Jake shook his head. “It’s a recent thing. I took some classes a couple of years ago that got me trying new ideas and working with foods I’d never tried. I’ve learned a lot.”
Mackenzie laughed. “I can follow a recipe, but I’m not too creative in the kitchen. In fact, for me, cooking for one hardly makes it worth it to go to a lot of trouble.”
Jake raised an eyebrow as if considering something. He was quiet for a moment and then asked, “Well, how about cooking for two? We never did finish our firearms training. Might as well grill something and make a day of it. I can whip up some steaks and sides that are guaranteed to make your taste buds sing. I’m no Iron Chef, but my team seems to like what I fix. I cook for them now and again.”
Mackenzie didn’t answer right away. On one hand, she was flattered by the offer, but on the other, she had promised herself to stay away from relationships to protect her heart. Even though she was attracted to Jake, anything with the deputy US marshal besides friendship seemed entirely too risky. She shrugged and continued stirring the soup but didn’t turn to look at Jake.
“I’ll think about it.” She busied herself with washing two mugs and pouring the soup, but when she turned, she could tell that he had been studying her. His perusal sent sparks flying and caused a nervous twitter in her stomach.
“Chicken noodle, the favorite of school kids everywhere,” she said with a smile, hoping to soften her ambiguous answer as she handed him the cup.
“Thanks.” Jake took the cup but raised an eyebrow. “Is it me, the steaks or the firearms lesson that has you on the fence?”
Mackenzie felt her heart trip. She had hoped to change the subject but could see that Jake really wanted to know her answer. She took a drink of soup from her cup to buy some time, but Jake wasn’t fooled and noticed her hesitance.
“Come on. Where’s that honesty you’re famous for?”
“All right. I’ll give you the condensed version. The truth is, I was engaged about a year ago. We had a nasty breakup, and now I’m a bit gun-shy. Honestly, going on a date with anyone doesn’t seem too wise to me.”
Jake put his cup down. “I’m so sorry.”
Mackenzie took another sip from her cup. “Thanks. Time is a good healer, but it doesn’t make the pain go away completely.” She shifted. “Anyway, although I find you very attractive, I’m not looking for another relationship. I just can’t imagine putting my heart on the line like that again, even if it’s just something as simple as a steak dinner. In my book, it’s just too dicey.”
Jake put up his hands, a hint of laughter in his eyes. “Wait a minute. You mean you have no trouble following me with a video camera as I chase down criminals that really enjoy shooting at you, but you’re afraid of an afternoon of grilling in the Florida sunshine? Come on, Mackenzie. What’s wrong with that picture? We already talked about this when we were discussing my horses.”
Mackenzie laughed. He did have a point—albeit a small one. She looked into his eyes and tried to push away the tingles that were tickling her arms. It was as if he could see right through her. He did have very nice eyes, and she liked the way they crinkled at the corners when he smiled. He also had a nice mouth. And nice lips... She turned away so she would quit admiring his features. How could she make him understand? She wasn’t even sure if she was making any sense, especially when her heart and her head were warring with each other. “I guess it all boils down to the fact that it’s a different kind of risk.”
A moment passed. Then another.
“And are you sure it doesn’t have anything with the way I treated you in the past?”
She didn’t know how to answer that one. The silence loomed.
“Look, I need to apologize to you again. I should have been there for you and your family after Jonathan died. I don’t have a good excuse. All I can say is that his death really hurt, and I deal better with pain on my own. I know you tried to contact me, and I never called back. Whenever I thought about you, it seemed to make the pain of losing him even worse. It was easier to just cut off all ties with you and your family. I was selfish, and I didn’t consider how his loss hurt you. I’ll always be sorry for that.”
She considered his words, thankful that he had explained what he had been going through after Jonathan’s death. “All this time, I thought I had done something to drive you away,” she said softly. “I knew I drove you crazy, and I always felt guilty.”
He caught her eye, surprise in his features. “Oh, no, Mackenzie. You hadn’t done anything but be kind and considerate. Losing Jonathan was like losing my right arm. I didn’t know how to deal with pain like that, so I threw myself into my job and pretty much ignored everyone else. I loved him like a brother.” He picked up his cup again and downed the rest of the steaming soup.
How wrong she had been. It felt good to finally let the blame slide from her shoulders. So she hadn’t driven Jake away. Thinking back, she began to realize that unlike the popular kids, he had been the type to have a few good friends instead of several acquaintances. He had been quiet yet always up for a challenge—the perfect sidekick for her brother, who had been boisterous and flamboyant. She knew Jonathan’s death had hurt him, but she was only beginning to understand the depth of the pain he had suffered. Everyone dealt with death in different ways. Mackenzie’s way had been to surround herself with friends who could distract her and help her move on. When Jake had disappeared, she had mistaken his absence for anger or hurt that she had inadvertently caused.
She squeezed his hand. “Thank you for explaining that. It means a lot to me.” She took a deep breath. “Maybe we shouldn’t keep the past hidden away after all. There are a lot of wonderful things about that time that I do want to remember, and I never want to forget my brother.” She nudged him playfully. “Remember that time when you and Jonathan were watching a movie over at our house, and I kept pestering you to let me watch it, too?”
He smiled. “Yeah. Jonathan put salt all over your ice cream, and you didn’t know it until you took that first bite...”
She laughed. “I got him back the next day. I loosened the lid on the saltshaker, so when he tried to put some on his fries, the entire shaker opened up and salt went everywhere. He chased me down and tickled me for, like, fifteen minutes after that. It was hysterical!” She squeezed his hand again. “You know, most of the reason why I acted like such an idiot around you was because I had such a big crush on you. I thought you were the hottest guy I’d ever seen.” She leaned back and took his empty mug. “I can’t believe I just told you that.”
She quickly stood and busied herself by washing the two mugs. She turned as she shook her hands to dry them, since she’d already used the one dish towel she’d found in the shack to clean up Jake’s wound earlier. “Are you ready to blow this Popsicle stand and hit the road? I want to get going before we lose any more daylight. Like you said before, I doubt they’re coming back, but I certainly don’t want to test that theory.”
Jake nodded. “Sure thing.” He raised an eyebrow but pulled himself to his feet. Her heart was beating like a bass drum, especially after she noticed the look of admiration and interest she saw reflected in his features. She felt scared and delighted at the same time.
“Do we have any plan besides walking down that lovely country lane in search of a cell phone?” she asked.
“Nope, that’s pretty much it. The green car was hit with a couple of bullets, so it’s out of commission. We should just follow Lager’s route and see if we can find civilization again. Hopefully we’ll find someone before it gets dark.”
FIFTEEN
Jake watched her clean up the dishes, her words reverberating in his head. He’d always known she’d had a crush on him when she was younger, but he had pushed her away at every opportunity. Apparently she didn’t harbor the same feelings anymore. Still, if she had been attracted to him then, he could probably hope for at least a date night
if he was patient. He was surprised by his desire to spend more time with her, but he couldn’t deny his feelings, which were growing with each passing moment that he spent with her.
Mackenzie packed up the tuna and can opener, along with the water bottle. They still had one can left, and he agreed that it was a good idea to save it just in case they didn’t find anyone who could help them anytime soon. He had no idea how long it would take them to find another human being, and he realized that his injuries would slow them down considerably.
He checked his watch and noted the time. After another hour or so, he could take some more medicine for his headache. His pain had lessened somewhat, but his body was still sending him signals that he needed to rest. Soon, he promised himself, and followed Mackenzie out to the road. They walked for several minutes in silence, and Jake found himself just enjoying the company. He had surprised himself with the dinner invitation, but he’d acted on the impulse before really considering the consequences. She had said she wasn’t ready for a relationship, but was he? He was married to his work. In fact, he couldn’t recall the last woman he had actually dated. Most of the people he dealt with were pure evil—just like Taylor and Lager. Either one would slit his throat for fifty bucks and a beer. Still, there was something about Mackenzie that pulled him toward her. She was refreshing, and the more he got to know her, the more he realized how different and special she really was. Perhaps there were some good people left in the world after all. He smiled to himself. It didn’t hurt that she’d admitted she found him attractive, either.
He thought about his job and his horses, the two things that made his life satisfactory. He loved both, and his horses kept him from being lonely. Or did they? An emptiness swept over him that he hadn’t expected, and he suddenly felt unwilling to examine that thought any closer. Mackenzie seemed to notice his change in demeanor and touched his arm lightly.
“Are you okay, Deputy? Do you need to rest a bit?”
Jake shook his head. It would be dark soon, and he didn’t want to delay them any further. He needed to focus on something else, so he turned his attention to the case at hand. “Let’s put your detective hat back on and talk through a few things as we walk. Are you game?”
“Sure thing,” she agreed.
They left the building, and after a few yards, Jake started to talk. “Okay. We have two criminals involved in this crime. Case number one—we’ve got Carter Beckett trying to sabotage all of the copies of your homeless children video so no one will connect him to the copiers in the building. We now think, thanks to you, that the copiers were being used to steal people’s personal information from the hard drives. So the question is, what was he doing with the identities he was stealing that was worth killing for?”
“What kinds of crimes has he committed in the past?” Mackenzie asked.
“He started off by committing armed robbery—both of a convenience store and of a bank in Cairo, Georgia. That’s what first brought him to our attention. Bank robbery is a federal crime.”
“Did he ever hurt anyone?”
Jake nodded his head. “Yes, and apparently without regret. He killed the clerk at the convenience store. I think he would have killed you too, if given the chance. Otherwise he wouldn’t have been shooting at you when he was trying to eliminate all of the copies of your movie. He had to be sure you didn’t recognize him, even though he was only in the background.”
“So that means, whatever he’s in on, it’s probably much bigger than some simple identity theft. Right?”
Jake nodded. She had a point. “Right. Okay, so case number two. We’ve got Derek Lager. He rented the space where we found the copiers and was probably the one who actually purchased the machines. We’ll know for sure once we chase the paper trail, but my guess is he’s the one who hired Carter Beckett to get the information he needed from the copiers.”
Mackenzie’s eyes brightened, and Jake could tell she was getting excited as the pieces started to fit together in her head. “So what’s his rap sheet look like again?”
“Besides being an incredibly good forger, Derek Lager is the king of fraud. He ran a huge Ponzi scheme a few years back and scored millions. He’s done loan fraud, foreclosure fraud, pigeon drop scams... You name it, he’s probably tried it. He’s not a killer, though, which is probably why we’re both alive today. If he were, I’m sure he would have chased us further into the woods and tried to finish the job.” Jake stopped walking for a minute and took a breath. A small wave of nausea hit him, and he swayed on his feet.
Mackenzie noticed and caught his arm. “Let’s take a break. You’ve been through a lot today.”
He nodded and allowed her to lead him to the side of the road and sit propped up against a tree. Thoughts continued to swirl around in his mind about the case. “Okay, so let’s say Beckett and Lager are partners. Lager is the brains behind the operation, and Beckett is the worker bee. Since Beckett and Taylor are chums, Beckett brings in Taylor, who becomes another worker bee.”
“Right. And my film is a threat because it links Beckett to the building and the copy machines, so they tried to eliminate both me and the copies of the movie before someone somewhere saw my documentary and made the connection, which would somehow bring down their operation.”
“Right.” Jake agreed. “Although, I don’t think Lager or Taylor made the connection between you and the film, at least initially. If they had, I think we would have both been killed at the shack.” He paused and rubbed his head absently. “So we’re down to two questions. Number one, what kind of scheme is Lager involved in with the information he is stealing, and number two, how exactly is Bryson Taylor involved?”
“It’s too bad no one was able to get Beckett to confess during the interrogations.”
Jake nodded. “Yeah, he screamed ‘lawyer’ as soon as we got him back behind bars. He’ll still go down for his priors, but we really don’t have anything that connects him to Lager yet that’s concrete, or Taylor for that matter. I mean, we know he’s in your video, and we arrested him with a firearm in the building where Lager was renting space, but that’s all circumstantial. Everything right now is guesswork.”
Mackenzie sat silently for a few minutes. “Do you think Beckett’s appearance in my film is really enough to kill over? I mean, who really would have noticed that he was in the background besides someone who was involved with law enforcement like you? And do you really think that you or someone like you would actually watch my homeless children video and see him in the background?”
Jake shrugged. “Beckett is an extremely careful man. There’s a reason why he was on the most-wanted list. He doesn’t make a lot of mistakes. In his mind, it was probably better to eliminate the threat before it became a problem, rather than waiting to see if anyone actually made the connection.”
Mackenzie’s eyes rounded. “So what happens when Lager realizes his mistake and he missed his opportunity to kill me at the cabin?”
Jake squeezed her arm. “I think he’ll want to finish the job, but as I said, he’s usually not a killer. I wouldn’t put it past him to hire someone, though. My guess is, he’ll send Taylor after you and the other copies of your movie, and if Taylor fails, he’ll hire another flunky to do the job until he knows the threat is neutralized. We definitely need to keep you in protective custody until we’ve got Lager behind bars and we figure out his entire scheme and how these pieces all fit together. Otherwise, you’re still in constant danger.” He stood and brushed the sand from his pants. “Ready to go? I’m feeling a bit better.”
Mackenzie joined him, and they continued down the road in silence for a bit. Jake could tell that Mackenzie was still putting all the information together in her mind. After a few minutes, she spoke up again. “Well, since Taylor doesn’t know my true identity, it still makes sense that Lager was probably just keeping us under wraps so they’d have enough time to move things from a warehouse and cut th
eir losses. Sounds like some sort of stolen property to me.” Her voice filled with a new level of enthusiasm. “So maybe Taylor has been in on this since the beginning and is the third man in the ring. Lager is the brains, Beckett did the work with the copiers and Taylor is the one in charge of storing some sort of stolen merchandise. And we’re one step ahead of them since we know the three are working together.”
“True, but we still don’t know their scheme or the extent of it. And we need to keep you safe in the meantime. Like I said before, Lager doesn’t like loose ends.”
“But by now, he knows about Beckett’s arrest and he knows my movie implicated Beckett, not Lager. Yet they sent someone to my hotel. Why would he still care?”
Her words were cut short as Jake grabbed her arm and pulled her quickly behind some trees. “There’s a car coming down the road. Let’s hope it’s a friend and not Lager or one of his team.”
Mackenzie’s face paled and he took her hand to reassure her. “Don’t worry. We’ll stay hidden until we can tell whether it’s friend or foe. If anything happens to me, you wait until you know you’re safe, and then just keep walking until you find a phone. Call my team at the office. They’ll know what to do.” He squeezed her hand and then turned back to the road, hoping that the oncoming vehicle was driven by a friendly fisherman instead of a gun-toting member of the Lager team.
SIXTEEN
A plume of smoke obscured the vehicle for a few minutes, but as the dust cleared, Mackenzie’s heart began to beat frantically against her chest. It was the silver SUV, and that could mean only one thing. Taylor must have regained consciousness and told Lager about the woman he had abducted. Lager had put two and two together and realized that Mackenzie was the videographer they had been trying to kill, and they had let her escape. Now they were coming back to finish the job. Jake realized the threat as well and pulled her closer to the ground, shielding them from the road behind a group of palmetto palms. Their eyes met, and she found comfort there despite the dire circumstances. He was still holding her hand, and she gripped his tightly, willing her hands to stop shaking. The vehicle was driving slowly, and with each second that passed she grew more convinced that their hiding place was about to be discovered. The vehicle stopped and she gasped, but Jake shook his head.
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