Abandon - Carla Neggers [69]
Mackenzie didn’t let him get to her. “The attack on me at the lake changes the equation. It happened on Beanie’s land, and that puts her under scrutiny. The police, the FBI, the marshals—reporters, even—will look into her background for any evidence she has a history with this man. The longer they can’t find him, the more likely her life at the lake will go under the microscope.”
“That means my life, too,” Cal said quietly. “I hadn’t looked at it that way.”
“Cal, she can’t find out about your brunette from the police or reporters. She needs to find out from you.”
“You saw me with a woman with dark hair?”
“Yes—shoulder-length dark hair. I was canoeing. You two were on the screen porch. There’s no need to—” She broke off midsentence and grimaced. “Oh, hell, Cal. She wasn’t the only one. There have been other women.”
He took in a sharp breath through his nose. “You have no right to judge me.”
“Just stating the facts.”
“I’m normally not that promiscuous,” Cal said. “The divorce affected me more than I thought it would. I guess I was sowing my wild oats ahead of the official paperwork. I’m hardly the first man to give in to…” He trailed off, waving a hand as if Mackenzie was free to finish his sentence for him.
She wished the spider would poke back up out of the decorative grasses and crawl across Cal’s foot. “I wish I’d gone canoeing someplace else that day. If you believe word of your affair—or affairs—is about to come out, will you at least tell Beanie before it does?”
He nodded. “I will. Right now, it’s not my biggest concern—or yours, I would think.” Clearing his throat, he reached into a side pocket of his pants and withdrew a folded sheet of paper. He opened it carefully, then showed it to her, revealing the police sketch of the man who’d attacked her a week ago. “Is this a decent likeness?”
“Except for the eyes,” she said. “It’s hard to capture just how soulless and eerie they were. Why? Do you recognize him?”
He flipped the paper over on the fold, as if he wanted that face staring up at him. “I don’t know.” Cal seemed to regain some of his natural arrogance. “When I first saw the sketch last week, nothing hit me. But I keep thinking about it.”
“Keep thinking what, Cal?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. I can’t put my finger on it.” He thrust the sketch at her. “Do you suspect he’s one of the people Bernadette’s helped?”
Mackenzie took the paper but didn’t unfold it. She didn’t need to. “I have no idea.”
“You still haven’t been able to place where you’ve seen this man before?”
“Not yet, no.”
“Strange, isn’t it?” Cal he didn’t wait for her to reply. “I’ll call the detectives in New Hampshire and let them know he seems familiar to me, too. Maybe it’ll help, maybe it won’t.”
“I’ll follow up and let them know we’ve talked.”
He gave her a cool look. “Of course. If Bernadette did help this man, it’s more likely it was before I was in her life. She’s become more circumspect. I keep telling her she doesn’t need to engage in direct charity. She can give money to organizations and lend her credibility to her favorite causes.” He took out a folded handkerchief from his back pocket and blotted the sweat above his lip. “As she did with the literacy fund-raiser last week.”
Mackenzie tried not to show just how irritating and condescending she found him. “Beanie’s a generous person.”
“It’s odd, don’t you think, for someone who’s as tight with a dollar as she is?”
“Makes perfect sense to me. Charity isn’t always about money.”
“That’s because you’re from Cold Ridge, too. You all think alike up there.” He glanced at his watch. “I have to go.”
“Cal—”
“Thank you for coming.”
“You asked me here just to tell me you weren’t going to level with Beanie?”
He didn’t answer, simply shot up the walk toward the breezeway. Mackenzie, feeling the ninety-plus degree heat herself, stepped into the shade he’d vacated and debated whether to follow him and push him for more answers. Why he’d stopped at Rook’s house last night. What he knew about Harris Mayer’s whereabouts.
But she heard footsteps behind her, and