Abandon by Carla Neggers

later. Stay focused.
    He walked down the pitch-black road, the scattered houses near the gas station giving way to impenetrable woods. He heard animals rustling in the brush. Bats swooped across the starlit sky. The air was cool now, but the wind had died down and the mosquitoes hadn’t yet found him.
    After a half mile, he came to a trailhead and indulged in a moment’s relief when he saw that his rented BMW was still there. An expensive car parked at a trailhead this far from the crime scene shouldn’t be suspicious, but even if police checked out the BMW, they would discover it was rented to a small, law-abiding Virginia consulting firm.
    Fifteen minutes later, a chubby couple in their late forties welcomed him into their bed-and-breakfast, a Victorian gingerbread house just off a tiny village green.
    Not exactly where police would expect a deranged slasher to spend the night.
    Jesse was in no mood for good cheer, but when the couple smiled at him, he smiled back. “Great day to be out in the mountains. I hope I’m not too late?”
    “Not at all.”
    Nothing in their manner indicated they’d heard about the knife attacks and the search for the man responsible.
    The husband, who sported a beard of his own, led Jesse upstairs to a cottage-style room with its own bath. “Breakfast starts at eight,” he said, “but if you want it earlier—”
    “Eight’s perfect. Thank you.”
    “Are you hiking tomorrow?”
    “I’m climbing Mount Washington.”
    The man nodded with approval. “Good for you. I used to climb it once a year, but I have a bad knee. Got to keep going while you can, I always say. Your first time up Mount Washington?”
    No. He’d climbed it at least a dozen times. But Jesse smiled and tried to look humble, even a little nervous. “It’s my first visit to the White Mountains.”
    “Mount Washington’s a challenging climb. People often underestimate it. Tomorrow’s supposed to be decent weather, although you never know. You can start out in sunny, seventy degree weather, and by the time you’re on the summit, the fog’s rolled in and you’re fighting seventy-mile-an-hour wind gusts.”
    “I hope that doesn’t happen to me.”
    When he was finally alone, his door shut and locked behind him, Jesse poured a bath, making the water as hot as he could stand. He dumped in half a bottle of a fancy bath and shower gel. It didn’t smell too girlie, and it foamed up nicely.
    While the tub filled, he trimmed his beard. He’d shave in the morning. If his hosts asked, he’d just say it was for good luck climbing big, bad Mount Washington.
    He rinsed out the sink and turned off the tub faucet, then lowered himself into the hot water. He sat in the bath until his skin was fiery-red and wrinkled and his mind was clear. He returned his focus to where it belonged, on betrayal, on men who would cut deals with him and then try to double-cross him.
    J. Harris Mayer.
    Calvin Benton.
    Jesse conjured up their faces and recognized how much he had come to hate both men, and he didn’t back off from that surge of raw emotion, the sheer violence that churned inside him.
    “Bastards,” he whispered. “Who do they think they are?”
    When he climbed out of the tub, he used two thick, white towels to dry himself off, then slathered on the entire contents of the little bottle of body lotion that came with the room. His skin was soft and pampered looking—not that of a man who’d just stabbed two women and made a mad dash over hill and dale to avoid the police.
    He wiped the steam off the mirror with a corner of his towel and gazed at his reflection, less cadaverous now. He could acknowledge what he hadn’t been able to for the past hours.
    “You failed, ace.” He leaned in close. “You didn’t complete your mission. Whatever ol’ Harris and Cal have on you, they still have.”
    That and his money.
    They still had the million dollars he was owed.
    Jesse stood back from the mirror and dropped the towels onto