“Mac…”
She climbed onto him, felt the heat and hardness of him. It was dark now, and the breeze felt cool on her skin. “I don’t need to think,” she said as he reached for her breasts, cupping them as she rose up, then lowered herself onto him.
They made love slowly, thoroughly, pushing off any doubts and questions for another time.
Twenty-Nine
Jesse shivered in the cold, early morning mountain air and crept across the bare rock to Cal, who hadn’t moved much in the past three hours. They’d made camp amid a cluster of granite boulders well off the main trails in the hills above Bernadette Peacham’s lake house. No tent or sleeping bags, just a couple of emergency blankets that packed up to the size of a deck of cards.
“Morning, Cal.”
Jesse pulled the gag from Cal’s mouth, not that Cal showed any gratitude. He coughed and spat. “You sadistic bastard. I could have died.”
“Died of what?”
“Thirst, choking on my own spit – I could hardly breathe.” He hacked some more, turning red. “Bastard.”
“If you were in danger of dying, I’d have woken up.” Jesse calmly cut the ropes on his captive’s hands and feet. “Give yourself a couple minutes for the circulation to return.”
He’d had three hours sleep himself, max. He’d picked up Cal yesterday after his little tête-à-tête with Mackenzie Stewart and took him out to the airport, stuffing him in his plane and debating whether just to shove him out over the Atlantic. For years to come, people could wonder whatever happened to Calvin Benton, Judge Peacham’s ex-husband.
Instead, Jesse fed and watered the turncoat and flew him up to New Hampshire, then dragged him into the hills. Clearly, nothing about the White Mountains calmed or rejuvenated Cal. He’d gone silent, tight and tense, obviously plotting his way out of the mess he was in.
The mountains had focused Jesse’s mind. Dragging Cal up there overnight maybe hadn’t been the greatest idea, but leaving him in Washington to cut his own deal with the FBI, or whatever, wasn’t an option. Now that Deputy Mackenzie and her FBI guy had found Harris, the police and the media were all over his death. She and Rook weren’t identified in media reports, but Jesse knew it had been them. They’d found the rooming house. Was it because of Bernadette Peacham? Her friendship with Harris?
Doesn’t matter.
Of course, the reporters were all saying Harris was murdered. Jesse considered what he’d done that night was self-defense at its most elemental and pure.
Cal slowly rubbed his wrists and ankles where the rope had cut deep into his fair skin. “I will die, anyway, won’t I?” His tone was surprisingly matter-of-fact. “Sooner or later, I’ll pay for my sins.”
“We all pay for our sins.”
With the passage of the cold front yesterday, the air was downright chilly. Jesse could have slept for hours, if not for Cal gagged and bound a few feet from him. Awake, Jesse had his assault knife to keep his prisoner in line. Asleep, he needed Cal quiet and immobile.
“Oh, God.” Cal abruptly rolled onto the knees and vomited into the dirt, moaning as he finished up and sat back on his heels, his face ashen. “Damn you to hell, Jesse. Harris was right about you. You are the devil.”
“We had a good arrangement, Cal. You profited, Harris profited, I profited.”
“But for how long? You’d never take your million and go way. You’d be back for more. You wouldn’t be satisfied, and I’d get in deeper and deeper, until one day I found myself in the middle of a scandal, just like Harris.” Cal’s voice croaked, and he spat again. He looked haggard, his lips cracked dry from the gag. “I didn’t want to end up like him.”
Jesse thought of the way he’d left Harris at the rooming house. “That I can understand, but you should have come to me, talked to me. Treated me like an equal, a partner, instead of something you wanted to scrape off the bottom of your shoe.”
“I don’t have any intention of keeping one cent of your money. The rest is just to make sure you go away and never come back.”
Jesse opened up a plastic water bottle and handed it to Cal. “Don’t drink too fast. You’ll throw up again.”
“Do you think I care?” But he drank, water spilling down his chin like drool, and he didn’t stop until he’d drained the bottle. He tossed it aside, not bothering to wipe his mouth. “I wish I’d run you over on the street when I first met you.”
“Yes, well, you didn’t,” Jesse said. “Stop thinking about jumping me now. You’re in no condition, and I’ll kill you.”
“If you kill me, you won’t get your damn money or anything else.”
“Your ex-wife -”
“Bernadette doesn’t know anything. Just leave her out of this mess.”