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.”
“I’m not mean.”
“I meant to say professional. A professional federal law enforcement officer.”
“How long do I let the coffee perk?”
“Exactly eight minutes, according to Beanie. If it boils, we’ll end up with rotgut. I can’t drink rotgut. I’m injured.”
He cast her a skeptical look. “You’re not that injured.”
She grinned at him, unrepentant. “What have I been saying?”
But she was injured, and Rook could see that fact had her more off balance than she wanted to acknowledge. She’d had an encounter with her own mortality yesterday. Her training as a marshal had helped her survive the attack, but it would only help so much in dealing with the emotional aftermath.
And she was new to law enforcement, he remembered.
He hoped her relative inexperience would help her deal with yesterday’s trauma rather than make it more difficult, but he realized he didn’t know her well enough to gauge her reactions. Maybe Gus Winter did. Or Carine. Or, back in Washington, Nate.
Rook was well aware he was the outsider among the people of Cold Ridge.
Mackenzie rose stiffly and pulled open the refrigerator. “Have you ever been in a knife fight?” she asked without looking at him.
“No. Not a knife fight.”
She glanced back at him. “Other kinds of fights?”
“None I didn’t walk away from.”
“And not all on the job, I’ll bet.” She reached into the refrigerator and pulled out a glass bottle of milk from a local dairy, setting it on the table. “I don’t like knives. The idea of stabbing someone – anyone – bothers me. But this guy yesterday? He likes knives. He likes being up close and personal.” She returned to the refrigerator for orange juice. “He liked seeing me cut.”
The coffee bubbled and Rook turned down the heat even more. “He stabbed the hiker and ran. He didn’t stick around to make sure she was dead or to savor the moment. With you, he had no choice but to run.”
“I don’t know, I got wobbly after I kicked him,” Mackenzie said. “He could have found his knife or grabbed a hammer from the shed – I’m not sure I could have stopped him.”
“You’d have found a way. He probably realized that.”
“I just don’t think I looked all that scary.”
Rook wasn’t fooled by her matter-of-fact tone. Now that she was safe, the stark reality of what had happened was starting to hit her. “Maybe you should talk to someone,” he suggested.
“Maybe we should find this guy.”
“No argument from me, but you’re hurt, Mac. At least give yourself today to rest.”
“I do better when I stay busy.”
He didn’t respond. She poured orange juice into a small glass and drank half in a single gulp. He remembered how he’d noticed her red curls on that rainy night in Georgetown. Then her blue eyes. Her freckles. And her shape, he recalled. She worked at her conditioning – running, weights, martial arts – and was at a high level of fitness, but she’d never carry a lot of muscle.
Not for half a second had he pegged her as a marshal. On that warm summer night, chatting while the rain pelted on the sidewalk outside the coffee shop, he’d just thought the pretty redhead across from him had been destined to cartwheel into his life. In some ways, he still did.
“I have a tentative doctor’s appointment this afternoon.” She sounded barely resigned to the idea. “When’s your flight back to D.C.?”
“Tonight.” He could easily reschedule, but she’d know that. “It was supposed to be an uneventful, quick trip up here.”
“Feel free to go about your business.”
He checked the clock above the stove. Another two minutes before the coffee was done. “Trying to get rid of me, Mac?”
“There’s no point in wasting more of your weekend up here, and if you still want to find Harris – well, he’s obviously not hiding out here at Beanie’s.”