Carla Neggers - Abandon

But when Bernadette turned back to her, Mackenzie could hear her father arguing with a man twenty years ago.

“Find another place to camp, Jesse. You’re trespassing. Time to move on.”

She’d been hiding in the trees, playing spy. Her father and the younger man didn’t know she was there.

“You remember him now, don’t you?” Bernadette asked quietly, but she didn’t wait for an answer. “Your father kicked him off the property.”

“I know. I remember.” Mackenzie’s voice was just above a whisper. “He was worried about my safety – and yours.”

“It wasn’t your fault,” Bernadette said.

Mackenzie forced herself out of the past. “It doesn’t matter right now. Andrew Rook is on the way. He shouldn’t be too far behind me.” She saw that Bernadette’s color had improved, and she seemed focused, able to handle a call to 911. “If he gets here before I’m back, tell him to meet me at the clearing we went to last Saturday.”

“Mackenzie -”

“I can’t take the time to explain now. Beanie, are you sure you can do this?”

“Yes.” She gave a faltering smile. “I know you marshals don’t like federal judges to get slashed, but please don’t worry about me. Just go, Mackenzie. Do what you have to do. Be safe.”

Mackenzie waited just long enough to make sure Bernadette wasn’t going to pass out on the porch steps before, gun in hand, she ducked through the brush, a barberry scratching her arm as she fought her way out to the trail along the lake.

A red squirrel scurried in front of her.

“Be out of here by noon or I call the police.”

Not a nightmare, she thought. A memory. But she felt the pull of her own healing knife wound and focused on the present. On finding Jesse Lambert, the man who’d attacked her, the hiker and Bernadette – and who’d tried to kill her father all those years ago, and just last week had succeeded in killing Harris Mayer.

Mackenzie knew she had to find Cal, because if he’d stolen from this man – this Jesse Lambert – then Bernadette was right.

Jesse would kill him.

Rook pulled in behind what he assumed was Mackenzie’s car in Bernadette Peacham’s lake house driveway. The judge, he noticed, drove a basic sedan that wasn’t fancy, expensive or new. But she had this place, he thought as he got out of his car. He stood in the shade of a tall maple, its leaves rustling in a steady breeze, the air cooler than it had been last week. T.J. was en route. He’d made a joke about all roads leading to New Hampshire, but it fell flat, neither he nor Rook in any mood for humor. The search of Jesse Lambert’s condominium had yielded information on a small plane that was now parked at an airstrip about an hour’s drive from Cold Ridge.

Rook appreciated the clear air and the view of the sparkling lake, but he felt a ripple of uneasiness. Why wasn’t Mackenzie out here already, pressing him for details on what he and T.J. had found in Washington?

He walked around to the front of the house, hearing the door to the screen porch bang shut.

Clinging to the rail with one hand, Bernadette Peacham staggered down the steps. “Agent -” She clutched a bloody hand to her shoulder. “Agent Rook…we have a situation here.”

He leaped to her side, grabbing her around the waist. Her hands and the front of her shirt were smeared with blood, but Rook saw it was from a cut in her shoulder. “Here, sit down.” He lowered her onto a step. “Where’s Mackenzie?”

“You have to go after her. I’ve called 911. The cavalry’s on the way.”

He heard a vehicle in the driveway behind the house.

“Gus,” Bernadette Peacham said, then tried to smile. “I recognize the rattle.”

“Tell me what happened,” Rook said.

“Mackenzie’s gone after Jesse Lambert. He’s -”

“I know who he is. He stabbed you?”

She nodded. “To give himself a head start. He – he has Cal stashed somewhere. I think Mackenzie knows where.”

Gus Winter rounded the house. “Beanie -” His gaze took in the bloodstains, her pale face. “Ah, hell.”

“Don’t get hysterical, Gus, for heaven’s sake,” she said sharply. “I’m fine. You and Agent Rook need to go after Mackenzie.”

Gus sat next to her on the steps. “Rook’ll go. He’s armed to the teeth. I’ll sit here with you.”

Bernadette gripped his hand, her eyes shining with tears, but she rallied, looking up a Rook. “She said to find her at a clearing -”

“I know the spot.”

“The local police must be right behind you,” she said, but Rook was already on his way across the lawn and into the woods.

Mackenzie crossed the rock-strewn stream in a single leap and cleared the mud on the opposite side with inches to spare. A small victory after last Saturday’s miss. With her weapon in hand, she headed up the trail, listening for anything out of the ordinary – the crack of a fallen branch, excited birds, chattering squirrels. Anything that suggested that Jesse Lambert had taken cover nearby.

She wasn’t worried about him shooting her sniper-style. He liked knives.

And he liked getting under her skin. No fun in just shooting her.

She moved steadily, familiar with every exposed root and rock on the trail, focused on what she needed to do now – not on what had happened twenty years ago.

That could wait.

She heard a distinct rustling sound in the undergrowth to her left. It stopped abruptly.

Not a squirrel or a bird, Mackenzie thought, ducking behind an old sugar maple on the right side of the trail. “Come out, Jesse,” she said. “Put your hands in the air and show yourself.”

The man from last week – Jesse Lambert – jumped lightly from the cover of trees and brush, landing in the middle of the trail a few feet from her. He opened his hands for her. “See? Not armed.” He grinned, cocky, unconcerned. “I knew you’d come.”

Staying close to the tree, Mackenzie pointed her gun at him. “Get your hands up, Jesse. Now. Hands up!”

“Mackenzie, Mackenzie.” Still grinning, he kept his hands open and took a half step closer to her. “Here we are again after all these years. It’s fate, don’t you see?”

She ignored him. “I’m a federal agent, and I’m ordering you to get your hands up. Now!”

“You know who I am, don’t you, Deputy?” The soulless, colorless eyes gleamed, and he lowered his voice. “I’m the man in your little-girl nightmares.” He waved his fingers at her, as if to taunt her, tell her that, even without a gun in hand, he was in control. “If you shoot me, you won’t find Cal in time. He’ll die. You’re just a rookie agent, Mackenzie. You’re small. You’ve never shot anyone for real. You know you can’t handle me by yourself.”

“Last time, Jesse -”

“You’re just as helpless as you were at eleven, when your daddy was trying to protect you.”

She knew he was trying to get to her, but she wasn’t going to let him. “I’m not saying it again. Hands up.”

“You can’t shoot an unarmed man.”

“How do I know you’re unarmed? I wouldn’t know until I’ve cuffed you and searched you.” She could feel the weight of the gun, the pull of pain in her knife wound, but she kept her voice steady, her focus on him. “So, are you going to cooperate or not?”

“Mackenzie, you’re the reason your father kicked me out of here all those years ago. You know that now, don’t you? He didn’t trust me near you.”

Her father had always been a good judge of character, but Mackenzie refused to indulge Jesse by commenting. She’d practiced this scenario dozens of times – the uncooperative, unarmed suspect. The appropriate use of deadly force. With her injured side, she wasn’t in the best shape to tackle him.