Carla Neggers - Abandon

“I don’t know anything about your dealings with Cal. If you give me more to go on, perhaps I can help you.”

He nodded toward the open shed. “Let’s take a look in there. Okay, Judge?”

As if she had a choice in the matter. But she knew she had to do what she could to delay him. “Why?”

“Because I’ve been trying to think like Cal, and I figure he’d hide what I’m looking for in a place where he could secretly stick it to you.”

“But -”

Jesse shook his head. “No more stalling, Beanie.” He waved his knife at her in a threatening manner. “Into the shed.”

If he killed her, she thought, she hoped he’d make a quick job of it. If he was as skilled a fighter as he wanted her to believe, he could kill her instantly with a quick, targeted stab to the heart.

Don’t go quietly. Fight him to the end.

Surprised at her steadiness, she went ahead of him into the shed. Her knees were shaking, but not, she hoped, visibly. She didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of seeing her tremble in fear.

She noticed the tools hung neatly on hooks and nails, each a potential weapon. She’d never attacked anyone before in her life, but she knew she could do it if she had to.

“I searched Cal’s condo,” Jesse said, remaining between her and the shed’s only door. “I went through your house in Washington. You didn’t even know, did you? You should have a better alarm system. It’s not 1950 anymore.”

Her heart thumped wildly in her chest, but she manufactured a smile. “You’re probably right. Look, if Cal stole something from you, I don’t blame you for being upset.”

Jesse didn’t seem to hear her. With his free hand, he pulled something out of his shirt pocket – thick paper, folded in half.

A photograph.

He flipped it onto the floor in front of Bernadette. “Pick it up.”

She hesitated. Jesse wasn’t allowing himself to be distracted from his search for whatever it was he thought he’d find there. She knelt down slowly, the image on the paper at her feet taking shape.

It was a picture of Cal, the man with whom she’d once planned to spend the rest of her life, in bed with a pretty, fair-haired woman.

In my bed here at the lake.

The bastard hadn’t even had the courtesy to use one of the guest rooms.

“You took this picture?” she asked, angling a look up at Jesse.

“It was easy enough. If they’d been upstairs…” He shrugged, obviously pleased with himself. “That would have been more difficult.”

“Have you ever spied on me?”

“I wasn’t spying. I was collecting information – intelligence, if you will, that I could use when I saw fit. I don’t believe for one second that Cal feels inferior to you. You worried about that, didn’t you?”

Bernadette stared at Jesse as he spoke so calmly and rationally, as if they were best friends discussing personal matters over a beer. “I -” She couldn’t focus on what to say. “Jesse, please. Tell me why you’re here. What do you want?”

“He’s shallow,” Jesse said. “Your ex-husband. He doesn’t believe in anything but his own bank account and his pleasures. That kind of cynicism is tough.” He gave her a long look, as if he expected her to see something she hadn’t noticed before. “Why aren’t you cynical, Beanie Peacham?”

The voice…the eyes…

Bernadette clutched her chest and sank onto her knees. “Oh, my God.”

Jesse smiled and lowered his face to hers. “You remember me now, don’t you?”

The cool breeze off the water made Mackenzie shiver, but it felt good. A year ago on a beautiful Saturday in August, she’d have been kayaking by now, contemplating what life would be like if the Marshals Service accepted her for training.

Now, she knew.

She started onto the bottom step of Bernadette’s screen porch, but saw the shed door propped open and headed down the slowing lawn. If Bernadette was preoccupied with Harris’s death and in a prickly mood after Gus’s revelation about Cal, she would turn to activity – to doing something useful. She’d mow, dig weeds, finally paint her flea-market table.

“Hey, Beanie,” Mackenzie called, in case Bernadette hadn’t heard her car in the driveway. “Gorgeous day, isn’t it?”

As she approached the shed, she resisted an outright shudder and pushed back the overpowering sense of dread she’d felt so often as a child when she’d get near it. She’d envision monsters in there in the dark, as if somehow the prospect of monsters would mitigate the blur of real memories she had – of her father’s blood and moans, of her own terror and guilt. Ever since that awful day when she’d found her father, her memories of what had happened were jumbled up with nightmares, trauma, fear and confusion over which of the images stuck in her head were real and which weren’t.

She heard a sound – a groan – and immediately drew her gun.

“Beanie – what’s going on?”

But there was no answer. Careful not to expose herself more than was necessary, Mackenzie moved toward the shed, the door swung open. She squinted against the bright sun and angled a look inside.

“Beanie?”

“I’m okay.” Bernadette’s voice was high-pitched, laced with fear. “He’s gone…”

She staggered into the doorway, her face ashen as she gripped her left shoulder with her right hand. Blood oozed through her fingers and down her wrist.

With her free arm, Mackenzie caught Bernadette around the waist and held on, taking her friend’s weight. “I’ve got you. It’s okay. Is anyone -”

“No one’s in the shed. He heard your car and ran.”

They edged out of the shed. Bernadette looked on the verge of passing out, but she rallied as she sat on the grass, her hand still clutching her shoulder.

“Who ran, Beanie?” Mackenzie asked.

“Jesse – Jesse Lambert.” Bernadette grimaced, sinking slightly. “Damn, this thing hurts. At least it’s not deep.”

“Let me see.”

Bernadette shook her head, with the authority of a woman accustomed to commanding a courtroom. But her eyes, normally a light green, were dark and glassy with pain and fear. “He says Cal will die if I -” She broke off, wincing in pain, then continued. “He wants something Cal stole from him. I don’t know. I couldn’t make sense of half of what he said.”

Mackenzie noticed something – a paper of some kind – stuck in Bernadette’s bloodstained hand. “Beanie, what’s that?”

She seemed confused. “What?” But she drew her hand from the wound in her shoulder. A photograph, smeared with blood, stuck to her palm. “Oh.” She stared at it, then pried it loose. “Here, see for yourself.”

Mackenzie made out the bloodstained image.

Cal’s blonde. She felt a pang of sympathy for her friend. “This Jesse showed the picture to you?”

“As if it were a trophy.”

“I’m sorry you had to see such a thing.” But Mackenzie shifted her attention to Bernadette’s wound, a slash across the meat of the shoulder and down to the collarbone. “Here.” She pulled off her jacket. “Use this for compression. Hold it as tight as you can against the cut. Okay?”

“He didn’t want to kill me. He could have, but he -” Bernadette stopped herself, taking the jacket, pressing it against her bleeding shoulder. “I can call the police.” She gave Mackenzie a weak smile. “As backup for you. I know – you are the police.”

“I can’t leave you. If he doubles back -”

“You won’t let him.” Bernadette staggered to her feet, pushing away Mackenzie’s hand and looking back at the shed. “This man…Jesse…I should have recognized him…”

Mackenzie stiffened. “Why, Beanie?”