Mackenzie stared into Jesse’s eyes, remembering herself crouched in the woods and her father – so handsome, so strong – arguing with this intransigent, arrogant man. She’d sensed his violence. But she was only eleven, and if her father hadn’t known what Jesse would do, how could she?

She looked at Rook. “I know where Cal is.”

“The clearing?”

She nodded. “I’ll go. It’s just up the hill -”

“We’ll go together.” He grabbed Jesse by the shoulder. “On your feet, pal.”

Mackenzie scooped up Jesse’s knife and led the way to the clearing. It had been one of her favorite escapes when she’d first started wandering off on her own as a child, never imagining that anything out here could hurt her – or her family. Jesse had camped there, without permission, all those years ago. And her father had discovered him and worried that the young trespasser posed a danger to his daughter.

When they arrived at the clearing, no one was there. Sunlight shone on the field grass and ferns, and the shade shifted with the wind.

“You had your chance,” Jesse said. “You lose.”

Mackenzie didn’t even glance back at him. “You wouldn’t leave Cal out in the open,” she said, inspecting the trees along the edge of the clearing.

Behind her, Jesse kept talking. “The crooked bastard double-crossed me. Harris helped him.” Anger and entitlement crept into his voice. “I only want what’s mine.”

“There he is.”

Mackenzie crouched under the low, dead branches of a hemlock. Cal was shoved up against the trunk, bound and gagged and in clear physical distress. “Don’t try to move,” she said gently, strands of her hair catching in branches, the acidic smell of pitch and brown needles filling her nostrils. “Hang on, Cal, okay? Help is here.” His gag was yanked so tight, it cut into the sides of his mouth, and she had to use Jesse’s knife to cut it from him. Gingerly, she pulled the bandana from his mouth. “More help’s on the way. We’ll get you to a hospital.”

He blinked at her, tried to speak, then tried again. “Beanie?”

“She’s fine.” Mackenzie couldn’t remember him ever referring to the woman he’d married by her nickname. “Gus is with her.”

“Gus…those two…” Cal’s shoulders sagged, his head lolling to one side, but his eyes focused on Mackenzie. “Jesse – I wanted to get him out of my life. All our lives.”

“Save your strength, okay? We can talk later.”

She cut his hands free. He was dehydrated, his arms and face bruised and beaten. He licked his parched lips, his tongue swollen. “He killed Lynn. She wasn’t…I helped Jesse extort money from her boss. But Lynn and I…” He caught Mackenzie’s fingers in his. “I loved her.”

Mackenzie thought of the photograph in Bernadette’s bloody hand. Lynn must have been the name of the blond woman with Cal.

“Jesse was right about the shed,” Cal whispered.

“What about the shed?”

But he drifted into unconsciousness. She felt for a pulse, but it was thready. She broke off dried branches above them, trying to give him more room, more air, and get a better look at him.

And she saw the blood on his lower left side.

She and Rook had gotten to Cal in time to save him from dehydration, exposure and a beating, but not from a stab wound – not, she realized now, from Jesse Lambert. Jesse had lied. There was no hope for Cal, no chance to save him regardless of what she or Bernadette or anyone did.

Cal was another of Jesse’s victims.

Thirty-Five

The loons circled in the water in front of the dock, closer to Bernadette’s house than usual, and Mackenzie wondered if they knew, on some instinctive level, that their presence was a comfort. As a child, she’d hide among the rocks and trees along the shore and watch them, always careful not to disturb them.

She stood on the threshold of the shed, smelling the lawn mower grease and the dust and the half-opened bag of composted cow manure. Bernadette was at the hospital, getting stitched up. Gus had accompanied her.

Cal had died before paramedics could get to him under the hemlock.

As she stepped into the shed, Mackenzie was aware of Rook behind her. “Before my father was hurt, it never occurred to me I could be in any danger out here at the lake. In town, maybe. But not here.”

“Sounds like a normal kid to me.”

“I suppose.”

She glanced back at Rook, any effects of his encounter with Jesse Lambert impossible to detect. She and Rook had turned Jesse over to the state police. Jurisdictional issues would get sorted out. In the meantime, the locals had their slasher in custody.

“You FBI types won’t object if I take a look around in here, will you?” she asked.

Rook shrugged. “Would it matter?”

Mackenzie didn’t answer. She was focused on what Cal had told her before he’d died. She found a sawhorse on the back wall and dragged it to the middle of the floor, near her father’s old bloodstains. He hadn’t been distracted or careless that day – and his maiming wasn’t an accident. Jesse had sabotaged the saw, setting off a chain reaction her father had been helpless to stop.

It had been one of Jesse Lambert’s early acts of deliberate, malicious violence.

Mackenzie was convinced there had been others over the years. They hadn’t started up again just with the attacks on her and the hiker last week, on Harris – on Bernadette and Cal. They’d been ongoing.

Instead of telling authorities that Harris had sicced Jesse on him, Cal had joined forces with them and profited. When he realized he was in too deep and couldn’t get out, he hadn’t come to authorities and confessed, tried to work out a deal, but decided to pressure Harris to help him get Jesse out of their lives once and for all.

And if their plan backfired, he wanted to lead Bernadette to answers.

Mackenzie started to climb onto the sawhorse, but Rook touched her arm and shook his head. “No way, Mac.”

“Relax. I used to climb trees all the time as a kid.”

“Not with a knife wound in your side.”

“It’s healing -”

“You don’t want to end up with a fresh set of stitches. Besides, I’m taller. And,” he added with a smile, “I used to climb trees as a kid, too.”

He had a point. She stepped back out of the way. “Have at it.”

With an agility that surprised her but probably shouldn’t have, he climbed onto the sawhorse and reached up into the rafters. “What am I looking for?”

“Money? Anything that seems out of the ordinary for a lake house shed.”

He hooked one arm on an exposed beam and reached up higher. “Ah. What about an overstuffed dry pack tucked up in the rafters?” He glanced down at her. “I think this might be what Jesse was after, Mac.”

Rook lowered the dry pack down to her. She set it on the concrete floor and pulled open the drawstrings, peering inside. “It doesn’t look as if there are any kayak supplies in here, that’s for sure.”

She noticed a yellow-lined sheet of paper folded into thirds and clipped to some kind of folder on top of the rest of the contents. She lifted out the folder and removed the paper.

“Mac,” Rook said as he dropped lightly next to her.

“I know. I’m not wearing gloves. We can separate my prints out from any others, if prints are going to matter.” She unfolded the paper. “I’m guessing they won’t.” She recognized the handwriting, large letters in black marker. “It’s from Cal. ‘Dear Bernadette: If something happens to me, bring the contents of this bag to the FBI. I’m sorry. Cal.’”

Rook set another overstuffed dry pack onto the floor. “He made his deal with the devil, all right. He and Harris never should have gotten mixed up with blackmail.”

“When you’re in a hole, stop digging.” Mackenzie opened up the file folder and flipped through the papers inside. “Spreadsheets. Addresses. A document map to the rest of the contents of the bag. Looks as if Cal turned the tables on Jesse and found out just about all there is to know about him. That should help prosecutors.” She shoved the folder and the note back where she’d found them. “What’s in this other bag?”