Not a squirrel or a bird, Mackenzie thought, ducking behind an old sugar maple on the right side of the trail. “Come out, Jesse,” she said. “Put your hands in the air and show yourself.”
The man from last week – Jesse Lambert – jumped lightly from the cover of trees and brush, landing in the middle of the trail a few feet from her. He opened his hands for her. “See? Not armed.” He grinned, cocky, unconcerned. “I knew you’d come.”
Staying close to the tree, Mackenzie pointed her gun at him. “Get your hands up, Jesse. Now. Hands up!”
“Mackenzie, Mackenzie.” Still grinning, he kept his hands open and took a half step closer to her. “Here we are again after all these years. It’s fate, don’t you see?”
She ignored him. “I’m a federal agent, and I’m ordering you to get your hands up. Now!”
“You know who I am, don’t you, Deputy?” The soulless, colorless eyes gleamed, and he lowered his voice. “I’m the man in your little-girl nightmares.” He waved his fingers at her, as if to taunt her, tell her that, even without a gun in hand, he was in control. “If you shoot me, you won’t find Cal in time. He’ll die. You’re just a rookie agent, Mackenzie. You’re small. You’ve never shot anyone for real. You know you can’t handle me by yourself.”
“Last time, Jesse -”
“You’re just as helpless as you were at eleven, when your daddy was trying to protect you.”
She knew he was trying to get to her, but she wasn’t going to let him. “I’m not saying it again. Hands up.”
“You can’t shoot an unarmed man.”
“How do I know you’re unarmed? I wouldn’t know until I’ve cuffed you and searched you.” She could feel the weight of the gun, the pull of pain in her knife wound, but she kept her voice steady, her focus on him. “So, are you going to cooperate or not?”
“Mackenzie, you’re the reason your father kicked me out of here all those years ago. You know that now, don’t you? He didn’t trust me near you.”
Her father had always been a good judge of character, but Mackenzie refused to indulge Jesse by commenting. She’d practiced this scenario dozens of times – the uncooperative, unarmed suspect. The appropriate use of deadly force. With her injured side, she wasn’t in the best shape to tackle him.
“I wasn’t trying to kill your father. I just wanted him to suffer for not trusting me.”
She spotted Rook moving into position in the trees behind Jesse and decided to play him for more time. Push him. Let him make his move.
“Yeah, well, Jesse,” she said, “just give me an excuse to kill you, and I will. What about that poor woman you carved up last week in the mountains? That was to throw us off, wasn’t it? Make us think you were a deranged hiker picking his victims at random.”
He shrugged, obviously pleased with himself. “It worked.”
Bastard. “And Harris – you left him to rot like a dead rat in that rooming house.” Her arms were tired from holding up her Browning and keeping Jesse in her sight, but she didn’t waver. “Since you aren’t putting your hands up, as I’ve instructed you several times -”
“I want to go to Mexico and live out my life.” His voice took on a pleading note that she assumed was entirely phony, intended to manipulate her. “Why don’t you come with me? I have money, more than you’ll ever make as a marshal. I haven’t done anything someone similarly provoked wouldn’t have done. It was self-defense with Harris. Whatever happens to Cal is his own doing.”
“Shut up already. This conversation is over. I’ve had enough.”
That was her cue to Rook.
He leaped, tackling Jesse, both of them crashing to the ground. Mackenzie jumped forward, keeping her gun on Jesse.
A knife appeared in his hand. She reacted instantly, stepping on his wrist. He yelped in pain and released the knife. She quickly kicked it away from his reach and helped Rook cuff him and search him.
“Butcher,” she said, standing back from the man who’d maimed her father twenty years ago, who’d slashed her and another woman a week ago and had murdered Harris Mayer. “How many people have you carved up?”
Jesse leered at her. “More than you’ll ever know.”
Rook glanced at her. “Mac – you okay?”
She noticed the blood on her left side. “Just watching you two fight opened up my knife wound.” Actually, more likely jumping over the stream had, but she figured he knew that. “You were stealthy for a city guy, Rook. I’m impressed. I expected an elephant tramping through the woods.”
Jesse spat into the grass. “Cal’s dead because of you.”
“If he dies,” Rook said, “it’ll be because of you.”
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 -”