at Rook, any effects of his encounter with Jesse Lambert impossible to detect. She and Rook had turned Jesse over to the state police. Jurisdictional issues would get sorted out. In the meantime, the locals had their slasher in custody.

“You FBI types won’t object if I take a look around in here, will you?” she asked.

Rook shrugged. “Would it matter?”

Mackenzie didn’t answer. She was focused on what Cal had told her before he’d died. She found a sawhorse on the back wall and dragged it to the middle of the floor, near her father’s old bloodstains. He hadn’t been distracted or careless that day—and his maiming wasn’t an accident. Jesse had sabotaged the saw, setting off a chain reaction her father had been helpless to stop.

It had been one of Jesse Lambert’s early acts of deliberate, malicious violence.

Mackenzie was convinced there had been others over the years. They hadn’t started up again just with the attacks on her and the hiker last week, on Harris—on Bernadette and Cal. They’d been ongoing.

Instead of telling authorities that Harris had sicced Jesse on him, Cal had joined forces with them and profited. When he realized he was in too deep and couldn’t get out, he hadn’t come to authorities and confessed, tried to work out a deal, but decided to pressure Harris to help him get Jesse out of their lives once and for all.

And if their plan backfired, he wanted to lead Bernadette to answers.

Mackenzie started to climb onto the sawhorse, but Rook touched her arm and shook his head. “No way, Mac.”

“Relax. I used to climb trees all the time as a kid.”

“Not with a knife wound in your side.”

“It’s healing—”

“You don’t want to end up with a fresh set of stitches. Besides, I’m taller. And,” he added with a smile, “I used to climb trees as a kid, too.”

He had a point. She stepped back out of the way. “Have at it.”

With an agility that surprised her but probably shouldn’t have, he climbed onto the sawhorse and reached up into the rafters. “What am I looking for?”

“Money? Anything that seems out of the ordinary for a lake house shed.”

He hooked one arm on an exposed beam and reached up higher. “Ah. What about an overstuffed dry pack tucked up in the rafters?” He glanced down at her. “I think this might be what Jesse was after, Mac.”

Rook lowered the dry pack down to her. She set it on the concrete floor and pulled open the drawstrings, peering inside. “It doesn’t look as if there are any kayak supplies in here, that’s for sure.”

She noticed a yellow-lined sheet of paper folded into thirds and clipped to some kind of folder on top of the rest of the contents. She lifted out the folder and removed the paper.

“Mac,” Rook said as he dropped lightly next to her.

“I know. I’m not wearing gloves. We can separate my prints out from any others, if prints are going to matter.” She unfolded the paper. “I’m guessing they won’t.” She recognized the handwriting, large letters in black marker. “It’s from Cal. ‘Dear Bernadette: If something happens to me, bring the contents of this bag to the FBI. I’m sorry. Cal.’”

Rook set another overstuffed dry pack onto the floor. “He made his deal with the devil, all right. He and Harris never should have gotten mixed up with blackmail.”

“When you’re in a hole, stop digging.” Mackenzie opened up the file folder and flipped through the papers inside. “Spreadsheets. Addresses. A document map to the rest of the contents of the bag. Looks as if Cal turned the tables on Jesse and found out just about all there is to know about him. That should help prosecutors.” She shoved the folder and the note back where she’d found them. “What’s in this other bag?”

Rook opened it up and gave a low whistle when he peeked inside. “Cash,” he said. “A hell of a lot of cash.”

Mackenzie let out a breath. “If Cal had just taken this stuff to us—to Beanie—” She didn’t finish. “He always thought he knew better. Information and access were his strengths. Now, they’ll help us unravel what this Jesse Lambert has been up to. Other victims and associates. Who knows.” Her gaze landed on her father’s old bloodstains. “Want to bet there are more violent crimes in his past?”

“Cal and Harris might not have realized they were dealing with a violent man until it was too late.”

“Maybe so.”

Suddenly restless, Mackenzie pushed out into the air and down to the lake, splashing into the shallow water. The loons were gone. She stood on a rock, the wind gusting in her face.

Aware of Rook on the shore behind her, she said, “When Jesse attacked me last week, I remembered his eyes. They were like something I’d conjured up in a nightmare.”

“Repressed memory.”

“I’ve always known I was in the woods the day of my father’s accident, but I never could remember the details.” She glanced back at Rook, but he wasn’t a man who was easy to read. “I must have conflated what I did that day—the actual events—with my nightmares. After a while, I couldn’t distinguish one from the other.”

Making it look easy, Rook jumped to the exposed rock next to hers without getting his feet wet or losing his balance. “You were a little kid,” he said. “This bastard manipulated you. He becomes other people’s nightmare.” Rook was silent a moment. “That’s what Harris tried to tell me.”

“He should have been straight with you.”

She heard a car in the driveway.
More cops,
she thought. But when she looked back at Bernadette’s yard, she saw Carine wave and break into a run. “Mackenzie!”

Nate was behind his sister, his wife at his side. He wasn’t here as a senior federal agent, Mackenzie realized, but as a friend.

Rook winked at her. “You do the talking.”

“Scared of Nate, are you?”

He grinned. “Not even a little.”

A
fter all the various investigators—local, state and federal—had left, T. J. Kowalski joined Rook and Mackenzie at the lake. “Quite a place,” he said, settling into one of the Adirondack chairs in front of the stone fireplace. “I’ve never seen a loon, you know.”

Mackenzie smiled. “You might hear one tonight.”

“If I can stand the bugs and the cold.”

Rook had built a fire and pulled his chair close to the flames. The night
was
chilly, but Bernadette had old wool blankets just for that purpose. Mackenzie had one opened up on her lap. But T.J. didn’t look that cold to her.

“Long day,” she said.

He shrugged. “Not for me. I took a nice plane ride north and talked to a few people. You and Rook are the ones who did the heavy lifting.” He didn’t smile, and in the light of the fire, his eyes were without humor. “Sorry I wasn’t here to back you two up.”

“If Jesse had managed to get away from here, you’d have kept his plane on the ground.”

“We had him,” T.J. acknowledged without pride. “Just not in time to save Harris Mayer or Cal Benton.”

Rook tossed another log on the fire. “They made their deal with the devil.”

T.J. nodded. “What about Judge Peacham?”

“Doctors are keeping her at the hospital overnight as a precaution,” Mackenzie said. “They’re watching for infection—the knife wound nicked muscle. She says we’re all welcome to stay here and toast marshmallows and listen to the loons.”

But another car arrived, Nate and Joe Delvecchio walking down to the fire.

T.J. gave a low whistle. “Guess the marshmallows and loons will have to wait.”

“Welcome to life as a federal agent, Mac,” Rook said with a hint of amusement.

She smiled at them both. “Fine with me.”

On Sunday, after she was released from the hospital, Bernadette insisted on sitting out on her screened porch. It was a warm afternoon, with almost no wind. Mackenzie joined her, trying not to hover because, even after two years of marriage, Bernadette Peacham was a woman accustomed to her own company.

“New Hampshire isn’t going to give up Jesse anytime soon,” she said, sounding more like a judge than an injured victim. “They’ll want to try him here—for Cal’s murder.” But the words seemed to hit her like a fresh wound, and she faltered, although only for a moment. “Chances are you’ll have to testify.”

“I don’t mind,” Mackenzie said.

“It won’t be easy to see him again, but at least you’ll know he can’t hurt anyone else.” Bernadette flopped back against her wicker chair, her face ashen just twenty-four hours after her encounter with Jesse—after learning that Cal was dead. “All these years, Mackenzie, and I had no idea that your father’s mishap wasn’t an accident. I feel like such a sap.”

“You and Dad tried to get rid of Jesse.”

“Your
father
tried to get rid of him. I can’t say I did much of anything.”

“But you never helped Jesse,” Mackenzie said. “Don’t beat yourself up, Beanie.”

She stared out at the lake. “I let people take advantage of me.”

“Don’t we all, at some point in our lives?”

She snorted. “I did
repeatedly.
”

Mackenzie almost smiled at her friend’s sudden drama. “There’s nothing wrong with giving someone a helping hand, Beanie. Most people you’ve helped—including me—appreciate it.”

“I’ve never…” She fought back obvious tears. “I’ve just never felt so damn alone.”

“You’re a brilliant and generous woman, Beanie, and you have good friends, people who care about you—people who don’t want anything from you.” Mackenzie smiled. “For example, Gus Winter.”

“He’s always been there, hasn’t he? For all of us. He and his brother would come out here to the lake as teenagers—Jill and I were friends.”

Bernadette drifted into silence, and out on the lake, Mackenzie could hear the familiar, eerie cry of a loon. She wondered if T.J. heard it. He and Rook had taken two of the kayaks out onto the lake, leaving her alone with Bernadette.

“The worst day of my life was when Harry and Jill died up on Cold Ridge,” she said. “It was such a freak thing. They’d never have gone up there if they’d known the weather would turn like that. How do you get over such a tragedy?” But she didn’t wait for Mackenzie to respond and stood up, moving to the screen and gazing out at the water and woods that had been home to Peachams for decades. “Well, I can tell you—you don’t.”

Mackenzie remained in her wicker chair, remembering Carine explaining to her what it was like to have become an orphan at three years old. “That was the worst,” she said. “And to leave behind three children.”

Bernadette looked away from the lake, her incisive gaze now on her neighbor from across the lake. “But the scope of that tragedy made it all too easy for us all to minimize other things that happened here in the valley. It gave us a perspective we wouldn’t have had otherwise, and we tried—I think we all tried to let it make us stronger, better people. Wiser, even. Because what other choice was there?”

“Beanie.” Mackenzie thought she could see where this was going. “Please. Don’t judge yourself.”

“We were all too slow to recognize the effects of what happened to your father on you. Kevin hadn’t died up on the ridge. You weren’t orphaned.” She sighed, turning away from the screen and sitting back down. “Well. The past is what it is. I can’t take any of what I did back.”

“None of us can,” Mackenzie said.

Bernadette frowned at her. “You’re so young. You can’t have many regrets. What would you do differently?”

“For starters, I’d have recognized Jesse when he slashed me.”

“That was only a week ago!”

“It’s in the past. It counts.”

At first, Bernadette look dumbstruck, a rarity for her. Then, all at once, she burst into laughter. “Oh, Mackenzie. I swear, if changing anything about the past made you any different…” But she didn’t finish, just motioned toward the lake with the arm on her uninjured side. “I want you to have your own spot on this lake.”

“I do—”

She shook her head. “You don’t. Your parents do, and I do, but we’re all going to live to a hundred. You should have a spot now, while you’re young. Let your children grow up here, even if it’s only for summers and holidays.”

Mackenzie stared at her, not quite grasping what Bernadette was saying. “I can’t afford a place in Washington, never mind
two
places.”

“I’m
giving
you the land,” Bernadette said, exasperated. “I had a waterfront lot surveyed when I drew up my prenuptial agreement with Cal. I just haven’t gotten around to doing anything about it. I’m not trying to steal you away from your family, Mackenzie. But I’ve no one else, and you love it here as much as I do.”

“I do.” Knowing Bernadette as well as she did, Mackenzie didn’t let her emotions get the better of her. “Thank you.”

Bernadette smiled, obviously relieved. “You’re welcome.” She nodded out toward the lake. “I think your FBI agent likes it here, too.”

“Beanie—I don’t know if Rook and I will work out.”

Gus grunted, coming onto the porch from the kitchen. “You two? You’re lifers.”

“It’s true,” Bernadette said. “Everyone can see it.”

But Mackenzie had no intention of discussing Rook or her love life with either of them, and she excused herself and ran outside, out to the end of the dock. She was barefoot and wearing shorts, and she was tempted to dive into the lake with the same abandon as she had a little over a week ago, before Jesse Lambert had come at her with a knife.

What was it Delvechhio had told her last night?

“Give yourself a day to put this behind you. Be back at work on Monday.”

That meant she wasn’t fired for having too much baggage.

It meant catching a plane back to Washington tonight.

And
that
meant she had the afternoon. She glanced back at the porch, where Gus and Bernadette were arguing about something, and then squinted out across the lake, trying to spot the two FBI agents in their kayaks. But there was no sign of them, or of the loon she could hear warbling out by the opposite shore.

Bernadette was right, Mackenzie thought. She loved it here.

With a running start, ignoring the healing knife wound on her side, she leaped into the cold, deep water.

Bernadette struck a match and touched the tiny flame to the edge of rolled-up newspaper. “It’s the obituaries,” she said, feeling Gus’s eyes on her. “Somehow, I think Harris would approve.” But not Cal, she thought. Irony had never suited him.

Gus said nothing.

She sat cross-legged in the grass as the fire burned through the newspaper and caught the kindling. By Gus’s standards—by her own, really—it was early yet for a fire, not yet dusk. And warm. But she’d wanted one.

She winced, feeling a tug of pain in her hip. “It used to be easier to sit cross-legged. I’m creaking these days.”

Gus grunted without sympathy. “Getting out of Washington more often would help. You sit too much.” He settled back in the old Adirondack chair. “You should go mountain climbing while you’re up here.” Then he added simply, “I’ll go with you.”

There were no deep corners, no layers and odd places, with Gus Winter. He’d seen war, he’d endured the tragic loss of his brother and sister-in-law and he’d stepped up to raise his orphaned nephew and nieces—and yet the complications of his life had never become excuses for him, rationalizations for bad behavior.

“That’d be good.” Bernadette kept her eyes on the fire. “I have regrets, Gus.”

“Tell me about it.”

She straightened her legs, relieving the strain on her hip. Her injured shoulder ached, too, but she didn’t want to take more pain medication. Without looking at Gus, she said, “I won’t survive the scandal of what Cal and Harris did. Who Jesse is. That so much of it went on for years under my nose.”

“You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“It doesn’t matter. I won’t survive it, and perhaps I shouldn’t. I should have pressed Harris for the truth about what was going on with him five years ago. I knew for months something was wrong with Cal.” She noticed the newspaper turning black, crumpling into the ashes. “I’m too trusting. People won’t see that as a good thing in a judge.”

“Cal didn’t get mixed up with Jesse Lambert because of you. Neither did Harris. They had their own reasons.” Gus pulled himself out of the Adirondack chair and sat in the grass next to her. He was fit, but not as limber as he’d once been. He grinned at her. “Remember sitting next to each other in first grade when they sent in that clown?”

“It was a juggler.”

“Same difference.”

“You misbehaved, as I recall.”

He shrugged. “I always misbehaved. When I started climbing mountains, I did better. When I came back from Vietnam, I had a lot on my mind. I’d spend days at a time on the ridge. Then Harry and Jill died up there.”

“You’re a hero to a lot of people, Gus.”

“Just did what I had to do. That’s what you’re doing now, isn’t it?” He looked at her with those penetrating blue Winter eyes of his. “Beanie, what do you want?”

“Want?” She heard her voice crack and looked away from him. “I don’t even know. Right now, sitting here with you in front of the fire is good enough.”

“You’re thinking about quitting, aren’t you?”

Her eyes filled with tears. “Retiring, not quitting. I never expected to go out of the courtroom on a board. I always knew one day I’d come back here. Gus, I want to be here listening to the loons and growing tomatoes.”

“You’d miss locking people up.”

“That’s a simplistic reduction of what I do.”

He grinned. “You’d miss your gavel.”

She rolled her eyes. He was baiting her, enjoying himself. Trying, she thought, to get her going, distract her. “I will
not
miss my gavel. One day, Gus, I swear—”

“One day when you’re up here for a court break, you can explain to me what you do.”

“You know what I do.”

“I know who you are. There’s a difference.”

He leaned back on his elbows. “We’re going to grow old together, Beanie Peacham.”

She smiled at him. “I hate to tell you, Gus, but we’ve already started.”