Rook opened it up and gave a low whistle when he peeked inside. “Cash,” he said. “A hell of a lot of cash.”

Mackenzie let out a breath. “If Cal had just taken this stuff to us – to Beanie -” She didn’t finish. “He always thought he knew better. Information and access were his strengths. Now, they’ll help us unravel what this Jesse Lambert has been up to. Other victims and associates. Who knows.” Her gaze landed on her father’s old bloodstains. “Want to bet there are more violent crimes in his past?”

“Cal and Harris might not have realized they were dealing with a violent man until it was too late.”

“Maybe so.”

Suddenly restless, Mackenzie pushed out into the air and down to the lake, splashing into the shallow water. The loons were gone. She stood on a rock, the wind gusting in her face.

Aware of Rook on the shore behind her, she said, “When Jesse attacked me last week, I remembered his eyes. They were like something I’d conjured up in a nightmare.”

“Repressed memory.”

“I’ve always known I was in the woods the day of my father’s accident, but I never could remember the details.” She glanced back at Rook, but he wasn’t a man who was easy to read. “I must have conflated what I did that day – the actual events – with my nightmares. After a while, I couldn’t distinguish one from the other.”

Making it look easy, Rook jumped to the exposed rock next to hers without getting his feet wet or losing his balance. “You were a little kid,” he said. “This bastard manipulated you. He becomes other people’s nightmare.” Rook was silent a moment. “That’s what Harris tried to tell me.”

“He should have been straight with you.”

She heard a car in the driveway. More cops, she thought. But when she looked back at Bernadette’s yard, she saw Carine wave and break into a run. “Mackenzie!”

Nate was behind his sister, his wife at his side. He wasn’t here as a senior federal agent, Mackenzie realized, but as a friend.

Rook winked at her. “You do the talking.”

“Scared of Nate, are you?”

He grinned. “Not even a little.”

Thirty-Six

After all the various investigators – local, state and federal – had left, T. J. Kowalski joined Rook and Mackenzie at the lake. “Quite a place,” he said, settling into one of the Adirondack chairs in front of the stone fireplace. “I’ve never seen a loon, you know.”

Mackenzie smiled. “You might hear one tonight.”

“If I can stand the bugs and the cold.”

Rook had built a fire and pulled his chair close to the flames. The night was chilly, but Bernadette had old wool blankets just for that purpose. Mackenzie had one opened up on her lap. But T.J. didn’t look that cold to her.

“Long day,” she said.

He shrugged. “Not for me. I took a nice plane ride north and talked to a few people. You and Rook are the ones who did the heavy lifting.” He didn’t smile, and in the light of the fire, his eyes were without humor. “Sorry I wasn’t here to back you two up.”

“If Jesse had managed to get away from here, you’d have kept his plane on the ground.”

“We had him,” T.J. acknowledged without pride. “Just not in time to save Harris Mayer or Cal Benton.”

Rook tossed another log on the fire. “They made their deal with the devil.”

T.J. nodded. “What about Judge Peacham?”

“Doctors are keeping her at the hospital overnight as a precaution,” Mackenzie said. “They’re watching for infection – the knife wound nicked muscle. She says we’re all welcome to stay here and toast marshmallows and listen to the loons.”

But another car arrived, Nate and Joe Delvecchio walking down to the fire.

T.J. gave a low whistle. “Guess the marshmallows and loons will have to wait.”

“Welcome to life as a federal agent, Mac,” Rook said with a hint of amusement.

She smiled at them both. “Fine with me.”

On Sunday, after she was released from the hospital, Bernadette insisted on sitting out on her screened porch. It was a warm afternoon, with almost no wind. Mackenzie joined her, trying not to hover because, even after two years of marriage, Bernadette Peacham was a woman accustomed to her own company.

“New Hampshire isn’t going to give up Jesse anytime soon,” she said, sounding more like a judge than an injured victim. “They’ll want to try him here – for Cal’s murder.” But the words seemed to hit her like a fresh wound, and she faltered, although only for a moment. “Chances are you’ll have to testify.”

“I don’t mind,” Mackenzie said.

“It won’t be easy to see him again, but at least you’ll know he can’t hurt anyone else.” Bernadette flopped back against her wicker chair, her face ashen just twenty-four hours after her encounter with Jesse – after learning that Cal was dead. “All these years, Mackenzie, and I had no idea that your father’s mishap wasn’t an accident. I feel like such a sap.”

“You and Dad tried to get rid of Jesse.”

“Your father tried to get rid of him. I can’t say I did much of anything.”

“But you never helped Jesse,” Mackenzie said. “Don’t beat yourself up, Beanie.”

She stared out at the lake. “I let people take advantage of me.”

“Don’t we all, at some point in our lives?”

She snorted. “I did repeatedly.”

Mackenzie almost smiled at her friend’s sudden drama. “There’s nothing wrong with giving someone a helping hand, Beanie. Most people you’ve helped – including me – appreciate it.”

“I’ve never…” She fought back obvious tears. “I’ve just never felt so damn alone.”

“You’re a brilliant and generous woman, Beanie, and you have good friends, people who care about you – people who don’t want anything from you.” Mackenzie smiled. “For example, Gus Winter.”

“He’s always been there, hasn’t he? For all of us. He and his brother would come out here to the lake as teenagers – Jill and I were friends.”

Bernadette drifted into silence, and out on the lake, Mackenzie could hear the familiar, eerie cry of a loon. She wondered if T.J. heard it. He and Rook had taken two of the kayaks out onto the lake, leaving her alone with Bernadette.

“The worst day of my life was when Harry and Jill died up on Cold Ridge,” she said. “It was such a freak thing. They’d never have gone up there if they’d known the weather would turn like that. How do you get over such a tragedy?” But she didn’t wait for Mackenzie to respond and stood up, moving to the screen and gazing out at the water and woods that had been home to Peachams for decades. “Well, I can tell you – you don’t.”

Mackenzie remained in her wicker chair, remembering Carine explaining to her what it was like to have become an orphan at three years old. “That was the worst,” she said. “And to leave behind three children.”

Bernadette looked away from the lake, her incisive gaze now on her neighbor from across the lake. “But the scope of that tragedy made it all too easy for us all to minimize other things that happened here in the valley. It gave us a perspective we wouldn’t have had otherwise, and we tried – I think we all tried to let it make us stronger, better people. Wiser, even. Because what other choice was there?”

“Beanie.” Mackenzie thought she could see where this was going. “Please. Don’t judge yourself.”

“We were all too slow to recognize the effects of what happened to your father on you. Kevin hadn’t died up on the ridge. You weren’t orphaned.” She sighed, turning away from the screen and sitting back down. “Well. The past is what it is. I can’t take any of what I did back.”

“None of us can,” Mackenzie said.

Bernadette frowned at her. “You’re so young. You can’t have many regrets. What would you do differently?”

“For starters, I’d have recognized Jesse when he slashed me.”

“That was only a week ago!”

“It’s in the past. It counts.”

At first, Bernadette look dumbstruck, a rarity for her. Then, all at once, she burst into laughter. “Oh, Mackenzie. I swear, if changing anything about the past made you any different…” But she didn’t finish, just motioned toward the lake with the arm on her uninjured side. “I want you to have your own spot on this lake.”