Abandon - Carla Neggers [3]
Even now, after almost a month, Rook couldn’t say for certain if he was dealing with a man in the know, with secrets that troubled him, or a rambling, self-important has-been desperate to be part of something important again.
Or both, Rook thought, watching Harris turn briskly down the hall toward the hotel’s main entrance. Whether he was on the level or a phony, he clearly hadn’t made up the friendship between Mackenzie Stewart and Judge Peacham.
“Just your luck, pal.”
Rook had met Mackenzie three weeks ago, on the night Harris had sent him to a Georgetown restaurant to witness Bernadette Peacham having dinner with her ex-husband, the significance of which remained a mystery to Rook. As he’d left the restaurant, the oppressive heat had given way to a steamy, torrential downpour. He’d found himself ducking into a coffee shop to wait out the rain, at the same time as a slim, blue-eyed redhead.
Not entirely a coincidence, apparently.
They’d exchanged phone numbers and met for a movie a couple of nights later.
So much for his relationship with Mackenzie Stewart, Rook thought. He couldn’t date someone who was even peripherally involved in his investigation. He left a few bills to cover his and Harris’s tab. He and Mackenzie had a date for dinner at his place tomorrow night. His nineteen-year-old nephew, who was living with him, would be off to the beach with friends for the weekend. Perfect timing.
Not anymore. After Harris’s little bombshell, Rook had no choice. He couldn’t mix business with pleasure. He had to cancel dinner with Mackenzie. He had a job to do.
Two
Mackenzie Stewart shoved a flannel shirt into her backpack with more force than was necessary. She had the air-conditioning turned up, but she was hot—hot and agitated and in no mood to have Nate Winter, perhaps the most observant man on the planet, in her kitchen with her.
Although it wasn’t technically her kitchen.
She was a temporary resident in a corner of a historic 1850s house in Arlington. Nate’s archaeologist wife, Sarah, was in charge of getting it open to the public, a task apparently fraught with twists, turns and setbacks. Just when she thought everything was under control, the place sprang unexpected, unexplained massive leaks. Some people were convinced the leaks were the work of the ghosts of Abraham Lincoln and Robert E. Lee, long-rumored to haunt the house. Mackenzie didn’t believe in ghosts. She blamed worn-out plumbing.
Nate and Sarah, pregnant with their first child, had moved into a house of their own in the spring. Sarah had offered the caretaker’s quarters to Mackenzie when she arrived in Washington six weeks ago. While she looked for a place of her own, Mackenzie could be a presence at the historic house, discouraging ghosts and potential vandals, and staying alert for new leaks.
She zipped up her backpack. She was in shorts, but was still hot. “Nate, did you and Sarah ever encounter Abe and Bobby E. while you were living here?”
Sitting at the small kitchen table, Nate watched her with a level of scrutiny that got to most people. He was a feet-flat-on-the-floor senior deputy marshal, tall, lean and notoriously impatient. He, too, was from Cold Ridge, New Hampshire, and Mackenzie had known him all her life. He was like the big brother she’d never had, and he didn’t scare her.
“I never did,” he said.
“Meaning Sarah did?”
He shrugged. “You’d have to talk to her.”
Mackenzie suspected that if Nate had his way, her first assignment as a federal agent would have been in Alaska or Hawaii, not his backyard. He worked at the U.S. Marshals headquarters in Arlington, and she was assigned to the Washington district office—still too close for his comfort. If she flamed out on her first assignment, better she wasn’t right under his nose.
If