Abandon

by Carla Neggers

  “How’s the wound?”

  “Healing. I’m not on any pain meds. It was just one of those things. Stupid.”

  “Not stupid. Give yourself a little credit.”

  She sighed. “At least I wasn’t attacked while I was on duty, not that I’d ever go swimming on the job. I’d been telling all my doubters—of which there are many—that I’m more likely to get hurt off the job than on, and now we have the proof. If I’d been working at the college and gone for a swim at Beanie’s on Friday afternoon, this guy would have attacked me. I just wouldn’t have had a prayer.”

  “I don’t know. You were feisty as a college professor.”

  “But not as well trained,” she said.

  Nate shifted slightly. He wore a dark gray suit, a contrast to the street attire of most of the field agents filling up the office. Mackenzie had rummaged around in one of her unpacked boxes for stretchy pants and a dark, lightweight pullover—and her shoulder holster. Carrying her weapon in a belt holster pulled on her stitches.

  “This guy didn’t kill the female hiker,” Nate said.

  “She says he told her he wanted her to suffer. If Gus hadn’t found her, she would have died of exposure.” Like Gus’s brother and sister-in-law, Nate’s parents, Mackenzie thought, then added, “I don’t know what he had in mind for me.”

  “Maybe nothing. Maybe you just surprised him and he reacted. My point being we don’t know, and until we do—”

  “Beware of speculating,” she finished for him.

  “Stick to the facts. How’s Gus? I’ve talked to him, but it’s hard to gauge his state of mind. He wasn’t happy about seeing you bloodied—he made that clear.”

  Mackenzie leaned back in her chair, comfortable with Nate Winter despite his senior status, his seriousness, his notorious impatience. With the attack in Cold Ridge, more people would become aware of her connection to him, and their mutual connection to Bernadette Peacham. Mackenzie didn’t know how Nate would react. Find a way to send her to Alaska, maybe?

  “Gus is Gus,” she said. “He tried out a new recipe on me while I was up there. Some kind of marinated, grilled fruit over couscous. He says it’s Beanie’s influence. She was at the lake earlier in the summer and had him and Carine and little Harry over for dinner, said she’d been taking cooking classes here in Washington.”

  “Beanie Peacham’s taking cooking classes?”

  “I know. Worrisome.” But Mackenzie couldn’t maintain her humor, and seeing Nate brought the reality of what had happened on Friday—what could have happened—to the surface. “Nate, if anything had happened to Carine or Harry because of me…”

  “It wouldn’t have been because of you. The worst thing you can do right now is let your mind spin around what might have been. What happened is bad enough in its own right.” His gaze rested on her, critical, appraising. “Are you sure you should be back here?”

  “The doctor said it’d be fine. I just have to avoid heavy lifting for a bit.” She paused to give Nate a chance to reassure her that she was absolutely right, she’d be up for fieldwork in no time, but he didn’t. She got up, relieved there was no tug of pain to cause her to wince in front of him. “Coffee?”

  “No, thanks.”

  She frowned at him. “Nate, what’s up? You didn’t come here to check on my stitches, and you’re not the one who snuck in this pink swimsuit.”

  He looked uncomfortable, a rarity for him, and finally sighed. “Do you still believe the man who attacked you looked familiar?”

  “Yes.” It didn’t surprise her that Nate knew. He could have found out from Gus or Carine, never mind law enforcement. “I keep trying to remember where I’ve seen him. I’ve checked my student records, fugitive cases I’ve worked on, everything I can think of. So far, no connections.”

  “It’s not your job to find this guy. If the investigators in New Hampshire want your help, they’ll ask.” Nate regarded her more with the authority his job afforded him than with brotherly affection. “You understand that, right?”

  “Did someone complain about me?”

  “No one’s complained. I just know you, Mackenzie. You need to be smart,” he said bluntly. “Be patient.”

  Mackenzie grabbed her coffee, trying to resist a surge of defiance. But she knew she wouldn’t. She gave Nate a cool look. “How smart and patient were you after you were shot?”

  Almost a year and a half ago, he and a fellow deputy—his wife’s twin brother—were shot sniper style in New York’s Central Park. Nate’s bullet wound, a graze to the shoulder, was relatively minor, but he hadn’t left the investigation to the FBI and his colleagues in the Marshals Service. He’d bulldozed his way into the middle of it. He’d met Sarah Dunnemore as a result and given up his solitary life, opened himself up to having a family of his own and all the risks that came with it, as he, orphaned at seven, understood more than most. But as far as Mackenzie could see, he had no regrets.

  He said stiffly, “We’re not talking about me.”

  “That’s for damn sure.” Mackenzie’s urge to stand up to him dissipated, and she grinned. “You weren’t wearing a pink swimsuit when you were shot.”

  She thought she detected a spark of amusement in his eyes. “I remember that suit. It’s one bright shade of pink. Tough to miss you in the water.”

  “I don’t think our knife-wielding fugitive ever saw me in the water. The shed door was open. I suspect he was on his way out or on his way in while I was underwater or something—I didn’t see him, anyway—and I surprised him. He tried to hide, but ended up attacking me.”

  “Could he have slipped away without being seen?”

  “If he’d waited until I went back into the house, he’d at least have had a better chance. He crouched in the brush alongside the shed. I heard him before I saw him. It’s filled with Japanese barberry—he could have gotten stuck with thorns. It had to be buggy there, too. Maybe he saw a snake. Whatever. He decided to jump me.”

  “His thinking might not have been that organized.”

  “The prevailing wisdom still is he picked the hiker and me to attack at random. He looked wild, but he also seemed in control of himself. I can’t explain it.”

  “Gut feeling?”

  “If you want to call it that.” Mackenzie was suddenly aware of Nate’s nearly two decades of experience in law enforcement compared to her months of training and mere weeks at her first assignment. “I need to figure out where I’ve seen him.”

  “Adrenaline can do strange things to people.”

  “So why not me? I know I could be imagining I’ve seen him before, but, honestly, I don’t think so.”

  “It could just be a simple mistake. Mackenzie—” He broke off. “Never mind. I need to get rolling.” He nodded to her holster. “How’re you with a shoulder holster?”

  “Terrible. That fraction of a second extra it takes to reach across my body for my weapon—I don’t know. I’ll try not to shoot myself.”

  “Were you as big a pain in the ass as a professor?”

  “Bigger.”

  She’d known Nate and his two sisters for as long as she could remember. In those awful months after her father’s accident, Gus would bring them by the house with food, and they’d help with repairs that she and her mother couldn’t manage on their own. Harry and Jill Winter had died up on Cold Ridge before Mackenzie was born, but she knew that their children—Nate, Antonia and Carine—had faced a tragedy far worse than her own. She’d looked up to them, let them show her the route to survival.

  But they’d never imagined her as a federal agent. Not one of them.

  “No, don’t go,” she said. “Tell me why you’re really here.”

  “Just to check on you.”

  “Nate. I know you think I should have stayed at the college, finished my dissertation. But I got through training. I didn’t have your help or support there. I did it on my own.”

  “I know you did, kid.” There was a measure of tenderness in his expression now. �
��I keep thinking of you as that little curly-haired redhead sitting in your father’s blood. Mackenzie, we all want what’s best for you.”

  “What’s best for me right now is that you be straight with me.”

  He started for the elevators, but she followed him.

  “You know why Andrew Rook was in Cold Ridge, don’t you?” she asked.

  Nate banged the down button, sucked in a breath through his teeth and regarded her with a big-brotherly impatience that was entirely familiar to her. “You’re relentless, Deputy Stewart. Always have been. I put that in my report about you.”

  “Relentless is just another way of saying pain in the ass.”

  “So it is.”

  “Nate—what about Harris Mayer?”

  He glanced away from her. “He’s late for a meeting with the FBI.”

  “Rook?”

  The elevator dinged. “You want to play with the big guns, Mackenzie? Here’s your chance.” The elevator doors opened, and Nate stepped inside, turning to her. “Rook’s all yours.”

  Seventeen

  J. Harris Mayer owned a white-painted, black-shuttered brick house on a narrow, prestigious Georgetown street. As Rook stood in the front room, he could see the overgrown rhododendron that grew past its first-floor window.

  Harris’s neighbors probably wished he had moved or gambled away the house. Rook and T.J. had checked with them, and they clearly hoped the FBI or the local police—someone—would find Harris dead of a heart attack. His disgrace wasn’t the issue so much as the shabby condition of his house. It needed paint, extensive repairs and a couple of guys with trimming shears and chainsaws to tackle the out-of-control greenery. The windows hadn’t been washed in years. Bees had built nests in various cracks and crevices.

  But Rook and T.J. and two other agents hadn’t found Mayer dead in his bed or passed out on his kitchen floor. They’d arrived an hour ago, in the heat of the afternoon, having obtained a warrant to check the house for him. The scope of the warrant limited them to searching places where a person could have fallen ill or be hiding—a closet, a shower, not a desk drawer.

  “He’s skipped,” T.J. said, joining Rook from the foyer. “He’s not here.”

  Rook concurred. They’d gone through the house from attic to basement, alert to anything in plain sight that would lead them back to the judge for permission to conduct a more thorough search.

  T.J. eyed a slender, curve-legged desk in a corner of the threadbare but elegant room. Everything needed dusting. The house smelled musty; the central air-conditioning hadn’t been turned down low enough to keep up with the heat and humidity. The family antiques throughout the house just emphasized that Harris’s was a life squandered. He’d gone off the tracks a long time ago, well before his public downfall. It had just taken a while for him to crash.

  “Wish we’d found a receipt for a plane ticket to Fiji sitting on a desk,” T.J. said. “That’d get us in here going through this place with a fine-tooth comb. I don’t have a good feeling about our friend J. Harris, Rook.”

  Rook sighed. “I don’t, either. We’ll just have to keep looking for him. I don’t know if a soup-to-nuts search here would help us, but I’ll see what we can do to get an extension on the warrant.”

  “If Mayer had given us more to go on…”

  “I should have pushed him harder.” T.J. shrugged, taking the setback in stride. “For all we know he was blowing smoke and got tired of it, just pulled out and headed for the beach—or he decided he didn’t want to face you once you figured out he was engaging in fantasy.”

  “Maybe,” Rook said, determined to keep an open mind.

  They left the house. Outside, uniformed Washington police officers provided scene security, in case the neighbors got curious about strange men bursting into the discredited judge’s house. A crowd hadn’t gathered. It was too damn hot, or people were just busy, or not at home, or didn’t want to be obvious about their curiosity.

  “Whoa,” T.J. said. “Is that your redheaded deputy?”

  “That’s her,” Rook replied through gritted teeth.

  As a federal agent herself, Mackenzie had made her way through security, and stood at the bottom of the steps, her curly hair frizzing slightly in the heat. Rook remembered kissing her last night. What the hell had he been thinking?

  T.J., who was known for his good looks, trotted down the steps to the brick sidewalk. “Deputy Stewart, right? I’m T. J. Kowalski.”

  “Special Agent Kowalski—nice to meet you. Andrew’s told me about you. All good, of course.”

  Using his first name, Rook knew, wasn’t intended to have an affect on him, but to charm T.J. Obviously it worked, because T.J. smiled at her. “Nice to meet you, too, Deputy—”

  “Mackenzie,” she corrected. “I didn’t expect to find the FBI here. Did something happen to Judge Mayer?”

  “Not that we know of,” T.J. said. “What’s your business here, Mackenzie?”

  She glanced up at Rook, still on the steps, then shifted her gaze back to T.J. “Harris Mayer and Judge Peacham go way back. I don’t really know him.”

  “That doesn’t explain why you’re here.”

  “No, it doesn’t.” She gestured broadly toward the house. “No sign of him?”

  T.J. hesitated a moment, as if he expected Rook to intervene—but Rook had no intention of diving into the middle of their exchange. Let Mackenzie wriggle her way out of this one. T.J. could handle her. “No,” he said. “No sign of him. The house is secure. He’s not in it. You know where he is?”

  “Not a clue.” She squinted at him. “Well. I guess you answered my question for me. Again, T.J., nice to meet you.” She made a point of looking up at Rook on the steps. “Mind the heat, you two. It sneaks up on you.”

  She walked back across the street and got in her car.

  T.J. glanced up at Rook. “Want me to find a reason to cuff her?”

  “Tempting.” Rook joined him on the sidewalk, a slight breeze stirring up the street smells. He just felt hotter. As she pulled out into the roadway, Mackenzie waved at them, then hit the gas and took off. “Think she knew we were here?”

  “Hard to say. She didn’t look too beaten up from this past weekend.”

  “Says she heals fast.”

  “Deputy Stewart’s a wiseass,” T.J. said with some amusement. “I’ve always seen you ending up with a wiseass, Rook.”

  “Yeah. Whatever. Let’s go.”

  “You know, your redheaded marshal didn’t exactly shake in her shoes talking to me. Then again, people like me. I have a sense of humor.”

  Rook ignored him, leading the way back to their car.

  T.J. didn’t take the hint. “You’re not going to let yourself trust her, are you? I can’t say I blame her for wanting to know what we’re up to. She’s not a suspect. She’s not under surveillance. She’s just friends with Bernadette Peacham, our new favorite federal judge. Who is also not a suspect. Her ex-husband—”

  “Isn’t a suspect,” Rook finished.

  “Officially.”

  “Harris Mayer isn’t, either, but we can’t find him.”

  “Yeah. I don’t like that one.” T.J. opened the driver’s door and looked across the steaming roof of the car at Rook. “Deputy Stewart moves well for someone with a knife wound in her side. I wouldn’t want to underestimate her.”

  “I haven’t,” Rook muttered, getting in the car. He and T.J. had a long day yet ahead of them. Time to get on with it.

  It was dark when Rook finally quit work and drove out to Arlington, detouring to the historic house where Mackenzie was living. He parked behind her car and got out, remembering his optimism the first time he’d stood in that same spot a few weeks ago. He’d picked her up for dinner in Washington—nothing fancy, just an evening out to get to know each other better.

  A light shone on the back porch, and a misting rain had begun to fall, forming a fine film on the steps. Rook debated turning around and heading on home. What could he do here b
ut get himself in deeper with a woman he’d met for all the wrong reasons?

  The porch door opened, and Mackenzie stepped out, her hair pulled tight into a curly ponytail, as if she’d tried to tame it once and for all in the high humidity. She was barefoot, wearing shorts and a T-shirt that, somehow, made her seem even smaller than she was.

  She tilted her head back, eyeing her visitor. “I could have winged you, Rook, and nobody would have said boo. Here I am injured, alone in a haunted, isolated house, and you know it, yet you sneak up on me anyway.”

  “Did I scare you?”

  “No. I thought you might be a ghost for a second.”

  “You don’t believe in ghosts,” he said.

  “Stay here a couple nights. You’ll believe in ghosts.” She took in a breath, putting up a hand as color rose in her cheeks. “Alone, I mean. Stay here a couple nights alone, and then talk to me about ghosts.”

  “Nate and his wife didn’t seem to mind the ghosts.”

  “Sarah wouldn’t. It’d take a lot for Nate to believe he was in the presence of any ghost, never mind the ghosts of Abraham Lincoln and Robert E. Lee.” Mackenzie crossed her arms over her chest, her shirt rising just enough to reveal the bandages on her left side. “Would you like to come in for a minute?”

  Rook took a step toward her. “I won’t stay long.”

  He followed her into the cool kitchen. The small table was crowded with dishes and odds and ends, as if she’d just unpacked one of the boxes stacked along the wall. He wondered if she had plans for the evening, or if she would stay here, alone with her ghosts.

  “Mac, about this afternoon at Harris’s house—”

  “Not much to say, is there?”

  “We want to find him.”

  “Understood. If I knew where he was, I’d tell you. If I even had a clue, I’d tell you. I take it New Hampshire didn’t pan out, and you didn’t find him there.” She yanked out a chair at the table and plopped down. “He’s not wanted, officially. Is he providing you with information? He’s such a bottom-feeder. I can just imagine what all he knows.”

  “We have no reason to believe he had anything to do with the attack on you.”