Abandon (4 page)

He pushed open the door, then shut it tight behind him, blocking out the vomiting, the cars, the heat, the smell. He caught his breath, letting the cool air and his isolation soothe his taut nerves. He could ignore the seedy furnishings.

“Feeling sorry for yourself, Harris?”

Harris swung around as if he had heard a ghost. Or had he imagined the voice?

The devil’s voice.

“I’d feel sorry for myself if I were you,” the hidden intruder went on, his voice deadly calm and familiar.

Jesse Lambert.

Harris recognized the arrogance, the flat, bland accent.

At his worst, he would never match this man for pure evil.

“What are you doing here?” Even to his own ear, Harris’s voice sounded pinched and frightened. “Come out where I can see you.”

“By all means.” Jesse moved into the doorway of the tiny entry. Behind him, the studio apartment—rented by the day and sometimes by the hour—was dark, casting his face into shadows. “Don’t think the FBI will come save you. They’re not out there, Harris. They haven’t found you. You’re not important enough for them to have you under surveillance.”

“That’s because I haven’t told them anything. What do you want?”

Jesse was dressed entirely in black. His hair was black, with random flecks of gray. He’d let his beard grow. He was in his early forties and looked wild, as if he’d just come out of the mountains or off a pirate ship.

But his eyes, Harris noted, were virtually colorless, utterly soulless.

Jesse held a knife in one hand. Casually, as if it should cause no concern.

Harris was no expert on weapons, but he knew it wasn’t a kitchen knife. One side of the blade was serrated, the other side smooth. Both would cut. An assault knife of some kind, he thought.

“You don’t need that,” he said.

“I’m afraid I do.” Jesse ran a thumb along the smooth edge of the blade, as if he wanted to test its sharpness, see his own blood. “A knife is fast, quiet. In many situations, it’s more useful than a gun. You agree, don’t you, Harris?”

Harris tried to ignore the thudding of his heart, and summoned the last shreds of his dignity, his honor. He’d let himself be lured and manipulated by this man and by Cal Benton, by his own greed and compulsions, his own need for drama.

Stonily, he said, “It’s Judge Mayer.”

Jesse laughed, a hollow sound that conveyed neither pleasure nor fellow-feeling. “I like that. You’d go to the gallows with a stiff upper lip, wouldn’t you?”

“I would hope not to go to the gallows at all.”

“A little late, Judge Mayer.”

“I suppose so,” he said without flinching. “I made my deal with the devil.”

“Oh, yes.” The colorless, soulless eyes flashed, and the light seemed to dance on the knife blade. Jesse lowered his voice. “So you did.”

In the cheap entry mirror, Mayer recognized his own stark look of fear.

No,
he thought.
Not fear.

Dread.

He took in a shallow breath. “I don’t have your money, Jesse. I don’t know where it is. That’s the truth. Double-crossing you wasn’t my idea.”

Outside, car tires screeched, but it was silent in the small, rented room. Harris had stayed here before. It was his refuge—his hiding place. He’d been so sure no one would think to look for him here.

“How did you find me?” he asked.

“You’re a creature of habits.”

“The bar…you followed me. Did you see me having coffee with Cal? Why didn’t you follow
him?
”

“He’s not the one who went to the FBI. Don’t try to pretend you’re the innocent here. Cal couldn’t have betrayed me without your help.”

Harris thought of his foyer at home, with its antique mirror and half-moon table. Once it had been filled with the sounds of running children and his wife’s welcome when he came home. He’d lost them all.

One beat, two beats passed. Harris absorbed the reality of just how much trouble he was in.

Finally, Jesse went on. “How much do you and Cal know about me?”

Harris didn’t hesitate. “Everything.”

He should have laid it all out for the FBI from the start and let the chips fall where they may. Instead, he had tried to play Andrew Rook the same way he’d played everyone else in his life who’d wanted to help him, to trust and believe in him. Subterfuge and betrayal were his art. His entertainment. He’d thought, why not practice what he was good at on the FBI? Rook was investigating, but he had little to go on. Harris had seen to that. He’d kept his revelations vague, promising specifics in future visits—keeping Rook’s interest without giving him anything concrete. Rook was in fish-or-cut-bait mode now. At their next meeting, he’d want details.

But Cal was right, Harris thought. He didn’t care about helping the FBI. He cared about saving his own skin.

The devil had come for his due, indeed.

“If you knew everything about me, Harris, you and Cal wouldn’t dare try to double-cross me.”

As if to further drive home his point, Jesse pressed his thumb onto the tip of his knife, drawing a pearl of his own blood.

“You’re a violent man, Jesse.” Harris felt some of his former presence on the bench come back to him. He’d never flinched in the face of what he had to hear and see in the courtroom. “You don’t use violence as a tool to get what you want. Violence
is
what you want.”

“That’s my secret, is it?”

“It’s your secret and it’s your weakness. Your obsession.”

Jesse smirked as he licked the pea of blood off his thumb. “You Princeton types. You’ve read too many Greek tragedies. I want my money. I want everything you and Cal have on me. I want to know what you know.”

“I’d never use what I know against you, and Cal won’t, either. It’s his insurance policy—to keep you out of his life. Jesse…” Harris gulped in air. Did he dare hope he could negotiate a deal with this man? “Jesse, you can trust me not to talk.”

“Seeing how you’ve been meeting with an FBI agent, no, you lying son of a bitch, I can’t trust you not to talk.” Jesse sprang forward and placed the knife blade at the side of Mayer’s throat. “I want my money.”

“I can’t—”

“You
can,
Harris. You can get my money.” He lowered his knife and stepped back, the split second of explosive anger dissipated. “We’ll find a way. Together.”

Through violence,
Harris thought.

Through death.

“In the meantime,” Jesse said calmly, with a smile so cold it could only be the devil’s, “tell me something. Just between us.”

“What?”

“Who was the redhead with Judge Peacham last night?”

O
n Friday morning, Rook awoke early to catch a flight to New Hampshire. His head pounded, and he was in a foul mood. He’d anticipated a very different weekend for himself. He’d expected to show Mackenzie the small Cape Cod house he’d inherited when his grandmother died a year ago. After seven years working in south Florida, he’d been offered an assignment in Washington, his home turf. Leaving him the house was his grandmother’s way of getting him to stay.

It was on a quiet, tree-lined street in Arlington. His two older brothers lived within walking distance. His younger brother was a short drive away. Andrew was surrounded by Rooks, every one of them in law enforcement. He’d been infected by the Rook sense of responsibility, the hard-working, straightforward Rook values, the Rook propensity for home and hearth. He was thirty-five. The pressure was on. It was time for him to settle down. Time to start a family. All he had to do was look at the work to be done on his house, see the remnants of his boyhood tree house up in the big oak in the backyard, and he could feel it.

With a soft curse, he headed for the downstairs bathroom. It still had the Cupid wallpaper his grandmother had hung herself, with help from her grandsons. The house sorely needed renovating. A lot of de-old-lady-ing. He’d worked as a carpenter in high school and through college and could do most of the jobs himself. He’d gotten a good start, but he hadn’t had a chance to tackle the Cupid wallpaper.

He took a quick shower, threw on a suit and headed for the kitchen.

T. J. Kowalski was at the front door, right on time to take Rook to the airport. Also a special agent with the FBI, T.J. wasn’t impressed with Rook’s rationale for heading to New Hampshire. “Packed and ready to go?”

“Just about.” T.J. wandered into the kitchen. Except for the two-inch scar under his eye, he was the classic G-man stereotype with his dark, close-cropped hair, square jaw and neat suits. “Your J. Harris Mayer is a dead end.”

“Maybe.” Rook grabbed a notepad and jotted instructions for his nephew. “I have to know. You drop me off at the airport. I fly to New Hampshire. I look for my missing informant. I fly back tomorrow night. Easy.”

“Nothing’s easy with you, man. Not these days.”

Without responding, Rook folded the note, wrote “Brian” in big letters on the outside and propped it up against the pepper mill. His nephew would see it.

“Mackenzie Stewart’s from New Hampshire,” T.J. said.

“That’s how she knows Judge Peacham.”

“And Harris?”

“Presumably. He used to visit Judge Peacham there. He and his wife rented a cottage on the same lake a few times. He’s taken off—he left me a message yesterday saying he was off to cooler climes. What does that tell you?”

“It doesn’t tell me he’s in New Hampshire.”

Rook knew T.J. had a point, but he was restless and didn’t believe Harris had just suddenly decided to get out of the heat. “Checking out Judge Peacham’s lake house makes sense.”

“Can’t hurt, I guess,” T.J. said, still skeptical.

“It’s worth two days of my time.” Rook picked up his soft leather bag and nodded to the note. “Think my nephew will see it? He gets back later today from the beach.”

“Can’t miss it.” T. J. Kowalski wasn’t even pretending to be interested. “Brian’s a good kid. He’s not going to burn down the house. You’re only going to be gone overnight.”

Brian had surprised and pissed off his parents when he’d abruptly dropped out of college in the spring, then asked his uncle Andrew if he could move in with him for a few months. He’d work, put some cash together, figure out what was next in his life. Scott, his father, a federal prosecutor, had agreed. His mother had gone along with the decision, but she obviously didn’t like it. According to Scott, the eldest of the Brothers Rook, she tended to baby their two boys.

So far, Brian hadn’t lived up to his end of the deal.

That was a problem for later.

When Rook and T.J. headed out, the morning was already a scorcher, the heat wave locked in for another few days, at least. If he was nineteen and unemployed, Rook thought, he’d stay at the damn beach, too.

A black SUV pulled into the driveway behind T.J.’s car, and Rook recognized the grim-faced driver, Nate Winter. Winter was damn near a legend in the USMS. T.J. had run into him during an investigation in the spring, confirming Winter’s reputation as a serious-minded, impatient hard-ass—and ultraprofessional.

He got out of the car. “Good morning, gentlemen.”

“Nate,” T.J. said by way of greeting. “I’ll be in my car. You want Rook here, right?”

Winter gave a curt nod, and T.J. slid into the car, immediately starting up the engine, the windows shut tight for the air-conditioning. Rook didn’t blame him. Winter was from the same New Hampshire town as Bernadette Peacham and Mackenzie Stewart. In the past thirty-six hours, since learning Mackenzie was friends with Judge Peacham, Rook had done a little research on her. Never too late, he thought.

“Heading somewhere?” Winter asked casually.

“Airport.” Rook had no intention of playing games with this man. “I’m flying up to New Hampshire.”

“I’m from New Hampshire.” It wasn’t an idle statement. “My sister Carine lives there. She has an eight-month-old baby boy.” He kept his focus on Rook. “She and Mackenzie Stewart are friends. They’re planning a ‘girls’ night out’ at Judge Peacham’s lake house tonight—toasting marshmallows, catching up.”

Rook said nothing. He glanced back toward his house. He could bag his trip and wait for his nephew, work on his motorcycle, deal with the gold faucets and the Cupid wallpaper in the downstairs bathroom. He’d considered how to explain them to Mackenzie when she came for dinner.

He turned back to Winter. “I’m not seeing Mackenzie while I’m in New Hampshire.”

“Did you know she’s headed there?”

“I’ve heard.” But he hadn’t mentioned the fact to T.J., although he’d planned to get to it on the ride to the airport. “She’s not my reason for going.”

“You want to find Harris Mayer,” Winter said.

There was no reason for him to know the details of the preliminary investigation into J. Harris Mayer’s ramblings and whether they meant anything, but it wouldn’t surprise Rook if Winter did. He was one of the most trusted and capable federal agents in the country, and Rook had no real desire to go up against him. But he supposed he already had, given his behavior toward Mackenzie. The way he’d backed out of their relationship. Dating her in the first place.

“That’s the main reason,” he said. “I’m also trying to figure out if he’s on the level with me.”

“And going to New Hampshire will help?”

“I hope so.”

“Cal Benton stopped by to see Mackenzie last night. He asked her if she’d seen Mayer lately.”

Rook kept any reaction under wraps. “Had she?”

“No. Cal saw you and Harris at the hotel on Wednesday.”

“Is that what he told Mackenzie?”

“Not in as many words. She doesn’t know, but she’ll figure it out soon enough.” Winter paused a moment before going on. “My uncle is taking Carine’s baby overnight. Should I figure out a way to get Carine and Mackenzie to cancel their plans at Judge Peacham’s?”

“There’s no need for that. I don’t know what Harris is up to, but I can’t see how he’d be a threat to an evening on a New Hampshire lake.” Rook glanced at his watch. “If I make my flight, I can get out to the lake and be gone before Mackenzie and your sister arrive. They don’t need to know I’m even in town. I don’t expect to find anything. I’m just covering all my bases.”

“Where are you staying tonight?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“See my uncle if you get in a jam. Gus Winter. He’ll be discreet.”

“Thanks,” Rook said, then added in a more conciliatory tone, “I’ll be in touch.”

Winter didn’t soften. “If not, I’ll be in touch with you.”

He climbed back into his car without another word.

When Rook settled into T.J.’s car, his partner and friend shook his head. “Winter will bury you in his uncle’s backyard if you cross him.”

“Nah. Too much granite up there. He’ll toss me in the Potomac instead.”

“In pieces, Rook. Lots of little pieces.”