Carla Neggers - Abandon

If he was caught searching Judge Peacham’s property for the money and materials, he had to be sure no one linked him with her, her ex-husband or her no-account friend Harris.

There were easier ways, perhaps, to accomplish that mission than by attacking the female hiker that morning, but he’d succeeded in throwing off the police. They were hell-bent on finding a scary, unhinged lowlife who struck women at random.

He hadn’t gotten any of his first victim’s blood on his hands. But she hadn’t kicked him, either.

He dried his hands with a stiff brown paper towel, crumpled it up and tossed it into an overflowing, filthy trash can. Too late to worry about leaving behind DNA. One speck of blood in the sink, and the cops would trace it back to Miss Mackenzie, figure out he’d been there washing up.

But he’d planned for that in the hours after confronting Harris Mayer.

J. Harris Mayer.

J for Jackass, J for Jerk…

Actually, the J stood for John. How anticlimactic was that?

Jesse pushed back the uncomfortable reality of just how close he had come to messing up today with the redheaded marshal, and focused instead on the task at hand.

It was past ten, dark and chilly. He unzipped the backpack he’d hidden in a cluster of rocks off one of the trails above the lake, after he’d attacked the hiker. She’d come damn close to tripping over it – as good a reason as any to pick her to stab. He could have killed her on the spot, but alive, she’d be able to confirm any description of him if he had to attack again.

A shrink might call that a rationalization to commit violence, but whatever. It had worked.

The backpack was filled with supplies, although there was nothing the police could trace back to him should they have managed to get to it before he had. His decision to head down from the hills to the lake carrying only his assault knife had paid off. Agile, not weighed down by gear, he’d made a quick getaway.

He pulled out clean hiking pants, a clean shirt and clean socks. Horn-rimmed glasses with plain lenses. A Red Sox cap. He was in Red Sox country – when people saw his cap, they wouldn’t think, Oh, that must be the man who stabbed those two women today.

The beard was a problem, but he figured dealing with it now would only draw more attention to him. Go into a gas station bathroom with a beard and come out with one, no one would notice. Come out without one, everyone would notice.

Once transformed into a respectable-looking, inexperienced hiker – not the fit, half-mad hiker police were looking for – Jesse slung his backpack over one shoulder, exited the bathroom and bought a Coke and a bag of Frito’s, with silent apologies to his organic farmer, and left the gas station.

He noticed splattered blood on his right hiking boot.

Deal with it later. Stay focused.

He walked down the pitch-black road, the scattered houses near the gas station giving way to impenetrable woods. He heard animals rustling in the brush. Bats swooped across the starlit sky. The air was cool now, but the wind had died down and the mosquitoes hadn’t yet found him.

After a half mile, he came to a trailhead and indulged in a moment’s relief when he saw that his rented BMW was still there. An expensive car parked at a trailhead this far from the crime scene shouldn’t be suspicious, but even if police checked out the BMW, they would discover it was rented to a small, law-abiding Virginia consulting firm.

Fifteen minutes later, a chubby couple in their late forties welcomed him into their bed-and-breakfast, a Victorian gingerbread house just off a tiny village green.

Not exactly where police would expect a deranged slasher to spend the night.

Jesse was in no mood for good cheer, but when the couple smiled at him, he smiled back. “Great day to be out in the mountains. I hope I’m not too late?”

“Not at all.”

Nothing in their manner indicated they’d heard about the knife attacks and the search for the man responsible.

The husband, who sported a beard of his own, led Jesse upstairs to a cottage-style room with its own bath. “Breakfast starts at eight,” he said, “but if you want it earlier -”

“Eight’s perfect. Thank you.”

“Are you hiking tomorrow?”

“I’m climbing Mount Washington.”

The man nodded with approval. “Good for you. I used to climb it once a year, but I have a bad knee. Got to keep going while you can, I always say. Your first time up Mount Washington?”

No. He’d climbed it at least a dozen times. But Jesse smiled and tried to look humble, even a little nervous. “It’s my first visit to the White Mountains.”

“ Mount Washington ’s a challenging climb. People often underestimate it. Tomorrow’s supposed to be decent weather, although you never know. You can start out in sunny, seventy degree weather, and by the time you’re on the summit, the fog’s rolled in and you’re fighting seventy-mile-an-hour wind gusts.”

“I hope that doesn’t happen to me.”

When he was finally alone, his door shut and locked behind him, Jesse poured a bath, making the water as hot as he could stand. He dumped in half a bottle of a fancy bath and shower gel. It didn’t smell too girlie, and it foamed up nicely.

While the tub filled, he trimmed his beard. He’d shave in the morning. If his hosts asked, he’d just say it was for good luck climbing big, bad Mount Washington.

He rinsed out the sink and turned off the tub faucet, then lowered himself into the hot water. He sat in the bath until his skin was fiery-red and wrinkled and his mind was clear. He returned his focus to where it belonged, on betrayal, on men who would cut deals with him and then try to double-cross him.

J. Harris Mayer.

Calvin Benton.

Jesse conjured up their faces and recognized how much he had come to hate both men, and he didn’t back off from that surge of raw emotion, the sheer violence that churned inside him.

“Bastards,” he whispered. “Who do they think they are?”

When he climbed out of the tub, he used two thick, white towels to dry himself off, then slathered on the entire contents of the little bottle of body lotion that came with the room. His skin was soft and pampered looking – not that of a man who’d just stabbed two women and made a mad dash over hill and dale to avoid the police.

He wiped the steam off the mirror with a corner of his towel and gazed at his reflection, less cadaverous now. He could acknowledge what he hadn’t been able to for the past hours.

“You failed, ace.” He leaned in close. “You didn’t complete your mission. Whatever ol’ Harris and Cal have on you, they still have.”

That and his money.

They still had the million dollars he was owed.

Jesse stood back from the mirror and dropped the towels onto the floor. For forty-two, he looked good. Hard. Fit. Mackenzie Stewart was fit and knew a few moves, but luck and luck alone had spared her today.

Don’t think about her.

But he pictured the shape of her breasts in her pink swimsuit, and he had to exhale to release some of the tension mounting inside him again.

“Stay on task.”

Something had happened to his voice. It wasn’t as strong, because he was thinking about the girl marshal, the water dripping from her hair, the vibrant blue of her eyes.

Jesse tightened both hands into fists, kept his gaze on his own reflection.

A nice, cool, even million wasn’t chump change. It was real money. Damned if he was going to let those two bastards blackmail him. It was his money, and he wanted it now. On his terms.

His identity, his money.

He needed to center himself, regroup, figure out what to do. If he didn’t cooperate with Cal Benton, would the cagey SOB keep the money and his insurance policy? Or would he go to the FBI? Would he try to use the information he had on Jesse to get more money?