Abandon Page 7

  “Apparently, Nate did.”

  “Ah.”

  She crossed her arms on her chest. Even with pain medication, any abrupt move hurt. The E.R. doctor had sewn her up with a layer of absorbable stitches in the fat and a layer of regular stitches in the skin. She had to go back in twenty-four hours to get the dressing changed, and in seven to ten days to get the top sutures removed. She was prescribed antibiotics as a precaution against infection. Pain medication she could take as needed.

  “Nate called, too,” she said. “Having Carine in danger again scared him. She came upon a murder scene a while back, when she and Tyler North were still deciding whether or not they were meant for each other.”

  “Tyler is her husband?”

  Mackenzie nodded. “He’s a pararescueman. He’s deployed right now.” She thought a moment. “Carine hasn’t told him about today yet, but when she does, he’ll want to know every detail. I’ll probably have to explain you to him, too.”

  “If it’s any consolation, I’ve had to explain myself to people around here all afternoon. You have a lot of friends in Cold Ridge.”

  “How did you explain your presence?”

  “I said I was here to see you.”

  “Rook.”

  He smiled mysteriously but didn’t elaborate. He started toward the door, and she stepped back from the threshold. He joined her on the soft, cool grass. “Maybe you should call it a night.”

  “As I said, I wouldn’t be surprised if the attack on me and your reasons for being here are connected,” she said. “You’re here because of an investigation.”

  He didn’t respond.

  “I’ve been thinking. I was in Georgetown the night we met because of Beanie Peacham. I had a drink with her before Cal got there, then I walked around outside, and it started raining and there you were.” When she tried to latch the shed door, her head spun. “And now here you are again.”

  He pulled her hands from the door. “You’re cold.”

  “I guess I got used to the heat in Washington more than I realized.”

  “Did the doctors want to keep you for the night?”

  “Yes, but I talked them out of it. I told them I had to come back here and toast marshmallows.” She found the padlock in the grass and started to pick it up, but decided she didn’t want to risk passing out in front of Rook. “It’s a little late to be locking the shed.”

  Rook swooped up the lock. “Can’t hurt, in case our guy decides to double back here.”

  “Of all places,” Mackenzie said quietly. “Beanie’s philosophy is waste not, want not. She wouldn’t have had this shed built if the previous one hadn’t basically fallen apart. She hired my father to do the job.”

  “Mac—”

  “He was working out here alone one day. His table saw malfunctioned. The blade—” She stopped, pushing back a wave of dizziness, then resumed. “I don’t know what happened, exactly. I was eleven. I found him. I was supposed to be helping him, but I was goofing off, chasing this toad that had caught my eye.”

  “You were a kid.”

  “He lost an eye, parts of several fingers. He had severe internal lacerations.” She cleared her throat, staring at the shed door. “It was a mess in there, I can tell you that much. I didn’t want to leave him, but I remember thinking that if I didn’t, he would die. I ran up to the house and called the police.”

  “Where was Judge Peacham?”

  “She was in town. It was just my dad and me here most of the day. When I hung up after talking with the police, I didn’t want to come back down here. I thought he was dead. I didn’t want to see the blood.”

  “But you did come back, didn’t you, Mac?”

  She nodded. “I stayed with him until the ambulance arrived. I was so covered in blood, the paramedics initially thought I’d been injured, too.”

  “That’s a tough memory to have.”

  “It could be worse. At least my father lived. He had a long, painful recovery, and he’s never really worked again. But he and my mother have a good life. They’re doing a house swap with an Irish couple—they’re in Ireland right now. All’s well that ends well, right?” She smiled. “That’s one of Beanie’s favorite sayings.”

  “Today ended well, Mac. The police will find this guy—”

  “I don’t like the shed. I used to have nightmares that monsters lived in there.” She snatched the padlock from Rook and snapped it into place on the latch. Dusk was coming fast now, and the lake was still, mirroring the darkening sky. “I should have nailed that bastard before he got near me.”

  “Do you think he intended to kill you?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe, maybe not. He didn’t hurt Carine, but he didn’t have his knife with him, either.”

  “Thanks to you. Carine—she was fully prepared to defend herself and her baby with a rock.”

  “That’s Carine. The Winters are all like that.” Mackenzie couldn’t summon the energy even to smile. “If anything had happened to her, because of me…”

  “Nothing did,” Rook said.

  “You don’t recognize his description?” she asked.

  “No.”

  Then maybe her attacker wasn’t someone involved in whatever investigation had brought Rook to New Hampshire after all. Or Rook hadn’t identified him yet as anyone of interest. Or Rook was lying, but somehow she didn’t think he would be a good liar. “I know I’ve seen him before, but I can’t pin down where, who he is. Maybe I just saw him in line at the grocery.”

  “He recognized you.”

  “I haven’t been in Washington that long. More likely he knows me from here.”

  “He referred to you as Deputy Stewart.”

  “My career change has been a topic of conversation around town for several months. ‘The college instructor who heads off to train as a deputy marshal.’”

  Rook slipped an arm over her shoulder. “You did well today, Mac.”

  “I got in one good lick. Big deal.”

  “You also got his knife away from him.”

  “My training kicked in. If he’d attacked Carine, or if Bernadette had been up here and he’d attacked her…” But Mackenzie knew better than to spin off into what-ifs, and didn’t go further. “Next time I go swimming, I’m wearing jeans and sneakers.”

  “Not as much fun as your little pink swimsuit.”

  “Rook, just because I’ve got twenty stitches in my side doesn’t mean I can’t elbow you in your gut.” But she appreciated his humor and felt herself leaning against him as they headed to a trio of Adirondack chairs and Bernadette’s open fireplace. Even if he’d dumped her and was a snake, at least he could be a friend. “The police have my swimsuit and towel. They’re checking for trace evidence. Can you imagine if I have to testify in court, and they hold up my dolphin towel and slashed tankini? I’ll never live it down.”

  “You never will, anyway.”

  “You’re a big help.”

  He grinned at her. “Welcome to law enforcement. No one will criticize you for what you did today, Mac. If I’d been caught by a knife-wielding lunatic out here in my swim trunks—”

  “Ouch, Rook. I don’t need that image in my head.”

  “No? What kind of swim trunks do you have me in?”

  “Baggy, snot-green plaid ones that hang down to your knees.”

  “Lovely.”

  Except it wasn’t true. The swim trunks Mackenzie pictured him in fit him perfectly, and nothing about them—or him—was ugly. But she didn’t dwell on the image. “I’m lucky. He didn’t cut through muscle or nick any vital organs. I’ll be fine in no time. I’m a fast healer.”

  “What about the next twenty-four hours?”

  “I have to keep the dressing dry and I can’t do jumping jacks. Why?”

  Just then Gus’s truck pulled into the driveway, sparing Rook from having to answer.

  Carine jumped out of the passenger side and waved cheerfully. “We’re here for marshmallows.”

  But there was so
mething off in her voice, and Mackenzie slipped from Rook’s embrace and narrowed her gaze on him. “What’s going on?”

  “I was getting to that,” Rook said. “Gus Winter and his team found their missing hiker. Your instincts were on target. Your attacker got to her first. She’d been stabbed.”

  “Dead?”

  Rook shook his head. “Doctors say she’ll make a full recovery. She’s lucky they found her when they did. A night out in the open wouldn’t have been good.”

  Mackenzie visualized the assault knife, but forced back the image. “Her attacker fits the description of the guy who came at me?”

  Rook nodded. “She said he seemed deranged.”

  “A deranged hiker slashing women in the mountains.” Mackenzie bit off a sigh of frustration, her earlier dizziness gone now. “I should never have let him get away.”

  “Which brings us to the next twenty-four hours.”

  “What?”

  “Carine and her baby are staying at her uncle’s house in town tonight. She needs time to pull herself together. You’re welcome there—”

  “I’m not staying at Gus’s.”

  Rook gave her a faint smile. “That’s what he said you’d say.”

  “I’m staying here. Honestly, Rook. First I get knifed. Then I let the guy who knifed me get away and scare the living daylights out of my best friend. Then I have to face a million cops while I’m wearing a pink swimsuit, which is confiscated as evidence along with my dolphin towel.” She wanted to stop herself, but was on a roll now. “So don’t try to talk me out of staying here, because it won’t work.”

  “You’re drugged. Once you hit a pillow, you’ll be out for the night.”

  “I hope so.”

  “What if this guy comes back? I’m not trying to talk you out of staying here. You have a choice.”

  “What—” She snapped her mouth shut and studied Rook, noted the spark of humor in his eyes. He had killer eyes, a killer smile. “Why do I feel as if I just painted myself into a corner?”

  “Because you did.”

  “You’re staying here tonight?”

  He smiled at her. “That’s the plan.”

  All Mackenzie could think was that with Rook under the same roof, it was just as well she had twenty stitches in her side.

  Ten

  Gus Winter stabbed a fat marshmallow with one of the half-dozen or so sharp sticks Bernadette kept at her outdoor stone fireplace, and handed it to Mackenzie, then sank into an old, comfortable Adirondack chair. Gus had built the fire, as if the simple ritual was what he needed to put the events of the day into perspective.

  Mackenzie sat forward and held her marshmallow over the flames, careful not to let it get too close. She liked a gooey center and a crisp exterior, which required a certain level of patience and marshmallow know-how.

  “Beanie’s helped a lot of people over the years,” Mackenzie said. “I wasn’t the only one.”

  “Not by a long shot. And you’re a neighbor. She’s helped perfect strangers.” Gus reached for another stick. “Are you suggesting this nut today was someone she helped?”

  “I’m not suggesting anything. I’m just casting a wide net.”

  “Are you supposed to be casting any net? You’re one of the victims.”

  As if she needed reminding, with her bandages, her wooziness from medication. The cool air and the familiarity of the fire, the marshmallows, the sounds of the dark night, all helped center her. She could feel her fatigue, even as her mind spun with the images of the day, the scraps of information she had, the possibilities they presented.

  “I don’t mean officially. It’s not my investigation, but that doesn’t mean I can’t speculate. Everyone in town is speculating.”

  “Point taken,” Gus said.

  She glanced at him as he picked up a second stick for himself. “Overkill?”

  “Always with you, kiddo.”

  She smiled. “I thought I might irritate you less now that I’ve been knifed.”

  He took two marshmallows and impaled them on his stick. “Nah.” He grinned at her. “You’re the same Mackenzie I’ve always known and loved. At least you haven’t lost your sense of humor.”

  “Hey, someone around here has to have a sense of humor.” This reminded her of Rook, who was either in the house or else off with other FBI agents—she didn’t know which. He wasn’t by the fire toasting marshmallows. “The attack on the hiker this morning suggests this man wasn’t here specifically because of Beanie. The lock on the shed wasn’t broken. She probably just didn’t bother with it.”

  “So he seized the moment and ducked in there to hide, or planned to?” Gus asked.

  “Maybe. Carine left the house unlocked when she and Harry headed up the road. If this guy was looking for a place to rest, or stuff to steal, you’d think he’d go into the house.”

  “He might not have had the chance. We don’t know how long he was here. He could have stumbled into the brush right from the woods while you were underwater.”

  Mackenzie felt the heat of the fire on her face as her marshmallow browned. Her eyes felt as if they’d been rolled in sandpaper. Sitting close to the flames probably wasn’t helping. “Just as well he didn’t crawl out from under a bed in the middle of the night.”

  Gus plunged his two marshmallows into the blaze. “This FBI agent, Rook. What’s his story?”

  “I don’t know. He just showed up.”

  “Uh-huh. Friend of yours?”

  “Someone I know.”

  “Who is he?”

  She could tell Gus was growing impatient. Understandably. “Well, when I first met him, I thought he was a Washington bureaucrat.”

  “But he’s not,” Gus said unnecessarily.

  “Seems so obvious now.”

  “You let him call you Mac. Last time I called you Mac, you told me in no uncertain terms it’s Mackenzie.”

  “I told Rook the same thing.”

  Gus’s marshmallows caught fire. He let them burn for a few seconds, then blew them out—his own ritual. “Anything personal between you two?”

  She didn’t hesitate. “No.”

  “You’re not working a case together or something, are you?”

  “Nope. Nothing.”

  “So there is something between you two.”

  Mackenzie bit into her marshmallow, testing to make sure it was soft throughout, but not so gooey it would fall off the stick. She had a tendency to lose marshmallows in the fire if she wasn’t careful.

  Gus continued to char his. “Does Nate know this Rook?”

  “I don’t know. Why don’t you ask him?”

  “I’m asking you.”

  The marshmallow was perfect, and she popped the whole thing into her mouth, enjoying the sweetness. She sat back in her chair and debated whether she had the energy to roast another.

  “Nate’s been decent to me since I moved to Washington,” she said. “He’s so well respected, I doubt anything I could do would have an impact on him—”

  “That’s not what I’m asking.”

  She sighed. “I know, Gus. Okay. Rook and I went out a few times. That’s it. Story over.”

  “How’d he manage to show up here just minutes after you were stabbed?”

  “I don’t know—and I wasn’t stabbed. Stabbing is when the knife goes straight into you.” She looked over at him, silhouetted against the fire and dark night. “This was a cut.”

  The missing hiker, on the other hand, had been stabbed in her lower abdomen. She had come out of surgery, and her prognosis for a full recovery was excellent. Everyone—Gus, especially—would hate seeing a woman who’d come to the White Mountains to hike with friends end up stabbed, fighting for her life. That she’d survived the attack was a miracle, but the profilers, Mackenzie knew, would add it to the mix. Why hadn’t their perp stabbed the woman repeatedly? Why had he done so once, and run?

  Was he deranged?

  Mackenzie thought of his eyes. The eyes of a man in the m
idst of a psychotic breakdown?

  She set her stick in the grass. “Have you talked to Beanie?”

  Gus pulled his blackened marshmallows out of the fire. “No, why would I?”

  “Because you’ve known her since kindergarten.”

  “Before that. I didn’t go to kindergarten.”

  He ate the top marshmallow, his prickliness more pronounced than usual. Gus and Bernadette both had deep roots in Cold Ridge, and as different as they were, they each planned to spend their last days there.

  Mackenzie stared up at the starlit sky. If she sank any deeper into her chair, she’d become a part of it. “You and Beanie are going to end up in the same nursing home, you know. It’d serve you right.”

  He gave Mackenzie a quick grin. “Probably would.”

  “The police and the FBI don’t think this guy had anything to do with her.”

  “What’s your gut say, Mackenzie?” Gus leveled his gaze on her. “Think it was random, him showing up here?”

  “No,” she said. “I don’t.”

  He turned back to the fire and lowered his remaining marshmallow into the flames once more, presumably to char the one square millimeter he’d missed. “Wishing you’d stayed in academia right now?”

  “I’m wishing I’d worn a black swimsuit today.”

  He laughed, but Mackenzie couldn’t summon the energy to respond in kind. She closed her eyes, trying to listen to the crickets and the soft lapping of the lake against the rocks. Instead, she heard the rustling in the brush from this afternoon, and chastised herself for thinking it was an animal, harmless, normal.

  She felt the smooth edge of the assault knife cut across her skin. She hadn’t done so at the time—somehow, her mind hadn’t let her feel it—but she did now.

  Had her attacker meant to kill her?

  Had he just wanted to scare her, humiliate her?

  Had she stopped him, or had he let her stop him?

  Her mind drifted, and she saw herself diving into the lake, swimming underwater, recalled the feel of the sun and wind on her face when she’d surfaced. Then climbing back onto the dock. Hearing the rustling sounds. Her utter lack of any sense that she was in danger.

  Wild turkeys, squirrels. That was what she’d thought she’d heard.