“You have a vivid imagination,” Cal said. “It’s one of the reasons you’re good at what you do. Me? I’d never imagine that some of the people I’ve helped you ‘leverage’ over the past few months would be capable of doing the things they’ve done.” Cal maintained his outward self-control. “You give me more credit than I deserve.”
Jesse didn’t let himself be distracted. “I want whatever evidence you have on me. Computer files, hard copies of files, accounts, recordings, videotapes. Whatever it is, I want it. All of it.”
A fat old man was making his way up the hall with a push broom. Cal stepped back from the window, but said nothing. He was overestimating his power. If he believed that Jesse was the man who’d attacked Mackenzie and the hiker last week, the nonfatal outcome worked in his favor. Cal would mistake it for weakness and inefficiency.
Jesse went on calmly. “And I want my money. Now. Not later.”
A muscle worked in Cal’s jaw. “How many times do I have to say it? You’ll get your damn money once you’re out of my face. When I’m out of any danger that this entire mess is going to backfire on me. I don’t want your million dollars—it’s not worth it to me to risk not holding up my end.”
Probably true, but Jesse was unmoved.
“If Harris decides to come out of hiding and talk to the feds—”
“I’m not worried about Harris,” Jesse said.
“Fraud, bribery, blackmail, extortion, conspiracy. Those aren’t light charges. Be smart. Get out of Washington now while you can. I’ve profited from other people’s sins. I’m not even disgusted with myself. Some of the dirty politicians, bureaucrats and lobbyists you and I squeezed saw themselves in a new light and stopped what they were doing. Some of them have reformed out of fear. They’re looking over their shoulders, scared of what comes next—who else might know their secrets?”
Jesse almost laughed. “Oh, so noble, Cal. You helped me because you had no choice. I had your balls in a vise.”
Sweat erupted on Cal’s brow, and he stank of it. “And so we blackmail each other. What I have on you is more damaging than what you have on me. So I had an affair while Bernadette and I were technically still married. Who’s going to care now that we’re divorced? Even she wouldn’t.”
“You had your affair at her house in New Hampshire.”
“It’s not anything I’m proud of, and I don’t want it to get out—but it’s nothing compared to the material I have on you. If the feds had to choose between nailing your ass and nailing mine, they’d choose yours.”
Jesse reached into his inner jacket pocket and withdrew a color printout of a digital photograph. “Take a close look. You’ll notice that’s you with the hairy legs and the saggy ass.”
Cal frowned, as if confused. “What are you talking about?”
“You think I only know about the brunette you humped in New Hampshire back in June. Take a close look, Cal. That’s not your brunette. That’s your blonde, a high-level congressional aide who had a weekend of wild sex with you at the summer home of a respected federal judge. But you tell me. What do you think?”
Cal crumpled up the picture, sweat pouring down his temples. “You’re disgusting.”
“You can see her face. You recognize her, don’t you? I believe we blackmailed her boss.”
“Not we—you.”
“Oh, you helped. You and Harris got me the information, the access. Rich SOB he is, too. You’d think you’d have stayed away from New Hampshire after I already caught you with the brunette.”
Cal didn’t say anything, just looked sick.
“What was the blonde doing—having sex with you in exchange for you keeping quiet about her? Or did she give you the information about her boss in the first place?”
“Stop—”
“She came to a bad end about two weeks ago. I guess you know that.”
“Jesse, don’t. She overdosed on pain pills. She had a problem back. Her death was an accident.”
“There are whispers it was suicide, because she was upset about a man.”
Cal took a sharp breath. “You’re disgusting!”
“I’m disgusting? I like that.” Jesse yawned. The Washington heat made him sleepy. If only he could have stayed in the mountains longer. “The police are still investigating the accident.”
“How many pictures do you have?” Cal asked.
“Pictures and a recording. If I leave them with the feds, they’ll dig deeper, and they’ll hang you high. Even if they can’t prove you were blackmailing her.”
“I wasn’t.”
“Look at our friend J. Harris Mayer. He was never prosecuted. You’ll be ruined, Cal. Judge Peacham will be ruined, too. Even if people believe she wasn’t involved in your treachery, they’ll wonder how it could happen under her nose.”
“Bernadette doesn’t deserve that. We were separated—”
“That’ll matter? You’ll go down and your ex-wife will go down. And your girlfriends.” Jesse paused deliberately, for effect. “The media will trot them out one by one.”
More than angry, Cal looked tortured, but he straightened, sniffed like the high-powered lawyer he was. “Threatening me doesn’t change anything.”
“I’m not bluffing,” Jesse said.
“Drag me down and I drag you down. That’s the way it is.”
“Double-crossing me wasn’t a smart move.”
“Ditto. I won’t go to the feds with what I have on you. You won’t go to the feds with what you have on me. You’ve done worse, Jesse. You attacked a federal agent.”
“Good night, Cal. I’ll be in touch.” He tapped his pictures. “Just wanted you to know the score.”
Cal opened his mouth as if to speak, but instead marched down the hall, the crumpled photo of his blond lover in bed with him still in his hand.
Jesse waited in the dim light until Cal disappeared. The janitor pushed his broom toward the supply closet, and Jesse smiled at him, then went on his way, back to the parking lot, the heat, the smells of the city. His BMW was still faintly cool. He sat behind the wheel, remembering the night he’d taken the picture of Cal Benton and the very attractive, very corrupt aide. It probably hadn’t occurred to Cal that anyone would ever catch him in bed with her—that it was that big a deal, a little sex in exchange for him doing good by her. Sneak up to his soon-to-be-ex-wife’s place in the country, and not worry about the prying gossips in Washington.
Even if he couldn’t be tied to the blond aide’s death or blackmail, the scandal would sink Cal Benton, and it would sink Bernadette Peacham.
The man was a fool, but Jesse hated seeing the tight control he’d once had over their operation unravel.
The car cooled to a temperature more to his liking. He glanced in his rearview mirror and thought of Mackenzie Stewart in her pink swimsuit. The curve of her breasts, the shape of her legs. Would he have killed her last Friday?
Oh, yes.
Jesse glanced at his watch. Ten o’clock. Plenty of time, he decided, for a quick trip out to Arlington. Mackenzie was back in town. He wondered if she’d gone to bed yet, or if she’d be up, staring at his sketch and trying to figure out where she’d seen him before.
Nineteen
With just her desk lamp on in her darkened living room, Mackenzie peered at the eyes of the man in the police sketch. She couldn’t sleep. She kept thinking about Rook and how she should have just waved goodbye in the rain and distracted herself from her desire for him with a stiff drink.
Except she didn’t have any liquor in the house.
She had regrets, she decided. Not for herself—she’d be fine. She was fine, her body still humming, suffused with the aftereffects of their near lovemaking. Whatever it was that had gone on in the kitchen…
Her regrets—her fears—were for him. He was obviously in the middle of a sensitive investigation that involved people she knew. He was ambitious, driven, good at his work.
With a hiss of frustration, Mackenzie shook off that line of thinking
, and said aloud, “Rook knows what he’s doing.”
That was what she should keep in mind.
She turned her attention back to the sketch. The drawing didn’t capture the strangeness of her attacker’s eyes. She tried to understand why she’d focused on them. Did they truly hold the key to why he seemed familiar to her?
Why had he attacked her and not Carine? Was it, at least in part, because he’d known Carine wouldn’t recognize him? But he hadn’t seemed concerned that Mackenzie would. He’d even taunted her, using her name.
Why?
The telephone rang—the house’s hard line. Since she was there only temporarily, Mackenzie hadn’t bothered getting a line in her name, relying instead on her cell phone for personal calls. She picked up.
“Burning the midnight oil tonight, are you?”
It was a male voice, hoarse and unrecognizable. “Who is this?”
Click.
Did he know she was up late, or had he just dialed her number at random? But she remembered the wrong number she’d received at Bernadette’s lake house over the weekend. Another coincidence she didn’t like.
She grabbed her gun and ran out to the porch. Was her caller watching her, stalking her? The air smelled of rain and wet grass, and the cloud cover made for a dark night. She walked down the steps, slick from rain, and out to the driveway, listening for the sound of a car—or a man hiding in the shrubs. She wouldn’t be thinking about squirrels and wild turkeys tonight.
She walked to the end of the long driveway. Streetlights cast eerie shadows, and nearby houses had living-room lights on, their residents, no doubt, enjoying a normal evening at home. The only cars visible were parked in driveways.
Was this man watching her from a hidden, darkened car?
She returned to the house, her slip-on sneakers soaked by the time she sat at the table in the kitchen. She kicked them off and reached for her cell phone, dialing Nate Winter’s number.
“Did you and Sarah ever get crank calls here?” she asked when he picked up.
“No. What’s going on?”
She told him about the call, skipping any mention of Rook’s visit. Nate didn’t interrupt. When she finished, she decided she didn’t want to sound paranoid, and added, “It could have been anyone. I’m not suggesting it was the man who attacked me.”
Nate was silent a moment. “Do you want me to come over?”
“And do what? There’s nothing to be done tonight. The caller didn’t use my name. On most occasions I wouldn’t have given it a second thought.”
“Mackenzie…”
“It’s okay. Sorry to disturb you.”
“Anytime,” he said softly. “You know that. But you’ve had a rough week. You need to give yourself time—”
“I just want to figure out where I’ve seen the man who attacked me. We need to find him before he hurts someone else. Because he will, Nate. I know he will.”
“If he does, it won’t be your fault. It’ll be his doing and his alone.”
“I had him. I had him, and he got away.”
“Then you didn’t have him, did you?”
She sat back, stung. And yet, she thought, she appreciated Nate’s clarity—his blunt honesty. “No, I guess I didn’t.”
“Don’t be afraid to ask for help. You’re not in this thing alone. Understood?”
“Yes, understood.” Still, she knew—as did Nate—that raising the alarm over as dubious and amorphous a call as the one she’d just received wouldn’t inspire confidence. “Say hi to Sarah for me. She’s doing well?”
“She’s heading over there tomorrow to mark out a new dig.”
“Alone?”
Nate didn’t answer right away. “No,” he said finally. “She won’t be alone.”
When Mackenzie hung up, she realized her wet feet were cold—surprising, given the relentless heat. She headed to her bedroom, wondering if she’d overreacted to the call. She’d been in the middle of studying the sketch, reliving the events of last Friday, and, admittedly, was a little off balance.
Not just a little.
Maybe it was the ghosts, she thought, pulling back the covers on her bed, and imagining Rook with her in the process. Damn near making love to him hadn’t exactly helped her get centered. What should she make of their relationship?
She sighed. “Nothing. That’s what you make of your relationship.”
Because to do otherwise was to distract her, distract him and risk another axing by voice mail. Too much was up in the air. Tonight they’d let their hormones and emotions get away from them, but so be it. It was time to be sensible. She needed to stay focused on her work, on healing. And on assisting investigators in any way she could to find their knife-happy guy in New Hampshire.
Without, of course, crossing too many lines.
Not that showing up at Harris’s house in the middle of an FBI search had crossed any lines. She hadn’t realized the search was under way—why would she? Cal Benton had turned up asking about Harris before she’d left for New Hampshire, and Rook had gone there looking for him. And Mackenzie knew Harris, if not well.
Stopping by his house after work made perfect sense.
Nor, she thought as she undressed, mindful of her stitches, did she regret letting Rook back into her kitchen.
“Letting? You all but dragged him,” she said aloud.
But she didn’t laugh or even smile at her attempt at humor as she fell into bed. She liked being around him. She had since they’d ducked out of the rain together.
He was here because he’s working an investigation.
A point to remember. Andrew Rook was a tough-minded, focused law enforcement officer. If he thought she had information the FBI had a right to, it’d be under the hot lights with her.
Cal.
But Cal’s illicit weekend was a personal matter unrelated to Rook’s investigation.
Mackenzie’s feet finally felt warm. She kicked off the covers, feeling a dull ache in her injured side. Maybe she should rethink her decision to keep quiet about Cal sneaking off to Bernadette’s lake house for a fling. The facts were what they were. She hadn’t created them—and just who was she protecting by staying silent? Was telling herself that she was just minding her own business and being discreet a rationalization?
If it was her investigation, she’d want to know all the facts about any parties involved, and decide for herself what was material and what wasn’t.
Probably Rook would, too.
On her way to work in the morning, Mackenzie checked in with Gerald Mooney, her state police contact in New Hampshire. “An organic farmer came forward,” he said. “He thinks he might have picked up our guy hitchhiking.”
“Where?”
“Sorry, I can’t give you any details until we have more solid information.”
Meaning until they’d checked out the farmer and where he’d picked up and dropped off his hitchhiker, followed any trail the hitchhiker had left and all the spokes off that trail. In other words, they wouldn’t tell her more until they were satisfied they wouldn’t jeopardize their investigation. Above all, Mooney wouldn’t want to say anything that could get out and end up alerting the attacker and causing him to hurt someone else.
Mackenzie was the “victim,” and she didn’t like it.
“Is news about the farmer out?” she asked.
“Partially. Let’s just say it’s a strong lead. He doesn’t own a television. He didn’t see the sketch until he was in town to pick up supplies and happened to notice it up on a community bulletin board.”
“What about the other victim? How’s she doing?”
“She’s out of the hospital. She has a long recovery ahead of her. What about you?”
“I get my stitches out tomorrow. I’ll be doing jumping jacks before you know it.”
She thought Mooney might have chuckled. “I’ll keep you posted as I can,” he said.
An organic farmer. A hitchhiker who fit the description of her attacker. Mackenzie deb
ated thinking up an excuse to fly to New Hampshire, but when she got to her desk, Joe Delvecchio, her chief, a stocky, no-nonsense man in his early fifties, dumped a stack of files on her desk.
“What’s this?” she asked.
“You’re a Ph.D., Stewart. Go through the files and see what you make of them. Meeting at one.”
“ABD.”
“What?”
“All But Dissertation. I don’t have my Ph.D. I joined the service to get out of writing my dissertation—”
His glare stopped her. “Meeting’s here. Happy reading.” He took two steps, stopped and turned back to her. “Next time you get a weird phone call, you call me. You don’t call Nate Winter.”
Ah. So that was it. “Got it, Chief.”
But he wasn’t finished. “And if you get an itch to go visit some old friend the FBI happens to want to talk to, don’t scratch it.”
“Harris Mayer isn’t a friend—”
“We work with the FBI in this office. We don’t work against them.”
Mackenzie started to speak, then decided to keep her mouth shut.
The chief softened slightly. “If I didn’t think you weren’t smart, I’d have given you more time to go through those files.”
“Thanks, Chief. I appreciate that. Did you hear about the organic farmer and the hitchhiker?”
“Is this like a knock-knock joke or something?”
She rocked back in her chair, wondering if he’d add another fifty files to her stack if she told him about her contact with the detective in New Hampshire. But she hadn’t done anything wrong, and neither had Mooney.
Delvecchio stared at her, apparently expecting an answer—or maybe a funny joke. She gave him the rundown of what Mooney had told her.
“Progress in the investigation,” he said. “That’s good news.”
“It’s gutsy for this guy to hinge his freedom on getting someone to pick him up hitchhiking.”
“Think that’s what he did?”
She considered the chief’s question and shook her head. “He had a plan B and a plan C. He’d have hijacked a car, or stolen one—and he probably had another knife squirreled away.” She paused, but Delvecchio didn’t comment. “Which doesn’t make him sound like a deranged hiker to me.”
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