Abandon by Carla Neggers Read Free Book Online Page B

where she’d promptly stolen a jackknife and a couple of packs of waterproof matches.
    Almost twenty years later, she couldn’t remember the emotion that had driven her to pocket things that weren’t hers, only the deep shame and anger—at herself, at everyone—when Gus had caught her.
    And Bernadette’s talk. Mackenzie remembered that. The law, Bernadette had explained, wasn’t about seeing what you could get away with. Red lights weren’t to be obeyed just when a police car was in sight. They were there for the welfare and safety of everyone.
    She’d never mentioned Mackenzie’s parents and how preoccupied and overwhelmed they were. In retrospect, Mackenzie understood that was why Gus had taken her to Bernadette and not them.
    Blunt and straightforward, their neighbor had offered Mackenzie use of her library of books at the lake. She could take them home with her, or she could sit out on the porch or the dock and read to her heart’s content. When Bernadette was in Washington, she allowed Mackenzie to let herself into the lake house for a fresh supply of books.
    As she swam back to the dock now, Mackenzie felt the tension of the past two days fall away.
    She climbed out of the water, shivering when the breeze hit her wet skin. She grabbed her towel, quickly drying her arms.
    The door to the utility shed off to the right of the dock had blown open. Bernadette often didn’t bother with the padlock. There was nothing of great importance in the shed—canoes, kayaks, paddles, life jackets, swimming noodles, lawn mower and garden tools.
    Even so, it wasn’t Mackenzie’s favorite place.
    Its wide door, stained the same dark brown as the house, creaked in a gust of wind.
    She draped the towel over her shoulders and stepped off the dock onto a path of gravel and sharp stones that she’d avoided on her run down from the house. As a kid, she wouldn’t have even noticed the stones under her bare feet.
    She heard a rustling sound in the brush between the shed and the shoreline and stopped, peering into the tangle of small birches and pines, thigh-high ferns, blackberry vines and invasive Japanese barberry so thick with thorns, nothing could get through it.
    Wild turkeys? A squirrel?
    Behind the shed were woods laced with paths that led to favorite spots along the lake, connected with trails that eventually snaked up into the mountains.
    Mackenzie listened for a few seconds, but when she heard nothing more she draped her towel over one shoulder and reached for the shed door.
    A guttural sound—a low growl—came from the brush. She turned quickly, just as something leaped out of the bushes, coming at her.
    A man. Dark hair, a beard.
    Mackenzie jumped back, but he was diving for her, slashing at her.
    A knife.
    She reacted instantly, adrenaline flooding her senses, and hooked her beach towel around her right arm to block another slash of his knife. Quickly, she grabbed his wrist, pointing the knife to the dirt path, and simultaneously locked his elbow in place with her other hand. She gave his wrist a sharp, hard twist away from her.
    He groaned in pain, but still gripped the knife.
    With the side of her foot she delivered a quick, hard kick to the inside of his knee.
    The knife dropped from his hand, and he screamed in pain, sinking to the dirt.
    Maintaining her hold on his forearm, Mackenzie kicked the knife into the brush. Her attacker smelled of rancid sweat, and his beard was unkempt. His hair was wild, dirty, streaked with gray. He wore scarred hiking boots, lightweight khaki-green pants and a sweat-stained tan T-shirt.
    White-flecked pale eyes stared up at her.
    Those eyes…
    She’d seen him before.
    She felt something warm oozing down her left side but didn’t let herself look.
    “You’re bleeding,” he said, grinning at her. “I cut you.”
    He wasn’t lying. She could feel the pain now, searing, overtaking the adrenaline that had protected her in the first seconds of injury. But the wound couldn’t be