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?
Anything was possible. Jesse knew he had to press forward, and so he would.
In the meantime, he thought, turning from the mirror, he would give himself tonight to indulge in his fantasies about his redheaded girl marshal.
Twelve
Rook produced a dented aluminum percolator from a lower cabinet in Bernadette Peacham’s simple kitchen and set it on the gas stove. He needed coffee, and soon. He’d passed a bad night in a small upstairs bedroom just big enough for a double bed and chest of drawers. It adjoined the room where Mackenzie had slept. He’d heard every move she made, every soft moan of pain – and a loon. The bird’s plaintive cry had woken him after he’d finally dozed off. It was a long time before he’d gone back to sleep.
Mackenzie yawned in her seat at the rectangular table alongside a shaded window. Behind her was a picture window with a view of the lake, where the rising mist was slowly burning off in the morning sun.
She pointed at the coffeepot. She’d pulled on shorts and a sweatshirt, but looked as if she could crawl back to bed. “Beanie’s had that pot for as long as I can remember.”
“It must be a hundred years old.”
“Fifty, anyway.”
The percolator required dismantling. Rook pulled it apart and set the pieces on the scarred Formica counter. Sunlight streamed through the windows. It was a beautiful summer morning – a good day for canoeing and a long walk on a lakeshore trail.
He added water to the stained line, then set the pot on the stove and found a can of inexpensive coffee in the refrigerator. Using the scoop inside, he dumped some of the contents to another stained line, inside the filter basket.
Mackenzie yawned again. “You forgot to put the cover on the filter. Once the coffee starts to perk, you’re going to end up with a mess.” She stretched out her legs, wincing, but not, he noticed, going as pale as she would have just twelve hours ago. She gave him a cheerful smile. “I don’t like grounds in my coffee.”
Rook pulled off the pot lid, put on the basket cover, replaced the top and turned on the gas stove. The burner came on with a poof, and he adjusted the flame. “It’d be a lot easier to run to a doughnut shop.”
“There are no doughnut shops around here. Closest one is…I don’t know. Fifteen, twenty miles, anyway.” She pushed back her hair, the curls more pronounced this morning. “You’d never make a good caretaker. Just as well you’re a mean SOB FBI agent.”